Bronze sculptor Diana Simpson said she didn’t know she was an artist until she was 30, even though her talent was recognized very early on.
“I was always drawing and painting,” she said.
Simpson won her first award for art when she was five. Her father entered a crayon drawing of a deer in the forest into an art contest at The San Francisco Chronicle. It won first place. That, she says, is when she got the bug.
Years later, her talent came into focus as a noted sculptor.
“My kids were always asking me to do this or that. I would make critters out of clay for them. My best friend’s dad was Fred Lucas, a well-known artist who told me I had talent.”
Lucas advised her to get her work into bronze and learn how to do it. He advised her to work at a foundry. That was nearly 30 years ago. Today, she works at Thumb Butte Bronze in Prescott, creating molds and her own pieces.
Simpson’s art is represented in several local galleries and before the recent recession, all over the world. “I have shipped to Australia, New Zealand, England, all over Europe. It has gone everywhere.”
She says people buy pieces that touch their heart.
“I had a man buy a rooster because it looked like his first pet that had been given to him by his grandfather.”
Simpson’s work runs from $100 to thousands of dollars. Her biggest piece, a 5’7” mama black bear, has a price tag of $18,000.
“I sculpt what strikes my fancy. Sometimes I do rabbits, sometimes I do horses, sometimes birds. Art is a very personal expression of who we are inside and what we feel inside. Most of my subjects are animals and things I have experienced in my riding or hiking,” she said. “I really admire Southwestern animals because of how hard it is making a living, like that mama rabbit or mama antelope, and how difficult it is for these critters, but they still manage to raise their babies in such a harsh environment. I try to give them a personality to make people look at it not just as an animal, but as a creature that has feeling or emotion. I feel creatures have souls, too. A good artist has to bring that out in their work.”
Her favorite piece is entitled “Traveling Companions,” her own dog and horse are the inspiration.
“I made only 25 of them, made one for myself, and broke the mold.”
The pieces sold quickly.
Simpson has been in the Quad Cities since she was nine when her parents moved to Chino Valley from the San Francisco Bay area. “We had a small farm where we raised calves and alfalfa. I loved my critters. You rode horses and camped and did a lot of outside activities.”
The youngest of three sisters, she adored the rural life.
In high school, she played volleyball, excelled in Future Farmers of America and blossomed as an artist.
“If anyone wanted to buy something for me, it could be anything with paints or anything art related,” she said.
Upon graduation, she went right to work for the U.S. Forest Service. She was also a lineman for the local cable company. And, she married and raised children.
Today, the grandmother of two says she lives a happy, busy life.
“I have four horses, three dogs and my life revolves around them and my kids.”
To view Simpson’s work, visit dianasimpsonbronze.com. QCBN
By Patty McCormac, QCBN
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