March 2024 Art Reception – Guest Artist Robinette Apelgren

Each month the Hirdie Girdie Gallery features a guest artist. In March 2024, the Hirdie Girdie Gallery is excited to welcome as our Guest Artist, Robinette Apelgren.

You are invited to meet Robinette at our reception being held Thursday, March 14th, 2024 from 5-7pm.

We will be offering light refreshments.

We will have other artists from our gallery in attendance as well. In addition, our next door neighbor, Tower Gallery, will be having their reception too. Why not visit us both?

About Robinette:

As a child, Robinette Apelgren, always enjoyed immersing herself in all mediums of art.
Eventually, it became her ambition to attend college to procure a degree in art. However, her
parents urged her to seek a degree in an area that would assure an opportunity to earn a living
wage. At that time, there were many opportunities for women to be employed as teachers, so she
majored in elementary and physical education.
The art world seemed to follow her throughout her life. With the birth of her two small
children, watercolor seemed to be a good fit as it was easy to pull out, work with, and then clean
up. Robinette’s mother was an oil painter, but the fumes and clean up were not conducive with
young children in the home. Thus, watercolor was her chosen medium.
After a move to Indiana in the 1980’s, Robinette took an opportunity to substitute teach
in order to get her “foot in the door” while awaiting a possible fulltime position. As she was
filling out an application for subbing, the secretary asked if Robinette had an art degree or
“anything like that”
. Robinette replied,
“I do indeed have the ‘anything like that’!” Her
background in art made it very comfortable to take a semester maternity leave teaching
elementary art. This “big foot in the door” allowed for her to become an elementary classroom
teacher in Franklin Township Schools of Indiana.
Teachers are still learners which explains why Robinette continues to hone her craft by
attending workshops and classes with top artists in their fields. Some of the artists she was
privileged to work with were JoAnn Cardwell, Bev Mathis, Rob O’Dell, Luke Buck, Janet
Rogers, Suzanna Winton, and Joe Miller of Cheap Joe’s.
Robinette has also taught watercolor and other art classes in New York and Fort Myers,
Florida. In addition, she has written and illustrated three books. Her first book, Oh, Yes I Can!,
is a biography written for the elementary reader based on the life of her sister-in-law, Carmen
Apelgren. Carmen grew up with a disease that gradually took her eyesight. Carmen was a
determined little girl (and now woman) who charged through the challenges of going blind. The
book was written for children to appreciate that even with great challenges in life, one can
overcome them. After the sudden and unexpected death of her mother, Robinette was once again
inspired to write and paint. In her grief, she thought about all the attributes of mothering her own
mother had demonstrated. Inspired to create an alphabetical order book, God’s ABCs on
Mothering, evolved to also incorporate a watercolor portrait, a verse of scripture, and a flower
whose meaning undergirds the attribute. After her father’s passing, she wrote, illustrated and
published a partner book for the mothering book, God’s ABCs on Fathering. The format is
similar to the mothering book.
Robinette is a member of the Florida Watercolor Society and the Alliance for the Arts.
She has her own website featuring her art work and books, www.robinetteartpub.com and is also
a part of Fine Art America along with Finer Works where prints of her works are sold.
She can be contacted by email at: apelgren@sbcglobal.net or by going to her website.