Kristin Bernhardt Conrad has been a Peak to Peak resident for over 20 years. A current resident of Nederland, she lives near Chipeta Park. Her passion for drawing has existed since she was a child.

As a kid, she would draw the landscapes around her and scenes from her imagination. At one point, she found a series of bird drawings that her dad had created as a kid and saw them as a challenge to learn how to draw them herself and maybe even outdo her own father.

Drawing eventually led to an interest in painting, specifically painting oil on canvas. Once she started working fulltime as a web designer and developer and raising a family, she had less time to work on the art that she loved so much. Five years ago, however, she picked up the brush and canvas again and hasn’t put them down since.

Her work is often inspired by common threads in world mythologies. She “finds magic, symbols, and lessons in the landscape right outside her door,” and she uses particular landscapes “as stage sets for a story that expresses emotions, or the universal feelings and questions we have as we go through life and seek meaning.”

Friends and family would buy her paintings and encourage her to show them to others who could be inspired by her artwork. She decided to showcase her artwork to the owner of the new Kaleidoscope Fine Art Gallery in Nederland, and her work was accepted into the gallery.

She is excited by the gallery and many other new art businesses that have opened in the town of Nederland and plans to continue pursuing the passion that has been a part of her life for as long as she can remember.

For more information on Kristin Bernhardt Conrad and her artwork, visit http://bernhardt-arts.com/. Check out her artwork at the Kaleidoscope Fine Art Gallery, 20 Lakeview Drive in Nederland.