The Herald’s first artist of the month Dana Gibbens will soon be working out of her new home studio

By DOUG BATES/Editor/The Herald — You don’t have to be an art critic or even a painter to look at Dana Gibbens’ vivid paintings and recognize serious talent. What’s remarkable is that the former sales manager, well into retirement, considers herself just a beginner at the easel.

“I’m still trying to find my style,” says Gibbens, the first Oakridge-Westfir resident to be profiled as artist of the month in a new arrangement between The Herald and the Oakridge Art Council. The group selected her in a drawing of names among its 20-plus members, and the process will be repeated each month as a means of recognizing the community’s robust arts scene.

Gibbens, who is perhaps most prolific with watercolor painting but dabbles with acrylic, is definitely part of that scene. Her work can be found displayed at the Oakridge Art Council’s new gallery, at City Hall, at Lion Mountain Bakery and, of course, at her home and soon-to-be-new studio on the bank of the Middle Fork of the Willamette River in Oakridge.

She says she was not into painting nearly two decades ago when she and her late husband, Vern Gibbens, purchased seven mostly undeveloped acres on the river at the west end of Oakridge.

She was too busy working as regional sales manager for Lundberg Family Farms, the California-based food company known as a pioneer in organic farming, especially rice products. Her territory included one-third of the United States and all of Canada, so all that travel left little time for indulging in her artistic inclinations.

That came only after retirement, construction of their spectacular dream home on the river and, tragically, Vern’s death in 2014. During his illness, she says, “I didn’t have time for anything except staying in this house and caring for Vern — and painting.”

Gibbens says she owes her start as a painter to instruction from Oakridge artists Dee Sidwell and Sherri Collister McDowell.

“While Vern was sick I took painting lessons and became very interested right away in watercolor. I just immediately got hooked,” says Gibbens, who signs her work “DANA” and goes by Dana Tracy-Gibbens professionally.

Dana Tracy was born 74 years ago in Portland, graduated from Centennial High School, majored in art at Portland State University and ended up in a job she didn’t care for — not as an artist but in mortgage banking.

“I was so bored,” she says.

The boredom steered her to a much more stimulating new career in sales, which led to her demanding job with the large food company. Though it is based in Richvale, Calif., “Regional sales managers can live anywhere because you’re always traveling,” Gibbens says, so she and Vern resided in the Eugene area.

They yearned for a home on a river and explored options around Eugene-Springfield. It was Vern who discovered the riverfront property available in Oakridge, and they snapped it up in 2003.

Gibbens says she found her new life in Oakridge to be “amazing.”

“I instantly had 25 new girlfriends,” she says. “One of the many neat things about the community is the golf course. It’s so beautiful and it’s affordable for everyone.”

And then there’s her painting, which along with gardening is a big part of the newest chapter in her life. She and her partner, Norm Orio, are building a spacious studio that she designed.

“He moved from Bend to Oakridge in September 2018 and retired from a long career as a software designer,” Gibbens says.  “His new hobby is woodworking and he now is building the cabinets for our new addition,” which will do double duty as a guest house.

As an artist, Gibbens would like to get better as a plein air painter, working in outdoor light and air. Because she began learning while housebound, she says, she remains more comfortable painting indoors, sometimes using photographs or inanimate objects.

Has she found her style yet?

“No,” she says with a laugh. “But I’m having fun.”

Herald Editor Doug Bates is a retired newspaper journalist who lives in Oakridge.