Meet Our Mid-Valley focuses on passionate local people
The Statesman Journal’s weekly Meet Our Mid-Valley feature focuses on passionate local people who live and work in our area.
This is part of a weekly series introducing readers to individuals who are passionate about our Mid-Valley community.
Debbie Bowen had a passing association with art until a future neighbor gave her a push. Now she tries to help others by teaching and passing on her love of creating art.
Bowen’s hyper realistic portraits in watercolors, colored pencils and pastels win awards and have brought her recognition in the local art community.
Bowen’s eyes light up when she talks about art.
Sharing her passion, be it as a tutorial in a publication or as a teacher, is her way of sharing what she learned.
“Just having this magic happen on paper and you can go very realistic with it, or you can go very abstract with it,” Bowen said. “But I really love the medium. I found this out int the last few years, watercolors is one of the hardest mediums to learn.”
Finding her passion to create art
Bowen made art growing up, but nothing significant. She took classes in Rowland, California and won a few awards, but it didn’t make an impact.
After her two children were born, Bowen was a stay-at-home mom. She found time for some crafts, including making Easter baskets and Christmas ornaments, that friends sold.
“One of the biggest things I sold back in the ’80s was a $350 tree skirt,” Bowen said.
After she moved to Florence from California in 1994, Bowen worked in management at an Emporium department store until the company went bankrupt, then worked in a friend’s store.
Bowen and her husband, Jim, were building a home in Newport and they met their future neighbors. That’s when she found out Pauline Cones was an artist with a studio in her home and was willing to teach Bowen watercolor painting.
Bowen was hooked.
Two years later, she was introduced to drawing with colored pencils, and her art took off. She became a prolific artist.
Bowen bases most of her art on photographs. Then she adjusts the images to match her aesthetic.
Her first piece of art, a colored pencil illustration called “Stumpy,” was published in 2014. She’s had more than a dozen pieces of art and tutorials published in books and magazines since then.
Finding a community at Keizer Art Association
When Bowen’s mother, Beverly Blair, was ill, she served as her caregiver. Then when her husband, James, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer a few years ago, she did the same for him.
While caring for her ailing relatives, her art has been a respite.
“It was a nice place to fall back to,” she said.
Bowen has been part of the Keizer Art Association since she moved to Salem in 2017 and says she leaned on the other artists in the group after her husband died in March 2025.
Bowen is now teaching her 8-year-old granddaughter, Bryley.
Bryley’s drawing, “Cutie: The Princess Kitty,” won the youth award in the Keizer Art Association’s most recent show.
“I really work with her and I kind of let her do her own thing,” Bowen said. “So I’ve learned to just relax and let them do their own thing, and this is what she did.”
Bowen said she wanted to take piano lessons since she wasn’t a child, but her parents could only afford to get her an accordion.
Now she wants to give piano a try.
“As far as art mediums, I am so in love with pastel and there is so much more to learn,” she said.
If you have an idea for someone we should profile for this series, please email Statesman Journal editor Jonathan Williams at JWilliams@statesmanjournal.com.
Bill Poehler covers Marion and Polk County for the Statesman Journal. Contact him at bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com
