Ellen Brenneman is a multimedia artist, specializing in subjects that enhance appreciation of the natural world. Her use of saturated color and texture charms and inspires those with a desire to feel more connected to the animals and planet they love.

by Cynthia Connell Davis

From painting pictures that inspire her viewers and selling her work, she has what artists in any field call “made it.” In her animal series, the vitality of the animal impacts us. Their beautiful, powerful spirits come through the sometimes bold, sometimes muted colors. It’s as if their auras become visible, and we are conscious of the life-affirming powers surrounding and supporting us.

This happened to me when I saw her painting of the crane dancing. I could not get it out of my mind. It was March 2021, and the world was emerging from COVID. It seemed like we were all in a dangerous place. A sense of 'normal expectations" had been lost. April would be poetry month, and PAN-O-PLY Story & Art was publishing an issue of ekphrastic poems (poets responding to works of art). I was paired with Brenneman. How could I give hope?

Says Brenneman's painting, “if you stop worrying long enough to notice, there is a crane dancing in that dangerous place!” (See panoplymichiana.com Poetry Month 2021.)

Project Poetry 2021

“I’m a helper.”

Early on, planning to become an art therapist, she studied art in college. But she took a year off “to gain experience in the world.” Helping several families with children who had special needs, she found that year expanding to ten years. After that, she helped an older woman with macular degeneration: “I became her eyes,” she says. At the time the woman passed, Brenneman had to have surgery. The surgery developed complications; she was unable to work for 16 weeks. “I was emotionally broken,” she says.

During those years of caregiving, she did not make any art. But when she could not work, “My husband brought my art supplies up from the basement. I picked up my paintbrush and was off to the races!”

She had reconnected with something. She was in alignment with herself. It was scary not to have a job, but she and her husband reassessed the practical circumstances of their lives every six months for several years. “It was slow but steady progress.”

For five years, she painted her animal series. She painted Oracle cards and wrote the instructional booklet of meanings of the images to go with the cards. She was “on a mission.” By 2018 she “laid it to rest.” Why? Because an artist never stops revising, and eventually, you have to say, "That's enough."

“I have to come at art from a place of gratitude.”

Brenneman has a sizeable online following. For her, art is all about keeping things positive. “I’m a kind of emotional cheerleader. My audience tells me that my art makes them feel better. Art, for me, is a safe haven. I am free to express myself. My audience feels that energy. They mirror it back to me daily. Something clicks with them, and it helps them cope.”

It certainly clicked with me. It was a reminder to stop thinking and marvel at the beauty and vitality everywhere in nature and to let its truth, its supreme surprise, restore one to oneself.

Now that her animal series is complete, a new direction has yet to reveal itself. “I don’t have a plan. I go into the studio and start grabbing colors. I crave the discipline of working on a series. I need a theme to help me focus.”

One of her projects is to become better known in this community. She has sold her work online exclusively for eleven years and has a large following of collectors, artists, and admirers. Yet, some women came to her table last summer at Art Beat. Artists from Goshen had heard she was going to be there, and they were determined to meet her --“while you are in the area,” they said. The surprise was mutual: they learned that she lives right here, in South Bend, and she realized that while she is well-known online, she is virtually unknown locally.