When she was two and a half years old, Diane Spence-Chorman got her first spanking after she was caught drawing on the walls of her family’s home.

“The next day I did it again and the day after that,” she said. “The joke in my family was that either I was a dedicated artist or a slow learner.”

And a dedicated artist she has been, her creative journey from that early age spurred on more seriously from the mid-1960s onward, in a trajectory of painting to photography to arts exhibition and fundraising to teaching and back to painting. Through March, community members can view a small showing of Spence-Chorman’s work at the Homer Public Library’s Fireplace Lounge. There, 14 oil paintings, inspired by scenes from her years living on the Kenai Peninsula, are on display, including a couple of florals, one wildlife, and several landscapes.

“Landscapes are what bind my heart to Alaska,” she said. “No matter what the season, there are always spectacular views worth translating onto canvas.”

Spence-Chorman likes to photograph scenes and return to them later to paint.

“I used to paint more plein air (outside), but here in Alaska we spend so much time indoors that I started getting more comfortable working from photos,” she said.

Included in her display at the library is “Pasque Flower,” a painting done in 2014 of the little purple flower that were her late husband Dale’s favorite.

“He grew these flowers outside his shop and just loved them,” she said.

“Great Horned Owl” is her most recent painting of those on display, created last year from a photograph a friend took.

“The owl was pretty small in the photo, so I enlarged it and painted from there in order to capture many of the fine details,” she said.

“Halibut Cove” is one of her landscape paintings and depicts a colorful house on stilts, a common scene in communities across Kachemak Bay, like Halibut Cove. For this piece, the artist took a photo, reversed the image and applied techniques she has been practicing for the past year that include incorporating an under painting of a thin, light layer and then painting on top in bright, bold colors.

“I really enjoyed painting the different sections and using the bright, bold colors,” she said. “In this one, I didn’t put as much detail in as I normally might because I really liked where it was at, so I stopped. It’s easy to overwork a painting, so I got to put not doing that into practice with this one as well. Knowing when to stop is its own art.”

While she has dabbled in other mediums, including watercolors, she prefers oils.

“I find working with the thick paint of oils very exciting,” she said. “I like to be able to play with the medium and let the image emerge rather than starting from a specific image and trying to duplicate it. I also like oil because you can make a sloppy mess and paint over top and change it. You can’t necessarily do that with other mediums.”

Spence-Chorman has, beyond that very early age of her first spanking, been encouraged to pursue her creativity by teachers and family members, most especially her father who was in the Navy and whose job had the family moving every few years, as well as her fellow artists and community members.

While in grade eight and living in New Orleans, her school’s art department had no budget, but a teacher used her own creativity to inspire her students.

“For an entire semester, this teacher had us bring the classifieds section from the newspaper in as our daily homework,” she said. “She purchased charcoal pieces with her own money, and we took turns sitting on the table while the rest of the class drew us on the classifieds that were a gray sheet, the closest thing to a big blank sheet of paper and free. Looking back, this lesson was all about hand/eye coordination and I think I learned more from that class than any other.”

When she was in junior high school, the family moved to Hawaii, but by the time she had been enrolled, the art class was full. A month later, her father told her that there was a woman in the neighborhood who taught painting in her garage and that she should sign up.

“I had been playing with watercolor painting up to that point, but I really wanted to study oil painting and for the next six to eight weeks, that’s what I did after school,” she said. “She was teaching just a few of us and she had us choose photos from magazines and paint them. I learned a lot from her, including how to lay out a pallet and which basic colors to buy. We took the painting seriously, but she made it fun.”

After high school, Spence-Chorman attended Beloit College in Wisconsin, majoring in Foreign Language as a way to study and travel abroad. When she returned to the States, she began taking all art classes, switched her major to art and graduated with a B.A. in Art.

With a newfound passion for black and white photography, she studied photography at Penland School of Arts and Crafts in North Carolina and spent the next 10 years doing dark room photography work in photo labs, freelancing and with the American Red Cross.

“I loved the ability to take a roll of film and turn it into photos,” she said.

In 1979, eager for more adventure, she backpacked to Alaska and traveled a bit before settling in Homer.

“I saw immediately how creative this community is, and I was drawn to that,” she said.

For several years she worked at the Pratt Museum doing fundraising development and helping with exhibits.

“Back then, the museum was where the art exhibits were held and working there was a nice and gentle reconnection with an art crowd,” she said.

After returning to school to get a master’s in education at University of Alaska Anchorage, Spence met her husband-to-be, started a family and spent 20 years teaching art and then art history at Kachemak Bay Campus. She retired in 2015, lost interest in photography when it went digital, and returned to oil painting.

“I dipped my toe back in by taking a class with Jim Buncak,” she said. “I love how he paints and how he teaches. That reignited my desire to paint and I’ve been painting ever since.”

For the past five years, she and Homer artist and friend, Cindy Nelson, have been getting together on Fridays to paint, rotating between their respective studios, and occasionally with other artists joining in. She also paints regularly with Gerri Martin, another Homer artist.

“I’m happiest when I’m painting three to four days a week, though it’s usually twice a week,” she said. “Not all day, but just one and a half hours or so. That keeps the paint wet and there’s a flow and ease in knowing instinctively which brush and colors to reach for. If I don’t paint regularly, I lose that ease.”

While the pieces on display at the library are not currently for sale, her paintings can be found in the Pratt Museum gift shop, and she is happy to take inquiries. She also has plans for future local exhibits, both solo and group shows.

“In college, I had an art teacher who used to ridicule what he considered ‘living room art,’” she said. “It took me 45 years to realize that’s exactly what I want to create. I don’t have a big message I’m trying to share and I’m not painting for notoriety. I just want to give people something enjoyable to look at.

“I’m inspired by the beauty of living here and I hope my paintings spark a flash of recall or suggest a memory that’s almost-but-not-quite identifiable — colors, seasons, native flora and geography … something that reminds the viewer of our surroundings, causing us to take notice once again, as we have so many times before.”

Spence-Chorman’s work can be viewed at the library through March.

“Riot of Peonies” is an oil painting by Diane Spence-Chorman, shown alongside 12 other original paintings through March in the Homer Public Library’s Fireplace Lounge in Homer, Alaska. Photo provided by Diane Spence Chorman

“A Slough Full,” an oil painting done by Diane Spence-Chorman in 2024, is on display through March in the Homer Public Library’s Fireplace Lounge in Homer, Alaska. Photo provided by Diane Spence-Chorman

”Cove Light,” an oil painting by Diane Spence-Chorman featuring a cabin in Halibut Cove, is on display in her exhibit through March in the Homer Public Library’s Fireplace Lounge in Homer, Alaska. Photo provided by Diane Spence-Chorman