Dee donates painting proceeds to young Phillips County fire victims

    Several years ago, Erika Meakins, now a student at Haxtun Junior High School, started taking lessons from local artist Nancy Dee at the Prairie Winds Art Center in Holyoke. Throughout their lessons, Dee and Meakins would visit the home of Pat Meakins, Erika’s grandmother, to study, sketch and paint a garden and other farm buildings on the Meakins’ homestead — neither of them knowing the significance those paintings would hold after March 6, 2017.
    One early summer day, prior to last year’s devastating fire that ripped through northwestern Phillips County, Dee and Meakins met at Erika’s grandmother’s house to sketch and paint “en plein air.” The two studied perspective, color and values and together enjoyed a sunny day of gardens and farm buildings full of memories. Then, over the following months, Meakins’ barn became the subject of many lessons Dee and Meakins worked on together at PWAC. The images the two created would ultimately take on unanticipated significance the following spring.
    The Logan/Phillips County Fire would later burn through the Meakins’ homestead while destroying property and farmland, including the barn. After the fire, the painting and lessons took on a new meaning for both Meakins and Dee.
    Dee, who focuses on fine art at a studio in her home, decided to make prints of her painting of the barn and sell them to donate the profits to children who were directly affected by the fire.

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