(Artwork by Shandel Gamer)
Remembering Shandel Gamer
1955 – 2023
Shandel was a gifted Central Oregon pastel artist, specializing in portraits of both people and animals. Her love for both is reflected in her original pastel artworks and giclee prints featured in a special show from June 12 through July 30 at One Street Down café in Redmond.
Shandel loved the arts and took great pleasure in encouraging other artists, developing art venues and promoting and supporting art organizations. While living in San Diego, California, Shandel was a member of numerous art organizations. She developed the monthly juried art exhibits at San Diego’s Mission Trails Regional Park, helped establish the Pacific Southwest Wildlife Art Association’s standing with the California Open Wildlife Festivals, and was a founding member of the art group, “Ain’t Nothing Like a Dame.”
After moving to Central Oregon Shandel found new inspiration for her work and continued creating with pastels and her new interest, photography. She was instrumental in the success of the program to show public art in the Redmond Library. In more recent years, Shandel derived her greatest pleasure from encouraging artists’ creativity and supporting their success by capturing and digitizing images of their artwork, creating websites to market their art, creating artist promotional materials and informing artists of upcoming venues to show and sell their artwork.
With the loss of Shandel Gamer, Central Oregon has lost one of its greatest advocates for artists and their work and the community’s access to art. In addition to the show in Redmond, Shandel’s artwork can be viewed by visiting her memorial website at Zhibit.org/GolemArt or golemart.com.