“Adventures on the Gringo Trail:

An Artist’s Awakening” by Leeann Lidz

In 1974, at the height of hippie culture, women's liberation and sexual freedom, the author set off on a journey that lasted nineteen months through Central and South America and included the birth of her daughter in the Andean highlands of Ecuador. As an artist, she kept a journal of over 100 pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations of the places she visited. Traveling with her eccentric boyfriend by train, plane, bus, ship and hitchhiking, she encountered many unusual situations and people and even a tropical disease that a local healer called leprosy. She tells the unique story of her travels and her evolution as an artist and mother living in Ecuador in a time before technology.

Leeann Lidz has been a painter and artist for the last fifty years. She has worked in pen-and-ink, watercolors, acrylics, mosaics and more.  Her style is described as “naïve or primitive” with bright colors, hard edges and interesting detail. She had numerous shows and won many awards for her work. Leeann spent years traveling through Europe, Israel and Central and South America. She took art supplies with her while traveling through Latin America and the drawings and paintings she did there became the basis for this book. She found that creating art on location was a spiritual experience like meditation and looking at her completed work would bring her back to its place in time. Leeann’s goal as an artist is to spread love and peace through the world with her own artwork and teaching others to be creative. One of her dreams was to paint a large mural, and in 1991 she painted a 500 square foot mural on the side of a gymnasium in Ventura with local children and gang members. She was instrumental in developing a creative arts program for foster children and youth-at-risk, called Kids’ Arts. Leeann is currently retired and lives in Ferndale, California. She continues to paint and write.

Free admission, all donations gratefully invited. There will be a slide show and Andean music accompanying the selected readings. Refreshments for sale. A Q&A will follow with book sales & signing. OCA’s facilities are accessible to people with disabilities.