Editor's note: This is the first of two stories about local artists who have had their artwork purchased this year by the prestigious Art for State Buildings program.

Artist Karen Kinder left the family farm near Andover years ago. But the farm never left her.

For the second time Kinder, a former elementary school art teacher in Brookings, recently had her artwork selected by the Art for State Buildings program. Her oil on canvas picture—"Picnic No. 2”—depicts two of the subjects she’s most fond of painting: sheep and round hay bales.

“Sheep are my favorite subject,” Kinder said. “And I love to paint round bales. It was a combination of two things that I really, really like. That made it fun.”

Kinder’s entry into the competition was a last-minute decision. She had entered the painting in a prior exhibit and it didn’t get in.

“I just was really pleased that they accepted it because I feel that it is very representative of me because it’s my favorite subjects.”

Known for her paintings of rural landscapes and farm animals, the first time Kinder’s artwork was selected by the Art in State Buildings program, its subjects were people and a schoolhouse with which she was quite familiar.

“Sunbeam School, District 216” is a painting of the country school Kinder attended for two years before it closed. Originally Kinder just painted the school building.

“I felt like the painting was empty,” Kinder said. Her mother was a teacher at the school and she asked her if she had any photos.

Now the painting shows a teacher and her class standing in front of the school house. The grouping is taken from a photo Kinder’s mother had of the group standing by the school’s swing set.

“I just moved them over,” Kinder said. “I just felt like it gave the painting life.”

The painting is full of her family’s history as her mother taught there and met Kinder’s father when she stayed with his family who had a house near the school.

When the state purchased the painting, Kinder asked if it could be hung someplace related to education. It found a home in the State Archives in the South Dakota Cultural Heritage Center in Pierre where someone works close by who can relate the entire family history.

Kinder’s daughter, Kim Smith, works in the archive and, if visitors take an interest in the painting, she’s there to tell them the family history tied to the country schoolhouse.

Neither the country schoolhouse, nor the school in Bristol she attended offered art courses. That didn’t stop Kinder from majoring in art at Northern State University.

“I was pretty scared to study art, not having had any, but found out a lot of others were in the same boat I was, coming from small schools,” Kinder said. “It wasn’t uncommon at all.”

With her degree in art education, Kinder started her teaching career in Sioux Falls. After 10 years in Sioux Falls, where she met her husband, Keith, the family moved to Wisconsin and then to Madison in South Dakota. That’s where Kinder’s art career started in earnest.

Kinder was taking one class at a time at Dakota State University because the family had two small children. While at DSU, she took an oil painting class from Connie Herring. Kinder had worked with acrylic paint in college, finding it dried too fast to suit her.

“We were doing the first painting and she said, ‘You’re just like a fish in water,’” Kinder recalled. “From then on I determined I was going to keep painting. I had my first solo art exhibition in Madison.”

When the family moved to Brookings, she landed a part-time job as an art teacher at the middle school. She also worked with students at Central Elementary. When Central closed she got to be in on the planning stages of the art room at Camelot School. She still gets excited talking about the kiln room with a locking door, the ample storage and the two sinks.

“These are the things that matter to an art teacher,” Kinder said.

She retired when her body told her it was time to give up the rigors of teaching. That allowed her to concentrate more on her artwork throughout the year. As a teacher, her painting was largely limited to summers.

For about 30 summers she has been a regular at the Brookings Arts Festival. Her work is also available for sale at Rehfeld’s Art and Framing in Sioux Falls. She makes cards with images of her paintings that are for sale at the South Dakota Art Museum gift shop in Brookings. She also has one small painting for sale there.

She hopes someday to have a painting displayed at the museum. Until that happens, she’ll keep working in the studio in the basement of her home.

Her process has changed over the years. “There’s a school of thought that you don’t want to work from photographs because you don’t want to be influenced by the photo,” Kinder explained.

Working with that philosophy, Kinder would get in her car with a sketch pad and a bottle of ink to make sketches of what might one day become a painting.

Kinder has changed her tune about using photos as an inspiration for a painting.

“It doesn’t bother me at all to work from photos now,” Kinder said. “You can’t remember detail if you don’t have something to look at.”

Now Kinder starts with a small sketch. When she has it the way she wants it, she’ll sketch it full size. At this point, spacing it out correctly is more important than sketching in detail. When she begins to paint, the rural scenes she favors dictate that she starts with the sky.

“The sky influences the rest of the painting so much,” Kinder said.