Celia Owens was born in Paducah, Kentucky, and grew up in the other Atomic City, Oak Ridge, Tennessee. These roots may be the origin of a nickname, “Hayseed Neutrino”. She began to paint seriously in Provincetown, MA in the mid 1970’s, with Phil Malicoat, who was a student of American Impressionist, Charles Hawthorne, who was a student of an American painter in Paris, William Merritt Chase. In New York City, where she lived for most of 30 years, she studied at the New York Studio School for Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. These two legacies were also formative of her approach to teaching painting and drawing.

Later she took her BA at Hunter College, CUNY, in STORY: Narrative in Literature, Theatre and Visual Arts. She earned her MA in Peace and Conflict Studies in Istanbul, Turkey, at Hacetteppe University, where her thesis was about how ART can offer transformative experiences in negative peace, and conflict environments. She has been a life-long student of everything, especially Whole systems, such as Permaculture, and Communications, such as NLP and Conversational Intelligence.

Over a decade of full-immersion living in Rome re-tooled everything

Celia’s relationship with New Mexico began in the 1980s. She moved to Santa Fe in 1990, and became a hospice volunteer. She has also lived in Ojo Caliente, Tesuque, Abiquiu, and Galisteo. She is a Santa Fe Connects Navigator and Volunteer Coordinator at Coming Home Connection, and a caregiver at Casa Cielo End of Life Residence.

Celia has exhibited her work in Santa Fe, New York City, Louisville, KY, Venice, Rome, and in the Valle di Comino at Alvito, Sora, San Donato, and Atina, in Italy. She has painted murals for The Body Shop International Corporate Headquarters in Littlehampton, England, Daruma Assets Management in NYC, and in schools and homes. She is available to collaborate in socially engaged art, and has designed interactive art experiences called Black Box Series.

The Artist Residency at El Zaguan on Canyon Road has been a blessed opportunity to complete the PUZZLE series, and to reconnect with other themes that have been brewing (to come). On Canyon Road, the building and grounds, the staff, the residents, and the community are among the most felicitous in what has already been and continues to be an unexpectedly gratifying and surprising life.