The artist known as Neltje was born Neltje Doubleday, daughter of Nelson Doubleday of Doubleday Publishing. Neltje's recent memoir, North of Crazy, is a passionate, compelling, and frank chronicling of an extraordinary life, from her parents' alcoholism and near-abandonment in childhood to finding peace as an abstract expressionist painter living and working in northern Wyoming.
This wide-ranging discussion with Neltje covers her troubled childhood and struggles early in life, her joy in finding her sense of place in Wyoming, and how the natural world and her emotional response to it informs not only her paintings, but also her sense of peace and connection to the present. Neltje also discusses the Jentel Arts Residency, a year-round artist residency in Wyoming she founded in 2001.
