Painting, photography are White Bear Lake artist's passions

From the Iowa farmyard where she sketched her first drawing as a child to the heights of Alaska's Mount Healy and miles of scenic nature trails in between, Marilyn Stevens has blended her love for painting, drawing and photography with her penchant for outdoor adventure.

Her portfolio features close-up photos of mushers competing in the grueling Iditarod dog sled race in Alaska and striking watercolors of the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon along Lake Superior's North Shore.

She has painted the Split Rock Light House near Two Harbors, Minn., along with lighthouses overlooking harbors in Nova Scotia and the sea in British Columbia. Her work spans the spectrum from the complex to the simple -- people, idyllic winter and summer scenes, floral arrangements and whatever else has caught her eye.

"I guess it was kind of innate," said Stevens, who has a sampling of her work on view through Feb. 28 at the Discovery Center Art Gallery in Oakdale. "I'd say, 'I know that is a picture.'"

While her work is not widely known, it has appeared on the covers of Seventeen, Brio and Mushing magazines.

For 15 years, she ran along trails, lay in snowbanks and tromped through the Alaskan bush to capture the sights of the Iditarod, as mushers and dogs braved the elements and difficult terrain while making their way 1,150 miles from Anchorage to Nome.

"I love dogs and wanted to get on their level and show the happy smiles on their faces," said Stevens, describing one of the photographs in her Oakdale show. "To capture that was hard. I used a real fast shutter speed."

Stevens, formerly of Oakdale and now of White Bear Lake, said she picked up a pencil as a child and drew on anything she could find.

Her artistic interests later expanded into painting and photography. She sold garden seeds to earn enough Green Stamps to buy her first point-and-shoot camera and art supplies.

The 3M retiree and mother of four adult children has photographed and painted her way through the Upper Midwest, the Rocky Mountains, Canada and Italy. She also climbed Mount Healy in Alaska's Denali National Park.

But her works also have a personal story, too. One of the works on display is "Deer in the Woods," an oil she created in the 1980s for her ex-husband, Bob.

"He was an outdoorsman," Stevens said. When he died, I painted quite a bit then. It just helped renew myself."

Thankful for her "God-given ability," Stevens shares her passion for painting with the Painting Pals, a group of senior artists that meets weekly at Gladstone School in Maplewood. And she's excited for the opportunity to exhibit at the Oakdale Discovery Center so people "could see what I'm all about."