“You’re never too old to try. It’s in trying that our paths become clearer.”
During the pandemic of 2020, it was a stretch to find silver linings, but that is when Leana D. McGuire found art.
“I believe art found me.”
Despite her admiration for Dr. Betty Edwards of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (DRSB) fame, reading the book and putting pencil to paper had always proven challenging. Art, for as long as she could remember, had been intimidating. Then came the phone call. Furloughed from her day job for two months, Leana discovered that Betty’s artist son, Brian Bomeisler, was offering the DRSB course online.
Pencil hit paper in 2020, but Leana yearned for color and tried her hand at painting in 2022. A brief romance with acrylics ensued, followed by a commitment to oils, with their buttery consistency and fluid application. Since then, Leana has been painting every chance she gets.
A fan of Van Gogh since adolescence, she’s drawn (pun intended) to the richness of colors – blending, exaggerating, simply swimming in their potential.
Primarily self-taught, she possesses an eye for beauty in everyday objects, using vibrant color and texture to bring them to life. Her vision of showcasing her work in a gallery/studio manifested in early 2025 when she joined the Trackside Studios family. Her work will also be available at the Marquee in the fall of this year, following their rebuild post Hurricane Helene.
An RN for many years (she won’t share how many), Leana currently works remotely and part-time, teaching leadership development. She lives in breathtaking Asheville, NC with her husband, John, and their 3 cats, Lucky, Jo-Jo and Baby Boy.
Leana has also written an Amazon Bestselling Novel, Control Switch, under the pen name Leana Delle. You can find more information on her author website at www.LeanaDelle.com
