About Me

“When I’m painting I consider myself a RAW LAND PAINTER.

In 2010 I literally began painting in “ The Swamp”, feeling that if I could paint in a place of such disorder I would learn to find the knowledge of what I needed to find my way and maybe separate from the herd.

It didn’t quite work out that way and there were many hard lessons learning to find “The Quirk in the Work” I learned  to handle a brush and knife that works for me in the solitude of snow, sun and rain the last five years. “I’ve killed seven water buffalo at nice water holes,”…  I’ve lost a few paintings along the way.

My style is basically, Alfred Sisley , Pissaro,  mixed with the teachings of Joeseph Paquet.

I grew up in Spring Lake, a small community in central Minnesota. I had to wear gloves, long sleeve shirts and jeans at all times due to allergies. That didn’t keep me in summer from exploring the woods and rolling hills of the country side. When I worked with his father who was a masonry worker I tended some jobs in Stillwater. The drive from Spring Lake was especially beautiful as we came into Stillwater with its rolling hills, ponds and lakes. As the sun was setting on the way back I decided some dayI would like to move there.

Since 1986 I have drawn a lot of the advertising concepts coming out of Minneapolis for print, television, research, focus group ideas and pitches for new clients. I was mainly at Fallon McElligott / Fallon Worldwide drawing up their ideas from 1986 thru 2000 and had to change up for every category, automotive to fashion, insurance to agriculture, banking to new product ideas. Always working on the fly.  This is what I’ve applied to painting; every place has a different need and feel. So I handle oil painting as I handled markers, loose and get the essence of the place distilled down to the core. Of course there is a difference technically but I still look for the raw land under the painting. Since the digital computer generation began for me roughly in 2000 I’ve known the time was coming to move on and paint. I remember when I was a kid, the guy with the chain saw knocked off Paul Bunyan and Babe. Paul’s mile high stack of wood was beaten by new technology, the chain saw by a fraction of an inch.  Times change but  believe that I’ve been beaten by only a fraction of an inch !

Have a 1913 Hudson 6-54 speedster that I had a ground up restoration by Odyssey Restorations from 1995 thru 1997. It is the highest decorated Hudson in existence and has won at all the major concours in the country. The high point coming in 1998 when we won “Most Elegant Open Car” at the Pebble Beach Concours de’Elegance. That year both prewar and post war were combined, double down !  I have always expected to win whether it’s a concours or a pitch for new clients.

Unrolled the tux in my backpack and celebrated the year 2000 on the streets and the casino in Monte Carlo. On the first day of the new century I watched the sun set on the beach in Nice France and knew that was as far as I could go alone.

I met Jame’ Sheehan and got married in 2001. Maciah came along in 2005 and we moved our family to a bigger house on the north edge of Stillwater Minnesota. I paint the area north of Stillwater where my dad drove us to do cement work in times gone by. We also have an Australian shepherd named Stella !

The light and synergy of place is all important to me,

RAW LAND PAINTING      Carl Cedergren