Cat McIntyre Reflects on Her Art

Local working artist Cathryn (formerly Reitler) McIntyre's work is easy to describe but, maybe, difficult to understand, while still being aesthetically enjoyable. McIntyre's work has been prominently featured in fairs, showings, galleries and homes across the region and beyond. Much of her style stems from her blend of materials and medians with artistic representation.

McIntyre enjoys using discarded materials, old maps, metal works, clothing and even old doilies as a base or accent to her work. She has gone so far as to even include clothing of the subjects of the paintings themselves.

This was especially true for a piece McIntyre has been tackling for the last year. The artwork is a landscape featuring high hills covered in pines dropping rapidly off Badlands bluffs, with a river flowing out onto the sweeping prairie in the distance. Almost every large game animal in North America adorns the scenery and a single lone fisherman sits about midway downstream. That fisherman represents the man the piece was dedicated to.

"This one is for a client," explained McIntyre, "It's the largest order I've had to date. It was ordered a year ago and it's in honor of her husband." The artist explained that the husband had passed away tragically while hunting and that the couple had been enthusiasts for chasing big game both in the United States and Canada as well as on safari. "If you look closely, the piece includes personal things of theirs," she said pointing to old hunting maps the couple had used, hunting tags from different states and even pieces of his hunting shirt tacked to the overall canvas and sealed to the piece with paint.

"It doesn't need to be blatantly obvious that it's there, it's just that it is there." said McIntyre describing the personal connection the piece has to the subject it memorializes. She would later state, "I like using items that have had a previous existence in the world, because I think they bring that existence into the piece."

McIntyre would describe her past experiences with painting. She showed off her first painting from 2002 when she was starting off at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. The painting hangs off to the side of the gallery. She says it is there to remind her how far she has come. The work itself is striking, if not still unremarkable, and features a large blue eyeball with a lid and long, feminine eyelashes. "I think every artist goes through a creepy eyeball phase," joked McIntyre explaining the artwork.

She said it is sometimes nice to reflect on the depth of her work, and the fact that she enjoys experimenting is not lost in her gallery. She explained that, to date, she really had not met a challenge she could not tackle.

"Because I paint elk and buffalo, people think that's all I can paint," explained McIntyre, "but in reality, and I'm not just being egotistical, I really have succeeded at painting everything I have tried to paint."

She described how taking on artwork like the tribute to the hunter has helped her expand her abilities and how, in some way, taking on commission projects has helped her grow as an artist. She said, "I started selling art in 2006 and I would sell maybe one to three or maybe even five paintings every so often, and sometimes more, until 2016 when I went full-time." McIntyre described how she wanted to paint full-time as a career and focus on her passion; but that having the support of her husband and in-laws helped her take the leap.

"Going full-time has been an interesting experience in the sense that it put me through financial stress, but that stress itself has validated my decision." McIntyre describes how the stress taught her how deeply her conviction for her art went, and she also says it helped her be grateful for every piece that was ordered or sold. She stated, "That stress and uncertainty makes everything that comes after it feel like a blessing."

That stress also opened up her eyes to the value of taking on commissions from patrons. "It's funny because before that point I used to resent commissions, my own ego would get in the way, 'you should want to buy only what I choose to paint.' But I've learned to hear the voices of the people who ask me to tell their stories, and I've discovered that the beauty in the whole process is people have asked me to go out of my comfort zone, but not in a way that is inauthentic to my art."

McIntyre stressed that her commissioned piece had done just those things. Aside from being the largest painting she had ever done, she said it was also the first time she did a complete landscape painting and the first time she has painted a moose. Those challenges not only help her pay the bills, but help her expand her artwork and style to a larger audience.

She stated, "As an artist you want to create something that has meaning; if that appeals to a larger audience than it is that much more gratifying because you know it is loved."

McIntyre will be hosting an open house on Sunday, Nov. 18 in her studio at 1315 3rd Ave South in Glasgow from 11am through 7 p.m. She said the show will serve two purposes this year. The first is that she now has a large enough space to display artwork and it will also take the place of other local public shows she formerly participated in.

"I thought why not bring people here and show them the space where art is made," explained McIntyre who will be displaying every piece offered for sale before sending some work off to galleries in Bozeman, Cody, Wyo. and other markets. She did clarify that the local community would receive a better deal on her work at the showing before she ships them off. Additionally, every attendee will have their name entered in a raffle for an original painting created this past summer while the artist was in residence at Medora, N.D.

She stated, "The price point locally and the price point in markets like Bozeman are way different, but I would not be at this point of success in my career if it were not for locals, and so it's important to give locals first dibs on pieces at a local price."