TAHLEQUAH — Translating nature’s beauty onto a blank canvas is a gift in a few special hands. Toss in a bit of whimsy and a dash of attitude, and you have oil paintings by Tracey Harris.

Whether she’s conjuring up a child’s curious face or the upper body of a woman wearing a 1950s apron with a tool belt on her hip, Harris has something to say. Sometimes, she speaks softly, as in an illusion created by a honey bee with butterfly wings behind it.

Her paintings draw the observer in to study the wonder of her roving imagination.

“I’ve always drawn,” Harris said.

“I can’t imagine not drawing. Or what job I would do if I couldn’t paint. I would be miserable if I didn’t paint.”

She was shy as a youngster, and her ego developed through her art.

Harris has been winning awards since Carol Corley was her mentor and art teacher at Fort Gibson High School.

“Carol Corley was amazing. She helped me get into competitions, and she would actually drive me to Oklahoma City to competitions,” Harris said. “She would go overboard for me.”

Harris’ interest in art would still have been a seed germinating within her, but under Corley, her work flourished.

“One of the things that really helps people is drawing from life,” Harris said. “She’d even have a student sit for me to draw from sometimes.”

After completing a bachelor of fine arts in the painting program at Kansas City Art Institute, Harris decided it was time to see more of the world.

“When I left Fort Gibson, I’d never really been anywhere; it was kind of a culture shock going to Kansas City,” she said.

She worked part-time as an engraver while in Kansas City. San Francisco, Seattle and New York were her next destinations.

College is important, she said, “for being with other people who are like-minded and are concerned with the same things you are.”

Later, at Goldsmiths, part of the University of London, she studied in a program with 30 international students.

“It was really fun, especially the culture of the other students,” she said.

She was the only painter in the program at Goldsmiths, which she describes as “post-structuralists steeped in a lot of intellectual theory.” Every day, she had to remind herself why she painted on canvas.

For the next 13 years, she painted in abstract fashion.

“I thought what I did was above that [representational painting],” she said.

But now it’s her specialty, since she’s discovered how to express herself with everyday subjects. Representational art – painting realistically – began to appeal to her when her son, Max, was born.

“Abstract thought and theory helped me be myself more,” Harris said. “I learned to put myself in things around me, to see the beauty of little things around me, things I appreciate about me. Now I have the confidence to make things my own.”

Today, the practice and talent have paid off, with a Harris original selling, on average, for $2,000 to $8,000. That success allows her the privilege of being a stay-at-home mom.

(Max has his own art supplies, and after sitting beside his mom during part of an interview, went to get a tablet and pencils, and sketched pictures while the dialogue continued.)

After Max goes to bed, she’s compelled to paint, when it’s peaceful and quiet all around town.

“Even if I’m not in the mood, I start I get into it,” Harris said.

Different parts of the process appeal to her.

“Sometimes things hit me that would give me an idea to paint. Recently I couldn’t stop thinking of new ideas to paint,” she said.

And she can move the brush across the canvas for hours at a time.

“In the morning, you’re thinking about all the things you need to get done. I’ve tried to paint then, but the other part of your brain is working,” she said.

Just being with the paint itself is captivating.

“That experience, when it’s about the paint – it’s lying there just so – or mixing the paint,” she said. “The best ideas are those behind the art, the context of work.”

Two artists whose work she most admires are German painter Gerhardt Richter, for his “realism,” and the more “contemporary” creations of Belgium Luc Tuymans.

“I saw a show of his at San Francisco. He’s a ‘content’ painter, able to paint some issues more pointedly – meaning he has a lot of emotional and thought-provoking content,” Harris said. “Not so much realistic, but he painted a man with a black-and-white face. The hatred in his smile was unbelievable. He paints about the Holocaust, stuff like that. Not a lot of painters can capture that emotion and life like that.”

Returning to her home town has also been a pleasant surprise for Harris. When she left at age 18, she didn’t believe there was an art community in eastern Oklahoma.

“I thought it was culturally dead,” she said. “Now there’s the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition and so much talent here.”

Six galleries currently exhibit her work. A solo show at JRB Art Gallery in Oklahoma City opened for a month beginning July 2, and in October, her paintings will be on display at the MA Doran Gallery in Tulsa.

She’s been selected to be in the Grand Rapids, Mich., “Art Prize,” an international competition with a $250,000 first prize, $150,000 second prize, $50,000 for third place and seven people winning $7,000, with other awards to top it off. And she’s been asked to paint “Pride” by the curator of a show in Massachusetts in November, as part of a study on “The Seven Deadly Sins.” Also in November, she has a show at the Great Plains Museum in Lawton. If Harris has a hobby, it’s cooking. Just a night before sharing her story, she had friends over and made a spread of Thai food. And she knits one-of-a-kind hats for Max in the fall.

At a recent awards dinner, she met Nancy Feldman, a political activist.

“We need people like you, with different ideas, to stay here,” Feldman told her.

Harris realized then that her life – and that of others – is about the impact you can have on other people.

“And hopefully,” she said, “it’s a good one.”