Carving a New Path
Deb Armstrong works on a watercolor plate she made for a print based on Grand Canyon basalt. Photo courtesy of Deb Armstrong.
Early on a summer morning in Steamboat Springs, Olympic gold medalist Deb Armstrong is raring to get to class. The renowned skier has made a life and career as a professional skier and instructor, but for once she is the student and this time she won’t be on skis. Her new passion is art –printmaking to be specific – and like everything she does in life, she’s taken to it with the tenacity of a champion.
“She’s the first to arrive and the last to leave,” says instructor and master printmaker Sue Oehme. “I always tease her because she approaches making art as if she’s on the hill, in the ready position.”
During Covid, Deb took an interest in printmaking, ordered supplies and set about creating a series of linoleum block prints depicting her three favorite mountains: Mount Rainier, Mount Fuji and the Matterhorn.
“This was a brain exercise for me,” Deb says. “For the first time in a long time, I was back on the green run and looking at something through a different set of goggles.”
After dabbling with the mountain range concept, Deb set her sights on the Northern Lights. She signed up for a class at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass, where she put in about 14 hours a day. “It’s the only time in my life where I had to be somewhere for that length of time and only leave to eat and sleep."
She recently signed up for another of Sue’s workshops with the end game of holding her first solo show.
"This time around, with four years under my belt, I’m using the lingo, producing content and it feels like I’m skiing new terrain,” she says. “I’m excited to watch my body of work unfold, and every time I see a vision executed on a plate or paper, it’s like executing a perfect run.”
Deb’s show is set to open on First Friday ArtWalk in February 2026 at the Depot Art Center in her hometown of Steamboat. “It is pretty incredible as Deb wasn’t an artist in the traditional sense and the show visually merges the two aspects of her life,” Sue says.
Lifesize full-body images of Deb during her athletic career have been desaturated and will function as wallpaper and a backdrop to the display which depicts her creative journey. “It’s been a beautiful thing to witness Deb finding and owning her artist self,” Sue says.
When the doors open in February there will be very few nerves. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think there was an artist in me,” Deb says. “I’m very proud of what I’ve accomplished.” The show will once again put her back in the spotlight and reiterate what those at the top of their game know: practice makes perfect.