Deborah Cavenaugh is a self-taught artist. She began painting on Mother’s Day in 1992 after her children presented her with a box of watercolors they bought in a toy store.
In late 1993, Cavenaugh took a couple of the paintings she had made (mostly to make her children happy) out from under the bed where she kept them stored. Her bold idea was to frame a few pieces for her own bedroom. A local frame shop happened to send Cavenaugh a coupon. The frame shop happened to be owned by a gallery. The gallery owner happened to be in the frame shop that day, saw Cavenaugh’s work, and put her under contract right then. The next week, three paintings sold.
Cavenaugh still didn’t take it seriously, however. It wasn’t until about six months later when she was offered a show at a popular local-art’s restaurant, that Cavenaugh decided to paint as hard as she could for one year and see what would happen. That was in March of 1994.
Today, Cavenaugh has had over 75 shows. Galleries from Maine to Florida have hosted her work. Her original art hangs in private collections across the country and in many foreign countries. Cavenaugh is a respected commission painter, loved for her portraits of families, houses, and pets… and for the blessings she writes on every painting. She has a popular website with a store that offers about 300 different prints. Her print and card lines are distributed internationally. She has been featured in newspapers, magazines, NPR, and on television. An author and illustrator, Deborah is represented by Linda Konner Literary Agency in NYC.
Deborah Cavenaugh paints comfortable scenes and familiar images from life as we know it. She invites the viewer into her world—a world that they already recognize from their own. Cavenaugh’s watercolors are colorful and complicated. She is known for the sayings she writes on each and every piece—sayings, Cavenaugh says, are “all about making life a little easier, a little more joyful, and helping us all to recognize that on any day, while the list of all that is going wrong could be written down, the list of all that is going right could never be finished”.