The Clay Menagerie Of Rene Guerin

René Guerin is a painter’s painter. It almost seems as though she paints just to see how her subjects will look transformed by her brush. To paraphrase mountain climber George Mallory, she paints things simply “because they are there” – and by “there” we mean here, in Vero Beach, the town where René grew up.

She finds many of her themes not far from the home that she shares with her husband, Don Wagner. Their one-story, 1950s-era house was built by an architect for his own residence. Guarded by slash pines and impenetrable banks of azalea, it features a high-ceilinged living room lined east and west with tall windows. Through these, light (and later in the afternoon, summer’s heat) enters abundantly.

Although a guest house a few steps from her front door is called “the studio,” René’s living room is where her easel is always set up and the walls display her latest work.

Read the entire article in the March 2009 issue