Mary Pettis is the ninth American woman painter to be named an ARC Living Master by the Art Renewal Center. This distinguished honor is defined, in part, as “an artist who has mastered all of the building blocks of great art...has successfully created a body of work which demonstrates accomplished facility in their craft that compares to the masters of prior centuries...” Drawing upon her classical, alla prima, and plein air training, Mary Pettis’ work stands at the cutting edge of the International Contemporary Realism movement. Pettis has won numerous awards in national and international painting events and exhibitions from New York City to Scottsdale, Maui to Barcelona.

Pettis resides along the beautiful St. Croix Scenic Riverway, which borders Minnesota and western Wisconsin. The St. Croix River is the setting for her oil painting Be Still and Know. Fifty yards upriver from this location is a dramatic 200-foot rocky gorge formed by the glacial action of an ancient lava flow. For centuries the Dakota people moved through this valley, followed by the Ojibwe and, starting in the mid-17th century, the French voyageurs, fur traders, and then loggers and riverboats. Although rich in this geological and human history, today the river remains protected because of its pristine and unspoiled beauty.

Of the St. Croix, Mary states: “This river valley has become my own Walden, my muse. To paint along its storied banks, to intimately study its spirit and many moods, has been one of the great joys of my artistic life.”