On July 4, 2016, Renon Klossner Hulet died from pancreatic cancer. She passed away in Salt Lake City at home, with family by her side.
In her too short 66 years of life Renon lived more than most. She was a true creative with the ability to make something from nothing, and make it beautiful. As a painter she filled hundreds of canvases with images of landscapes, objects, and the people she loved. As an art teacher she inspired students young and old (including her elderly mother) to express themselves in colors and lines. As a writer she produced books, articles, and scripts. As a mother, wife, sister, friend, and devoted daughter, Ree was our light and our anchor. She healed the crestfallen with her legendary head pets, welcomed all into her home, made delicious meals from seemingly empty cupboards, and took the incessant teasing from her children like a champ. As a devoted member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, she served a mission as a young woman in Colombia and Venezuela and later with her husband in Salt Lake City and on Temple Square. She taught countless lessons and otherwise served the Lord she loved in every aspect of her life. Ree never shied away from an adventure, whether skiing black diamonds, paragliding in the Swiss Alps, or road tripping across the country with a friend, 10 kids, and no A/C. Ree delighted in hyperbole; thus no experience was trivial. She was the eternal optimist and had a keen ability to both recognize and create beauty in absolutely everything.
If you would like you can share a memory of Renon here or here.
In her too short 66 years of life Renon lived more than most. She was a true creative with the ability to make something from nothing, and make it beautiful. As a painter she filled hundreds of canvases with images of landscapes, objects, and the people she loved. As an art teacher she inspired students young and old (including her elderly mother) to express themselves in colors and lines. As a writer she produced books, articles, and scripts. As a mother, wife, sister, friend, and devoted daughter, Ree was our light and our anchor. She healed the crestfallen with her legendary head pets, welcomed all into her home, made delicious meals from seemingly empty cupboards, and took the incessant teasing from her children like a champ. As a devoted member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, she served a mission as a young woman in Colombia and Venezuela and later with her husband in Salt Lake City and on Temple Square. She taught countless lessons and otherwise served the Lord she loved in every aspect of her life. Ree never shied away from an adventure, whether skiing black diamonds, paragliding in the Swiss Alps, or road tripping across the country with a friend, 10 kids, and no A/C. Ree delighted in hyperbole; thus no experience was trivial. She was the eternal optimist and had a keen ability to both recognize and create beauty in absolutely everything.
If you would like you can share a memory of Renon here or here.
Ree's Artist Statement
In elementary school I hand-wrote and illustrated small comic books which I sold for ten-cents a copy. Building on these innate talents to write and illustrate, I became both a professional writer and an artist, twice blessed with a peculiar ability to hear, see and then translate. Through learning and discipline, I fine tuned my writing instincts with intelligence and analysis and my painting from technique alone to inspiration fueled by emotion and abandonment.
Artist Edgar Payne writes: “We say a painting is beautiful because (the artist has painted)…deeper mysterious qualities that lie beyond the definition of man.”* This is true. As a writer I often find it baffling to express in written word truths about the human experience that art so instantly and powerfully reveals in image. I feel satisfaction and accomplishment as a writer; I feel elation and reverence as an artist.
I find poignant messages in objects or places that range from the obviously glorious to what some may consider mundane but which, upon reflection, create a strange familiarity and longing. The texture, colors and design of one subject may best be expressed in abstract. Another, realism. I may feel that the mood requires pencil, watercolor, pastel or oil. Thus, like hitting high “A” on a keyboard, which makes a tuning fork vibrate, I feel the vibration emanating from a subject and it is that particular clarity I hope to capture in my work.
*Payne, Edgar. Landscape Composition. P. 18, DeRu’s Fine Art Books. 1995.
