Each month, Vista Grande Public Library displays art exhibits, with 20% of any sales going to benefit the library. We thank all our community artists for exhibiting with us! In Sept-Oct, we feature Chris Cashiola's oil paintings of the beautiful Southwest.

Cashiola found his inspiration in the European Impressionist and the Post Impressionist movements, taking to heart the words of Claude Monet who said “When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have in front of you, a tree, a field . . . . . Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives your own impression of the scene.” Chris tries to always leave something for the imagination of the viewer when painting his landscapes, which he often does plein air, finishing the canvas in the studio. Oil painting, he says, has given him the way to fuse his art to his passion for the natural world and landscapes of New Mexico.

"The beauty of painting is that you always develop and learn new things," Cashiola says.