It appears to be spring or early summer in Afton Siddoway’s oil landscape of an old ranch under the Teton mountains. A meadow nestles into the trees, which are dotted in light and shadow— the vibrant fresh green of aspens mingling with the dark, almost black, depth of the pines. Intersecting the trees is a shadow of the mountains, and then the massive, jagged Tetons rising up and flanking the scene. Siddoway has treated the clouds with great sensitivity, they’re rendered with such realism and subtlety the viewer almost forgets to notice them behind the severity of the mountains. Between the meadow and edge of the trees loll two old barns, their shadowed sides matching the dark of the pines. Along the edge of the meadow, a buck-and-rail fence zips between trees and around the barns, which, more than anything else, lends the scene an unmistakable flavor of the west.
Born in Blanding, Utah in 1916, Afton Siddoway graduated from San Juan High School in Blanding, and then worked for the Internal Revenue Service as a cashier and head of returns and receipts. Oil painting was her passion-- her favorite subjects were nature and animals. She passed away in 2001.
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