Catherine Capellaro - April 2025

Catherine Capellaro is a writer, painter, and musician living in Madison, Wisconsin. She is the former arts and culture editor at Isthmus and co-creator of Walmartopia, Temps!, In the Beginning and numerous other theater pieces. She lives in Blooming Grove in an art-filled nest with Andrew Rohn, Lola, Beasley, and Fanta. She is proud mother to two talented potters, and finds bliss while singing and playing trumpet in VO5 and Loving Cup (Rolling Stones tribute). She regularly travels to Jamaica.

Artist Statement When COVID-19 came to the United States in March 2020, two of my primary channels of expression — writing for a weekly newspaper and performing with VO5 — slammed shut. Like everyone, I didn’t know what was coming, or how long it would last. Without the gaze of the public, I looked inward, trying to find some sort of internal motivation to create. I started playing around with images — in my mind, in photographs, and with watercolor pencils. The day after Joe Biden was elected president, I began an impressionist painting class at MSCR with Heidi Levy. Here was the moment, the flow, I was looking for. I felt riveted, time disappeared. Three hours went by in an instant, and I asked to bring some acrylic paints home with me — a fortuitous choice because the class was then canceled for safety reasons.

I began to look at the world differently, meditating on my immediate surroundings. I live on the edge of an urban wilderness, acres of wetland, train tracks, and small ponds populated by a group of unhoused people, wild turkeys, coyotes, owls, and deer. On regular walks with my sister, I discovered infinite beauty in these humble Midwestern landscapes. One spot I returned to again and again was a bend in the tiny Starkweather Creek. I took hundreds of photos (and borrowed more from my neighbor) and began a study of this landscape. I painted with acrylics, and then moved to oils, and just kept at it. I have made hundreds of paintings since then, many close to home, and some much farther afield. I am still seeking and striving to capture the light, the feeling that I have when I’m in nature. Sharing these paintings has brought me joy and helped me stay connected to the wonder that I feel when I am in nature.

In 2022, I began traveling again, and have found inspiration further from home in Arizona, France, Italy, Portugal, Mexico, and Jamaica. What a beautiful world we live in! Thank you for looking. And if you are wondering if you can make art, the answer is YES.