Park City artist Ginny Coombs captures beauty through photography, pastels

PARK CITY, Utah — Ginny Coombs initially favored oil and pastel painting, but photography has become her primary artistic medium. She has displayed her work in Park City galleries for 30 years, beginning with her pastels at Stone Art Gallery, owned by Felix Saez. With his encouragement, she added photographs of local scenery and events to the gallery.

Coombs enjoyed living in Park City, where she could hike the many trails and photograph parades and sporting events. She has also spent years photographing wild horses, researching the animals she encounters. She knows the horses of Utah’s Onaqui herd by name and keeps track of where they have been sighted.

Her work is currently carried by Artworks Gallery and will be featured in the MinersART exhibits in November and December.

At one point, when the Park City Council required that a Main Street storefront not be left vacant, about eight artists from the Park City Artists Association, including Coombs, were invited to create a gallery for local artists. They transformed what was essentially a dark hallway, bringing in lights to highlight their work.

The art world has changed over the years, and so has Coombs and her art.

During the 2002 Winter Olympics, her pastel paintings were represented by a gallery on Main Street in Salt Lake City.

“It was fun to participate in the spirit and excitement of the Olympics venues and be part of the special sport scene,” Coombs said.

At the time, she was working as a systems analyst and software engineer. People often asked how she balanced mathematics and computers with art. To Coombs, it was simply a matter of taking something that exists in three-dimensional space and redesigning its elements in two dimensions. Today, she uses computer tools for minor editing of her photographs.

Her career in technology included work at Sandia Laboratories and, after moving to Utah, in the IT department at Smith’s Food and Drug Centers. She retired from the computer industry in 2000 and has been a full-time artist and travel photographer ever since.

“I want to share the beauty with people and hope they appreciate some of the abstractions and beautiful scenery that we are surrounded with here,” she said.

Her photography has taken her beyond Park City. For one commissioned project, Coombs hired a pilot to fly her over the Great Salt Lake, where she photographed different areas of the lake, including sections with high mineral concentrations, the causeway and the railroad causeway. The photographs were displayed at Union Station in Ogden on a marquee overlooking a model of the Great Salt Lake.

Coombs’ love of horses began in her youth, growing up on a dairy farm where she owned horses. This year, she connected with people concerned about the future of wild horses in the Western United States.

Her photograph of a white stallion from Utah’s Onaqui herd was selected to represent the National Wild Horse & Burro Conference, held in Park City in May. The conference focused on promoting the protection of wild horses in the West Desert.