Arin Waddell – 2020 Brinton 101

Arin Waddell was born in Detroit, Michigan. She was raised on a Black Angus cattle ranch west of Billings, Montana.
She holds three degrees in visual art: a BA from Hamilton College in Clinton, New York; an MA from California State University, Chico; and an MFA from the University of Texas, San Antonio. Since 1990, Arin Waddell has been featured in over 150 solo and group art exhibitions throughout the western United States and has taught drawing, painting, sculpture, design, and installation art at several colleges and universities.

Arin Waddell resides in Sheridan, Wyoming with her husband and three children. Besides making art and teaching, Waddell has a deep passion for philanthropy and fighting hunger and illiteracy in our most vulnerable children in Sheridan County.

“My artwork uses whimsy, allegory, and everyday objects/birds/subjects to spark conversations and inspire personal inquiry. In the West, it is difficult not to obsess over and make art about our compelling, stunning landscape. However, I have come to painting through a life-long love of learning, and a formal graduate school back door of concepts and metaphors gathered together like little stones from the path of my own history. In these visual stories—-inspired from flora, fauna, friends, and family—- the personal stretches/reaches out to become universal.” Arin Waddell