Kids not only "say" the darndest things, but they also frequently express the darndest things via their art works as well. I was repeatedly reminded of that wonderful fact when I visited Ketchum's Petite Picasso Workshop back in November (see my 11/20/'09 "Where ART Thou?"), and I was repeatedly reminded of it yet again when I recently got a chance to check out the often amazing art collection of Hailey's Ashley Dreyfus.

Ever since I saw that jaw-droppingly imaginative and inspired painting by Hailey's Ashley Drefyus (of a woman having a spa day with her cat!!! (LOL) -- back when I was writing about that wonderful collection of 90+ NAMI
art-auction art works that were on display at Iconoclast Books (back in late November); see this article:
http://www.sunvalleyonline.com/news/article.asp?ID_Article=7

-- I knew it was only a matter of time before I'd be eagerly writing a "Where ART Thou?" column on this verrry gifted and multi-talented local artist.



And then, later on, I saw, at the YMCA, that boldly imaginative (and wonderfully whimsical) "Wizard Of Oz"-inspired chair Ashley carefully designed and decorated for last month's nexStage Chair-ity fundraiser (the lime green one with the stripped stockings and dress pumps on the front legs of it, and the vintage soda bottle caps covering the seat) -- and that pretty much eliminated whatever lingering doubts I might've had that writing a column about a local artist who's "only" 12 years old might seem a weee bit premature and/or silly.

I mean you only have to read about that precocious seven-year-old boy in Norfolk, England -- Kieron Williamson, who's only been painting for some 18 months now, but who's already being compared by art experts to the likes of
Picasso and Monet (and whose last art exhibit/auction set a record back in December, selling all 16 of his watercolors in some 14 minutes, for a whopping $29,000) -- to realize that there are, indeed, child art prodigies
among us still. Not sure if Ashley Dreyfus is quite in THAT lofty league quite yet, but after visiting recently the lovely home in Hailey she shares with her mom (Susan) and stepdad (Craig), and seeing the incredibly varied
and unceasingly-delightful collection of art works she's amassed already, I think it's very safe to say that Ashley's well on her way toward taking the Art World by storm -- and probably sooner rather than later, too!!!

Whether she's taking a small rock she found and painting it the color of an Idaho russet potato and then  surrounding it with tin foil and topping it with a splash of yellow (to look like melting butter), or creating a
vividly-realized and delightfully entertaining painting of a huge, green dinosaur sitting atop a skyscraper blissfully reading a newspaper -- and using an adjacent skyscraper to prop his enormous feet up with (while an
understandably nervous office worker in one of the surrounding skyscrapers asks: "If we give you a donut, will you leave?"), Ashley is constantly demonstrating through her dazzling array of art (sculptures, paintings,
drawings, Chair-ity chairs, collages, jewelry, etc) that she has the kind of extremely keen eye for color, detail, design, and whimsy that many adults out there WISH they had!



Which maybe isn't all THAT surprising since one of Ashley aunts is none other than the very esteemed, award-winning ceramics artist, Betty Woodman (the subject of a 2006 restrospective at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art), and Ashley also has an uncle who's presently a graphics-design artist for Pixar Studios ... an endlessly creative place I can verrrrrry easily envision Ashley working at one day, judging by what she's accomplished as an
artist already.

Cats and dinosaurs seem to be among her favorite inspirations of the moment (Ashley, who was wearing a purple T-shirt when I met her with "Dinosaurs Are People Too!" emblazoned across the front of it, eagerly introduced me to all three of her cats while I was there -- two of whom, anyway, seemed less-than-thrilled to be suddenly picked up and brusquely awakened out of a deep slumber that morning in order to meet this self-described "Intrepid
Interloper" who was busily writing down copious notes on his yellow legal notepad ... a man who, much to their obvious annoyance and disappointment, did NOT have any fish or other tasty treats for them).



But Ashley's also has found a lot of terrific, immensely entertaining art-related inspirations from things as seemingly mundane as bacon and eggs, sushi, birds, mushrooms, French fries, hamburgers, coffee, octopi, pepper and salt shakers, sandwiches, "Frilly Spray" (I'm guessing that's girl thing), a pink phone (DEFINITELY a girl thing!!), vintage bottle caps Ashley and her mom have cannily snagged via eBay (one of Ashley's many inspired
creations is a necklace made out of 1950s-era "My Pops"-brand root beer caps), catfish, skiiing, snowshoeing, dogs (one's wearing a diving mask, next to whch is writen, "Da Rules: My House, My Room, My Space!!"), tree
frogs, worms crawling out of apples (hopefully NOT based on a real-life encounter Ashley had), squirrels (one, I swear, looks like it stepped right out of the pages of a Beatrix Potter book!!), tin boxes, the Native American
landscape (one creation, titled "Through Native American Eyes," Ashley evidently won a prize for), pre-teen and teen-aged girls, Peace signs (hey the kid's nothing if not Politically Correct, okay???), raw fish, devoured
fish, fish skeletons, pancakes, cup cakes, steak, pot holders (Ashley made some into a "pie"), the Empire State Building (which I've been to numerous times, btw -- but thankfully never when a dinosaur was anywhere near its
vicinity!), dinosaur cafes (hey, donosaurs have to eat to, ya know -- AND they have feelings, and body-image issues, just like the rest of us do, so just leave them alone; I mean it now!!!), toothpicks, and a myriad of other
things that most 12-year-olds I'm guessing would never, ever find such incredibly colorful and eclectic artistic inspirations for.

Think my favorites out of all the ones Ashley and her mom graciously showed me that morning -- and there A LOT to choose from, believe you me!!! -- are the global warming drawing (a brightly-lit desk lamp perched over a
rapidly-melting ice cream cone, while a verrry sad-looking dolphin, whale, walrus and penguin look on), and also Ashley's genuinely endearing "turn-key series (featuring color drawings of cats, dogs, turkeys, and other critters
with windup turn-keys sticking out of the backs of them).

Susan Dreyfus-Bates showed me some sketch books, too, that featured a number of Ashley's earlier works, many in pencil and often with recurring  characters who were obvious favorites of Ashley's at the time that she later
happily replicated, refined and expanded into full-on and more  ully-realized color creations, such as "Turn-Key Kat" (which eventually spelled correctly, with a "C"), and various depictions of dinosaurs of one color, shape and size or another, and young girls (all of whose noses, distressingly, seemed to have been chiseled into near-nothingness by a plastic surgeon somewhere), and, of course, a multitude of furry felines of one ilk or another (sooooo many, in fact, that I was practically ready to cough up a fur ball by the time I was finally finished looking at all of
them that morning).

Ashley, whose painting at the NAMI art auction last month eventually sold for $175 (now THAT will buy you a lot of Bic "Mark It" fine-point color markers -- which apparently are what really sparked Ashley's ever-increasing
and -expanding forays into the world of art, from a very early age), is also a competitive swimmer, and often enjoys spending time, with her mom, at the Hailey Animal Shelter (as part of their volunteer-oriented "Pet Pals"
program). Among her many future goals, Ashley one day hopes to open a homeless shelter for wayward dinosaurs who are constantly be chased off of skyscrapers by office workers annoyed with their presence there (ohhhh, okay
-- I was just kidding about THAT one, people. But honestly, don't ya think that'd be seriously cool if someone actually DID open a homeless shelter for wayward dinosaurs who just want to read their respective newspapers in
peace, but who are constantly being chased off the skyscrapers they're perched atop of by annoyed office workers???)



Susan Dreyfus-Bates, who describes herself as being more of an "artisan" than an "artist," has pretty cool eye for art as well, I must say -- having decorated all of the light switches in their lovely Woodside home there,
using assorted household items of one sort or another (hey, the apple never falls far from the tree, people).

Ashley is currently hoping to find an available place somewhere in the Wood River Valley where she can showcase a lot more of her incessantly imaginative, wildly inventive and boundlessly colorful art collection ... something which I sincerely hope, now that I've been fortunate enough to have seen it all for myself, happens for her very soon because I think this girl's got a fabulous, fabulous eye for whimsy, function and scale -- and I think it'd be a real shame if many more people here in the Valley were denied the opportunity to see for themselves what this immensely-gifted and -inspiring youngster is capable of. Ashley, Susan and Craig are in the midst of building a MySpace page for her that'll feature a number of Ashley's beautiful creations, but in the meantime you can contact them at: susandreyfusbates@gmail.com if you want to see samples of Ashley's work.

Think it's only a matter of time before Ashley will be enjoying her own"record-breaking art auctions" -- and deservedly so!!!

You GO, girl... :)

The main goal of this ongoing "Where ART Thou?" column is to make Art more accessible to people here in this Valley of ours who, for whatever reason (s), tend to SHY AWAY from it, and Ashley Dreyfus seems to genuinely and
proudly embrace that ongoing goal ... which makes me verrry happy that I was able to feature her work here today.

Comments or questions regarding this recurring column be sent to John at: WriteStuffIdaho@gmail.com

To read any of John's previous "Where ART Thou? columns -- which include writeups on local artists Brent Haleen, Thia Konig and Tessa Bradley, and local art galleries (including the Kneeland, Will Caldwell, David M. Norton,
and the Green Antelope) -- just type "John Pluntze" into the sunvalleyonline.com search engine here.