Alison Teresa Carlo

I started drawing as a horse-crazy young girl in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  I drew horses and outdoor scenes, as I have always been a nature lover and prefer spending time outside.  While earning my B.A. in chemistry at Kalamazoo College, I had the opportunity to spend six months in Strasbourg, France.  One of my classes at the University of Strasbourg introduced me to art history.  When the semester was over, I back-packed across Europe for a month.  I visited as many museums as possible, and saw many of the works that I had studied in class.  I remember wishing that I could create works as beautiful as those I saw.  After college, I moved to San Diego, California.  Some years later, I married a man who happened to be an art collector.  My husband collects Western Art, so for years I have been living among beautiful paintings.  After the birth of our son, I began to draw again.  Some time later I tried my hand at painting and never looked back.

​

I like to paint what I know, my personal view of everyday life in Coastal Southern California.  This means that I paint outdoor scenes; landscapes that often include horses or old barns.  We vacation in Northwest Montana, and I often paint that region as well. I love photography and history, and have always been fascinated with vintage photographs.  As a chemist, I appreciate the process of glass plate photography.  I respect the photographers of the 1800's and early 1900's who were able to handle flammable and toxic chemicals, often in the field, in order to capture the world they lived in.  I feel a connection to a different time when I paint, in color, those old black and white photographs.

​

I hope you enjoy my paintings.  I hope they give you the same feeling of peace as the viewer that I feel as the painter.