Michigan native returns to share love of animals
Weatherly Stroh paints the animals she’s met.
Specializing in landscapes and animal portraiture, the full-time painter grew up on a farm and says she’s always been comfortable around nonhuman creatures.
“I feel like there’s such an innocence about them that I try to capture,” says Stroh, who grew up in Metamora, but now lives in Wellington, Fla. “I think we undervalue animals. They have a lot of personality and character that people don’t appreciate, so I hope to capture that when I’m painting.”
Stroh’s works will be featured in a solo exhibit, Animal Dreams, at Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center.
She shares 12 paintings of cows and horses, some from her family’s farm and cows she has spotted on travels. When she’s on the go, she always takes her camera so she can capture animals she sees on the road to paint when she returns.
“(They are) all animals I’ve met along the way,” Stroh says. “Something about their look captured my eye and I try to express that in paint.”
A lifelong painter, Stroh did her first oil painting in seventh grade and took art classes at Cranbrook in high school.
When she studied at the University of Colorado, she ended up changing her direction and pursuing photography and ceramics instead. But after going through significant personal life events from 2010 to 2011, she was inspired to get back into painting and give it her all.
“I’ve been painting fulltime ever since, and it’s evolved since then,” Stroh says.
Creativity runs in Stroh’s family. Her mother is a graphite artist, and her father’s side had artists as well — her great-great-uncle was a painter and his father a sculptor. So her family supports her creative career.
When Stroh made the switch to painting fulltime in 2011, she returned to Michigan for six years and took classes at BBAC.
So she was excited when Annie VanGelderan, president and CEO at the center, reached out to her a few months back about doing a solo show. This is her first exhibit there, and she is thrilled to come back to her home state to share her works.
“I’m excited to be part of it,” Stroh says.
• Also this month: Through April 16, the BBAC also presents Ed Fraga: Rising; Glimpse: Fine Art Print Selections from Stewart & Stewart; and an exhibit of Students of Meighen Jackson, paint and paper artist. Visit BBArtCenter.org for more information.