La Encantada Fine Art Festival ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: "Watercolors became my preferred medium because I traveled so much as a scientist. I could easily fit them on an airplane in my backpack." Born and raised in Dortmund, Germany, water color artist Margarethe Brummermann developed her passion for painting hand in hand with her career in biology. She worked as a researcher and teacher at universities and field stations across Europe and the United States while also dedicating time to her artistic studies at the Academy for Photography and Design in Dortmund and eventually the Scottsdale Artists School. "I often use my paintings as backdrops for my PowerPoint slides. I hope to make my scientific topics beautiful and thus more approachable," says Brummermann. In 2002, she settled in the pristine deserts of the Tucson Mountains with her husband, Randall Kaul, and found a new and unexpected community of welcoming creative minds. "Art is important to Native Americans and I spent most of my weekends on the Navajo and Apache reservations. I was easily welcomed and my new found Hopi friends introduced me to my first gallery here. It wasn't long before I discovered the ever changing, ever evolving, very diverse community around outdoor arts festivals and I was hooked." Brummermann now works for Sky Island in the field of diversity research in SE AZ and Sonora Mexico and her newer paintings reflect this. Her website and blog now act as the perfect platform for sharing both her passions to an even larger audience taken by the charm of blending biology and art. Visit her blog now at http://margarethebrummermannwatercolors.blogspot.com/ and see her work in person at the La Encantada Fine Art Festival on January 19 & 20 at La Encantada.