Learning the discipline of studying music at the tender age of 8, Nyla Witmore has taken that hard work into the field of painting, where she has carved a stunningly successful career as an artist.

While art and music are only two of the many interests Witmore has on her life’s palette, she now says that art is her preferred form of self-expression: “I can’t imagine doing anything else. Although I came to art much later in life, it has become something I enjoy working at so much.”

Witmore says she paints five to seven hours a day, and though she is accomplished in three mediums — watercolor, acrylic and oil — she now paints almost exclusively in oil. The work has struck a chord with many publications that have featured stories about her and her painting, some of them comprehensive articles about this multitalented woman who has been described as a “Renaissance woman.” Her enthusiasm spills onto the canvases she uses to hold her still lifes, landscapes and representations of urban scenes that she has created to show her travels.

Now, Witmore feels she is living her passion. “It is never too late for anyone to become an artist,” she says. Nearly losing her hearing as a child, Witmore honored the restoration of her hearing by becoming a speech teacher. She stopped her art lessons for 20 years, and then when a friend said, “Our art teacher said you had promise,” she resumed her interest in art.

Combining her teaching skills and her love of art, Witmore is teaching journaling through art and finding a receptive group of students. A writer of inspirational books, she still uses her writing skills when she describes how she came to create a particular work of art.

“I think if your heart is in it, the faithfulness to pursue your passion makes a difference. You can get into the right brain zone and forget what you’re doing,” Witmore says of her ability to tap into both sides of her brain, which served her well as she made a transition from one career to another.

She earned a bachelor’s degree in education from Central Michigan University and taught speech for three
years. When children arrived in her life, her husband suggested she try writing, and Witmore was able to publish three books in the inspirational genre. It was following the publication of her books that Witmore decided to make a change and resume her work in art that she had given up so many years before.

On Oct. 13, patrons of the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra will be able to savor the results of Witmore’s many talents as she paints on stage as a guest artist with BPO.

At the concert, entitled Visual Fusion, at 7:30 p.m. at Macky Auditorium in Boulder, a blend of music and art will provide the audience with a feast for the senses. Witmore will present a “real-time visual interpretation” of Richard Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration. She says she will have 30 minutes to do the painting in a format she refers to as a “duet,” meaning she and the orchestra are performing together. The work will be in an abstract style, and a camera will be focused on her to show the audience what she is doing, using a large overhead screen. She describes this as “the process, not the product.”

“A lot of people paint to music, but that’s not what this is about,” Witmore said recently in her Boulder studio, where her paintings bring life to the walls of her foothills artistic environment. “The orchestra plays, and I have a split second to decide how I’ll do the alto part. But in this case, I’ll be painting a stroke. I don’t see color when I paint, but I do see rhythm. The first time I played with the orchestra, the sound was overwhelming, and I could feel it (the sound) coming over my hair and down my arm and onto my paintbrush.”

The Visual Fusion performance is one of several fusion productions the Boulder symphonic orchestra is doing this season. Witmore is thrilled to be doing the musical interpretation, characterizing the work as “so satisfying.” Though she will paint an abstract painting the night of the fusion presentation, she is also an accomplished representational- Impressionist artist, whose work is available in the Patron’s Art Gallery in Denver and the Tirage Art Gallery in Pasadena, Calif.

Her work is the culmination of many years’ interest in the arts that didn’t realize fruition until she moved to Boulder 18 years ago and joined the Boulder Art Association. She began teaching art and was discovered by a local gallery. “I’m a self-taught artist who learned more about art at the Dana DeCordova Museum of Modern Art in Lincoln, Mass., and the Denver Art Students League,” she says.

Witmore’s work has been exhibited in a broad range of locations in both solo and group exhibitions. Her paintings have been displayed in France and England as part of group exhibitions. They have also been shown by the American Academy of Women Artists, the Colorado Watercolor Society, the National Acrylic Painters Association, Artists in Colorado, the Northern Colorado Artists Association and the Design Center in Colorado Springs.

In her personal statement, Witmore writes, “I am best known for windows, doorways and intimate landscapes of buildings (particularly French and Italian scenes). My paintings are calming and meditative. Having painted in Giverny at Monet’s home and being influenced by Impressionist masters, I particularly enjoy plein-air painting and usually complete 50 paintings a year.”

Also coming up in October is The Open Studios 2007 self-guided tour. Witmore’s studio will be open on Oct. 6, 7, 13 and 14 from noon to 6 p.m. Go to www.nylawitmore.com for a map to her studio.

Pleased with her life as an artist, Witmore says she has “always been a person who liked a new challenge.” The truth of this statement becomes clear when looking at the many accomplishments of her life and witnessing her success as an artist.