Page 86 - Southern Oregon Magazine Summer 2022

feature | art tour

DESMOND SERRATORE
Desmond Serratore’s journey to being the artist he is today led
to some interesting stops along the way. He liked to draw and DESMOND SERRATORE
paint as a little boy, and in early adulthood, he was an animator
for Hanna-Barbera Studios, and worked in Hollywood for various
places. He went into commercial art as a billboard painter in Las Vegas,
which he enjoyed. That’s where he learned and honed his art skills.
Upon retirement, Desmond moved to Southern Oregon. He soon met
other artists and began doing plein air painting, inspiring a rebirth of
his creativity.

Today, he is part of Art Presence in Jacksonville, and has shown his work
at Calathea Home & Gift. The Artists’ Workshop of Southern Oregon
languished during COVID, but he helped revive the group, setting up
times and destinations for plein air adventures they call paint outs. He
also meets weekly with Urban Sketchers of Ashland. “I try to express
the sense of place where I am, looking around for a design or pattern of
shapes that would make an interesting picture. Setting is the picture, but
I organize it into patterns.” He works in watercolors and oils.

Desmond published Rogue Valley with a View, a compilation book of his
landscapes in Southern Oregon. It can be found on Amazon.

NICOLE WASGATT

Nicole Wasgatt came to art in her mid-20s. Directly out of business
school she was a commodity broker, which included teaching com- NICOLE WASGATT
modity trading seminars across the country. But she wanted more and
took an evening art class. “It just lit me up,” she says. After relocating to
Southern Oregon, she took more classes, focusing on representational
art, but wasn’t totally satisfied. When she ventured into abstract paint-
ing, she knew she had found her niche.

For the last twenty years she and her husband have traveled extensively,
sometimes with their kids, sometimes with extended family (She’s been
traveling since she was 16, logging six continents and over 40 coun-
tries.) At times they bike, and she frequently hops off to explore her
surroundings in closer detail. While on their adventures, she gathers
treasures and takes photos. Once back home, Nicole creates travelogues
via abstract painting, narrating with her paintbrush. The pieces include
objects she has picked up along the way – a stamp, a map, a scrap of
paper; a receipt in another language with a red stamp becomes embed-
ded in the painting.

Nicole describes abstract painting as the artist interpreting something
while focusing on form and color, but not in a photorealistic way. For
her, art is therapy, allowing her to journal her experiences, her emo-
tions, what’s happening in her life at that moment.

“Art is essential,” Nicole says, “something necessary for a balanced life.”
She feels art helps us grow.

84 www.southernoregonmagazine.com | summer 2022