Saguaro and a Cholla by Lee Phillips #605

Lee Phillips was like a modern-day renaissance man. Although an architect by trade, he was a watercolorist, jeweler, ceramicist, and jazz pianist. It seemed that Lee could produce wonderful art out of any material; all of which would make people smile.

Lee taught himself how to draw and paint landscapes and he did so wherever he lived. Lee and his wife, Michelle, moved from Monterey, CA to the San Juan Islands off the coast of Seattle, WA, and finally to Fountain Hills, AZ. As he developed as an artist, his style evolved many times and he played with color, composition and level of detail.

When he arrived in Arizona, he fell in love with the desert – walking and photographing desert scenes nearly every day. He often said that he "painted to see the world more clearly and to thereby better understand and appreciate it". The desert appeared to him to be the result of extreme light and heat. He realized that the light, both direct and reflected, results in faded colors and shadows, resulting in landscapes with a more uniform set of tonal values and and less contrast. The heat creates plants and trees with visually soft edges that seem to blend together. To Lee, the beauty of the desert lay in the soft, faded, subtle colors and textures.

Lee’s interest in jewelry art began in 1987 when taking basic jewelry classes at Monterey Peninsula Community College.

He started to expand beyond the basics and developed his own style which was heavily influenced by the various architectural styles he worked with every day. Each piece was fabricated by hand using a variety of techniques. He often worked in a series which explored a particular design idea or jewelry-making technique. Although there were always several pieces in a series, each one was designed to be unique and explore the idea he was working with from a slightly different angle. It was through this process that he continued to learn and grow as an artist.

Sadly, Lee passed in the fall of 2022. Crane and Crow Gallery is honored to be the exclusive gallery for his remaining paintings and jewelry.