<< Back 6/26/02 Artist donates painting and prints to Arts Center SMN Jack Stern, of Tuckasegee, has donated an original acrylic painting, “Farm WNC,” and three limited edition lithographic prints to the permanent collection of Swain County Center for the Arts. He exhibited 47 oil, acrylic and watercolor paintings of the Smoky Mountains and the Rocky Mountains at the Center for the Arts during February and March. The donated prints include: “West Needles From Purgatory,” “South Mineral Creek” and “The Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad at the Hermosa Water Tank.” Most of Stern’s paintings are realistic/impressionistic. For 35 years, Stern has combined his love of art with his love of nature and the outdoors to earn his living with his brush. Having sold his first painting at age 16, he decided to spend his life doing what he loved to do. He once owned a donkey and would hike and paint on location for weeks at a time. These excursions taught him much about plants and how to paint quickly before the light or the weather changed. He took time to enjoy and appreciate the beauty he captures on canvas and paper. In Colorado, Stern is known as a “mountain man” because anyone who wants to know about the plants, mountains and history of the area asks him. Stern moved to the Tuckasegee area of Jackson County three years ago with his wife, Peggy, and their two sons, William and Paul. He is a native of Colorado and continues to divide his time between Silverton, Colo., and Tuckasegee. Stern’s paintings will be hung in the Green Room when not on exhibit in the lobby. For more information, call Jenny Johnson at 828.488.7843.