Lyons Bruno doesn’t have a conventional “artistic” background. She didn’t go to art school—or any college. She left high school at 16, when she married. But she does have something that many artists who produce arresting works possess—a compelling history of personal struggle. Lyons Bruno grew up impoverished in Cranberry, West Virginia, a coal company town where money was scant and art nonexistent. In fact, indoor plumbing had yet to reach Cranberry when Lyons Bruno lived there in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Her father was a coal miner; her mother raised nine children. “We lived in the hollows, where our clan was all we saw,” says Lyons Bruno, now 62. “We only socialized with family, but it was a humongous family.”
After she married her husband, Rick, then studying to become a commercial photographer, she joined him on shooting trips around the country. Half out of boredom, half seeking a means of self-expression, she started taking pictures herself, and painting as well. Rick says she was a natural talent. “Lenny’s first roll of film produced an image that won a $1,000 Best In Show award.” As their careers grew, they both sold photos to museums such as the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and the Detroit Institute of the Arts. The couple made a living traveling the outdoor festival circuit for more 30 years, selling their photographs and paintings at dozens of shows each year. They lived in Florida, then Georgia before eventually “retiring” to Lexington about three years ago. They had been introduced to the town by the original owner of the Lexington Art Gallery, which the Brunos now own. “We fell in love with the area and decided this was where we wanted to live,” she says.
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