BY KAREN BOSSICK

Pamela Street has been painting outdoors for years. But, as she attempted to paint a narrow cobblestone street in France, she found herself without the one tool in her paint box that could have helped: Night vision goggles.

Street, a longtime ski racer, coach and instructor, was asked to paint in the dark as part of a painter’s workshop she took in September in France.

“It was interesting because I didn’t know what the painting would look like until daylight,” said Street, who had to mix her paints using only the light from a lonely streetlamp. “A few people used flashlights. But the paintings made without the aid of flashlights turned out better than those made with.”

Street’s painting from that night—“Nocturne”—is among the works she is showing as part of a new exhibition at Leadville Espresso house at 411 N. Leadville Ave., Ketchum.

Street and Ketchum artist Tina Cole are taking viewers on a tour of the world through their art in the “Journeys in Art” exhibition, which runs through Dec. 31.

And both will be present during an opening exhibition from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 9. They will also be on hand to discuss their art from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Dec. 29, during the Christmas Gallery Walk.

Street is showing her new oil paintings from France, as well as pen and ink drawings of a trip she took several years ago to the “Forbidden Wilderness” on the Mongolian-Chinese border.

Coles is showing watercolors from travels she’s made to Nepal, Tibet, Peru, Mongolia and, most recently, Hokkaido, Japan, where she got to ski in one of the snowiest places on earth.

Street grew up building sculptures out of almond paste and painting them with tempera paints made from egg yolks, thanks to her father Bud, an artist and head pastry chef for Sun Valley for 24 years.

But she put her own art on hold until she’d seen her two children off to college.

“When they left, I told myself, ‘I finally have time. I’m going to go for it!’ ” said Street, who counts local artists like Kim Howard, Jineen Griffith and Robert Moore among her influences.

Street met two young painters—one French and the other Russian—at a workshop in Boise recently. She was so impressed with their work that she followed them to France for the workshop. One had studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in France; the other, at a prestigious art school in Russia.

“I liked that they’re both young and progressive in their style. They use very thick paints, free brush strokes. Their impressionism is looser than the Impressionistic masters,” she said.

In France Street found herself painting in the French village of Raviere, which is situated in the rolling hills of Burgundy three hours east of Paris.

Wielding a palette knife, which she believes allows her to get a looser feel, she painted a castle well,  country house by a canal, a fountain garden,  a chateau in the town of Nuits and a bridge in Lyon. She also painted the oldest building in Raviere--sagging half-timbers and all.

“It was built in the 1600s,” she noted. “Most buildings like it have fallen down or been torn down.”

Streets’ paintings were exhibited at the Bourgogne Art Galerie following the workshop.

“Antonin said he likes my style, which made me feel great. He said I have a good feel for value, which is one of the hardest things to do. And he noted that I’m not afraid to use a lot of paints and colors,” she said.

While France presented its own set of challenges, including a much more humid clime that meant paint took longer to dry, it was time that challenged Street as she tried to document her 19-horse pack trip in Mongolia.

She was there to cook meals for 14 people, including National Geographic photographer David Edwards as they traveled over the rocky granite terrain and forest-steppe of the Altai Mountains.

They were the first non-Mongolian group ever allowed to explore the area.

“It actually looks very much like the Sawtooth Basin but with tundra instead of grass,” she said. “The latitude is the same as here so the wildflowers were similar.”

Calling on her experience as a backcountry ski guide, Street made Dutch oven sheepherder bread and frittatas using powdered eggs, which are a staple among Mongolians since they travel so much. She fleshed out the meals with sausages and root crops and some berries she found along the way.

“I had to plan the meals out exactly because there was no place to get anything for three weeks,” Street said.

Between the horse riding and cooking, she only had time for quick sketches in pen and ink. There was no time to mix paints and let canvases dry.

But Street couldn’t help but draw her impressions of the natives, who she said resemble American Indians and with good reason since Native Americans  originated there and crossed over on a land bridge.

“The government gets each family a satellite dish and TV so children can take their classes on TV. Then they go into town twice a year for what you might call an educational Olympics where they’re tested on what they know,” she said.

Among Street’s favorite subjects were the  Kazakh hunters, who hunt red and corsac foxes and hares with golden eagles. She also could not help but document the Mongolians with their traditional embroidered felted wool robes called dells.

“I fell in love with their beautiful clothing. They decorate themselves because they can—that’s their art.”