The Event ~ The Loss of an Artist Friend

Audrey Towater, 86, who spent more than 30 years painting scenes of real life including school classrooms, government, businesses and sporting events, died April 13.

I got to know Audrey quite well during  the 13 years I worked at the Chamber of Commerce.  She and I shared lunch several times, and she invited me to special art events in her home. 

In 1993 she painted our family portrait around my infamous dining room table.  She also gave one of her unique paintings to Alexis for her high school graduation.   Her eye for detail and faces was incredible as she enjoyed painting crowds of faces in real life settings.  She painted with her fingers, and to this day I remain amazed at how she could create such detail with her fingers! 

Audrey was  unique and somewhat excentric, but all who knew her knew she was kind, giving and repsected in the community.   I was blessed to call her my friend. 

By the 1980s she was well known both locally and nationally. Her pieces are part of private collections at the University of Nebraska, the Nebraska State Capitol, the Capitol Archives of the United States, the Denver Broncos Coaches Building in Denver, the U.S. Olympic Headquarters in Colorado Springs, the New York Stock Exchange and Cheyenne Frontier Days Museum in Cheyenne, Wyo., to name a few.

Towater was recognized for her art and had her work featured in many newspapers, magazines and advertisements.  Her piece titled “A Nation in Shock,” which followed the assassination attempt of Ronald Reagan, is now displayed in the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California.  Towater was painting for Congresswoman Virginia Smith in Washington, D.C., in one of the hearing rooms, and went in early to begin painting the background before anyone had arrived.

She was waiting for the members to arrive.  Then  president was shot, so no member ever arrived that day. So she packed up with an incomplete painting, went back to Nebraska, ended up giving the painting to the president.”  The piece about that fateful day showed the Capitol building through a window of a room containing nothing but empty black chairs.

She was a very unique artist.  Her vibrance in her life and in her artwork probably most accurately reflects who she was.
She will be missed.