Painter celebrates Reagan and her past
ROCKFORD, Ill. — Vicki Crone of Rockford can still hear President Ronald Reagan saying, “Tear down this wall!” in a speech to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to destroy the Berlin Wall. Doing so would be a symbol of Gorbachev’s interest in increasing freedom in the Eastern Bloc.
In her “Land of the Free” painting, a picture of Reagan at his California ranch beside his unbridled horse, Crone’s aim was to not only capture the vastness of the ranch but to also emulate the feeling of freedom.
Her acrylic painting, measuring 16 inches by 20 inches, won the top award at an art competition in Dixon, where the late president was raised and attended high school. She won Best of Show in the 2011 Reagan and his Ranch International Centennial Art Competition and received a $5,000 prize.
The painting is on display at the Reagan Ranch and Ranch Center in Santa Barbara, Calif., until June 2012. It then will be returned to The Next Picture Gallery in Dixon and will become part of the permanent collection there.
In an email interview, Crone said it took her a week to paint the picture after studying a photograph of Reagan at his ranch. She has been drawing and painting for about 60 years and was self-taught until she entered college. She holds a bachelor’s degree in art education and another in medical art.
About 90 percent of her work as a full-time artist is portraiture, mostly for custom-ordered paintings. “I tend to paint realistically but do not make photorealism a goal,” she said. “I like to stylize when free to do so.” Prices customers pay for her work usually ranges between $150 and $950 or more.
She also is a graphics designer, sculpts using wire and decorates furniture. Her murals are on display at Angelo’s Restaurant & Pizzeria in Rockford. A skeletal illustration that she created, “Hector’s Bones,” is on exhibit at the Discovery Center Museum in Rockford.
One of her goals is to publish a book of poems and stories with original illustrations, paintings and cartoons and old photos about the animals she grew up with on Green Lawn Farm in rural Dakota. It was her parents’ farm, where her dad, Frank Ochsner, raised and showed Brown Swiss cattle and Hampshire hogs at local, state and international shows. She and her sister helped. And they raised, trained and showed Welsh ponies and American Saddlebreds.
“Life on the farm was grand, and my book(s) will depict life in an era when safety and freedom reigned.”