My Red Headed Blanche Skinner

Brownwood, Texas has a lot to be proud besides friendly people.

Brownwood’s own Blanche Westerman Springer’s paintings have been exhibited in many states and are represented in private collections in Minnesota, Florida, California, Kansas, Arizona, Virginia and Texas. We were classmates as we grew up in Brownwood.

Just as Charlie Brown’s “little red-headed girl,” Blanche was my red-headed love. And just as Charlie Brown’s experience, nothing ever came of it. Years later at a reunion we told each other of the long-ago grade school fantasies.

Not counting me, painting has always been her first love as far back as when she and Tom Springer were married in Brownwood’s First Methodist Church in 1947.

Blanche paints character studies, landscapes and still life in oil, pastel, charcoal and watercolor. Working in pastels she does very detailed and realistic presentations of Indian heads, some with colorful headdress. She has won awards in numerous shows and was selected to show work in the 19th National Sun Carnival Art Exhibition at the El Paso Museum of Art.

She has displayed several of her paintings in Marble Falls, Brownwood and Central Texas. She was one of 11 artists chosen to show at the Second International Conference of the United State-Mexico Board of Governors in 1981. She has twice been named Artist of the Month by the El Paso, Texas, Chamber of Commerce.

It was during this time she became close friends with another Brownwood High classmate: Jacquelyn Rice Powell (BHS Most Popular Girl 1944 and FFA Sweetheart 1946). Jacquelyn was tall and stately and one of BHS’s finest graduates.

The BHS Class of ‘47 Newsletter’s of Dec. 1997, carried Blanche Westerman Springer’s portrait of fellow classmate, the late Fern Wooldridge Butler (BHS cheerleader; 4 years with the band) on the front page. As far as I know the original hangs in the Butler Brownwood home.

In one of Blanche’s letters she told me: “Fern and I became best friends our senior year in BHS. She stayed with me the first night I was home alone with our first baby girl. Whenever I was in Brownwood I always saw Fern.”

Blanch studied with Manuel Acosta, Lewis Krupp, Ben Konis, Carlos Pineda and Ray Lopez-Aleman. She is a member of El Paso and Lower Valley Art Association and has served as president.

Her paintings have been exhibited in many states and are represented in private collections in Minnesota, Florida, California, Kansas, Arizona, Virginia and Texas. She paints character studies, landscapes and still life in oil, pastel, charcoal and watercolor. Working in pastels she does very detailed and realistic presentations of Indian heads, some with colorful headdress. She has won awards in numerous shows and was selected to show work in the 19th National Sun Carnival Art Exhibition at the El Paso Museum of Art.

Could anything in life be more wonderful than doing the thing you love all the time, even into a mature age. She finds that painting and art became her love when she discovered pastels and the joy of becoming acquainted with individual faces as she painted portraits.

There is another BHS beauty who became a very well-known artist. She was Nelda Grace Phillips when we graduated from BHS. For many years she has lived in Dubai and held exhibitions all over.

Brownwood, Texas has a lot to be proud of of its artists and art. There is more to this central Texas town than just friendly people and 2010 Division 3-A best football team.

ßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßßß