Original surrealist oil and acrylic paintings by Carol Connett are the March featured artworks at Thump Coffee in downtown Bend. “Enjoy a stroll through the colorful and imaginative landscapes of my subconscious,” invites Connett. Thump Coffee also will be open late for First Friday Art Walk, March 4.

Connett describes her paintings as “representational renderings of sometimes comical but always impossible worlds.”

“I was the kid in school who got in trouble for drawing,” says Connett. “I just couldn’t stop. Although my parents were not artistic people, my brother [Robert Steven Connett] is an artist.  Being that he’s my big brother, I was fascinated with what he was all about. The walls of his room were covered with those wonderful ’60s rock concert posters, and he was always drawing. I’d look at the pens, quills and bottles of India ink spread out over his drawing table and want to do what he did.”

“Sometime in my early teens, childhood make-believe turned into surreal inspiration. Slowly I lost interest in realistic depictions of wildlife and reality, and to the dismay of my parents I began to sculpt and later to paint surreal landscapes.”

“Today the landscape in my mind continues to spill out on canvas and on paper. It’s a self-perpetuating world for me that’s not a dream, but rather my alternative reality.”

Learn more at Connett’s website.