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Jeanie Edwards Fine Art Gallery
Written By: Deena Bouknight | Issue: 2021/10 – October
Jeanie Edwards’ new gallery at 223 South 4th Street in Highlands is sunshine-suffused and serves as the perfect embodiment of her lavish notions and flights of fancy.
Jeanie Edwards
Jeanie Edwards knows Highlands. She’s a fourth-generation Highlander related to the founders of the Old Edwards Inn.
She also knows art. She became a painter through sheer tenacity of spirit, but the skill has established for her a rewarding path that has included life as a muralist, art teacher, acrylic painter of pets, wildlife, and abstract portrait and landscapes, and eventually gallery owner.
It’s the latter endeavor that has made recent news in her native town.
Her two-year-old Jeanie Edwards Fine Art Gallery moved in April 2021 from 221 North 4th Street to 223 South 4th Street.
Edwards was looking for a better gallery space to fit a pandemic-adjusted business plan and was told there were no rentable spaces available in downtown Highlands. Yet, her son saw a “For Rent” sign being placed in a window and within the day Edwards had secured her new gallery space.
“The gallery is focused on local artists and a variety of fine arts. I represent myself and 15 others, such as Pauline Marr and Kim Woodman, who are both area painters; local potters, such as Heather Mae Erickson; photographers Gil and Jacquelyn Leebrick; jewelers Benson and Chrissy Picklesimer; silversmith Robert Doe; and more. I also carry a collection of fair trade items from jewelry to candles. These benefit other countries such as India and Bolivia. I also have handmade items from Haiti, where I have taught art.”
Edwards lives with her husband, Bryan, and two of their four children in her grandparent’s house in walking distance of downtown. “My family’s been in Highlands since the late 1800s,” she said. “In fact, the community came together in 1946 and built the house for my grandparents [Dan and Hazel Edwards] when their previous house burned down. So to live here and work here is wonderful.”
The gallery’s list of artists is featured on jedwardsfineart.com as well as Facebook and Instagram. Hours are Wednesday through Saturday 11:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.; closed during January and February.
Wine and a featured artist demonstration happens every Saturday at 11:00 A.M.
