ASHTABULA —  It has been decades since Karen Schneider had an Ashtabula Harbor address, but her watercolors of Lake Erie suggest an intimacy with her subject that comes only through residency.

The works in her exhibit at the Ashtabula Arts Center range from a ubiquitous livid sky hovering over a bed of graybeards torturing the sandy beach to bright, saturated portraits of rusty freighters, rail cars and bulwarks. The style in Schneider’s words, is “loose and free,” although often committed to paper while she was hundreds of miles from the scene and weeks after the moment.

“I no longer live beside the lake, but every trip back, I always reserve a few quiet hours to go walk the beach alone,” writes Schneider in her notes on the watercolors exhibit, “Great Lake,” which opened at the center today.

The artist’s reception won’t be until June 27, however. That’s the date her parents, Terry and Dori Warren, will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary, and Schneider plans to do a “two-fer” with the reception — it will honor her parents as well as re-introduce her to the community.

Schneider, a resident of Stafford, Mo., spent her childhood and early adolescent years in Ashtabula. Her parents’ home was near the lake, and Schneider’s favorite childhood “wild place” was the beach.

Her favorite artistic place was the arts center, where she learned to dance with Janyce Hyatt, throw pottery with Corinne Lloyd, played piano with Muriel Whistler and learned to draw from Ray Koski. 

“My biggest involvement was in dance; I danced all the way through,” she said.

After completing one year at Harbor High School, Schneider headed to Massachusetts for three years of study at Northfield Mount Hermon. She graduated from The College of Wooster in 1973, married and devoted the next 29 years to raising three sons with her physician husband. Although she did some writing, Schneider ignored the latent visual artist.

A diagnosis of a rare cancer in 2003 and the loss of a cousin to cancer three years later sent Schneider in search of another medium of expression.

“I picked up my paint brushes to help palliate my sadness, and I have continued painting these past six years,” she said.

Schneider said her husband and sons were surprised by her sudden interest in painting. 

“He said, ‘You paint?’” she said. “I didn’t know I painted, either. I just started to pick it up at that point and enjoyed it tremendously.”

She studied watercolor with Judi Whitton and oil painting with Guido Frick. Her memberships include the Missouri Watercolor Society and Springfield Regional Arts Council. Schneider did eight previous shows in Missouri; this is her first Ashtabula show, although her work has been available at Carlisle’s Home In the Harbor since 2009.

Her interest in painting Lake Erie has paralleled her development as a visual artist. 

“When I first started painting, I was visiting Mom and Dad, and I always go to the lake every time I come home,” Schneider said. She took pictures of the lake’s various moods and painted from them when she got home. Many of those works are impressionistic renderings of a dull lake and sky invigorated by Schneider’s use of composition, light and color. She said the challenge is to take something that’s rather ordinary and make it extra-ordinary by drawing out the emotion of the moment.

“The thing that first struck me about painting Lake Erie is the color of the lake is different from that (of other maritime subjects), and the clouds are so volatile,” she said. “It’s a very emotional attachment.”

 More recent works, such as “Detail of Ore Boat” and “At The Bulwarks” have saturated, punchy colors that speak of Ashtabula County’s sunny moments.

“There are so many different aspects to life here in northeast Ohio, and the seasons are different, just as the color palette is different. I’m just looking for that range in my work,” she said. “I want to show the range of what is available.”

Schneider prefers to paint en plein air, although quickly changing scenes with sailboats make that impossible, so she works from photographs. Looking at her works, it is obvious she also draws upon childhood memories of walking the beach and observing the lake and sky.

She sees her exhibit as a way of giving back to her childhood community and honoring her family. Her great grandfather was a hotel owner in the city and her grandfather founded the law firm of Warren and Young. 

As further proof of her appreciation for her roots, Schneider plans to donate the signature piece of the Great Lake show, “The Lift Bridge,” to the arts center in honor of her parents’ anniversary and their contributions to the community.

In addition to her visual arts work, Schneider is a writer whose poems appear in “The First Anthology of Missouri Women Writers” and many small press journals. She wrote and illustrated a children’s book, “Hay Day,” and said that is a collaboration of creative gifts she wants to further explore.

“I don’t feel like I’m done, I’m still pushing,” she said.