Shaila Huth stands with the beautiful mural she painted at the Pepsi Cola Theatre.

Shaila Peterson Huth has come a long way from drawing pictures as a fourth grader in Jill Olson’s classroom at Woonsocket Elementary School. That was the year she moved to Woonsocket with her mom and military father, Duane and Fran Peterson, and began sharing with friends the drawings she had done at home with sharpies on poster board.
There was not an art class offered when she was in high school, but the year after she graduated from Woonsocket High School in 1997, an art class was started that was taught over the Sanborn Interactive Video Network (SIVN). She found that pretty ironic, especially since she had decided to make art her career.
Shaila attended Northern State College in Aberdeen and graduated with a double major in Fine Arts and Advertising Design. During that time and since, her art has evolved into a unique style that she calls Midwestern art.
Peterson will share and explain her art when her commissioned mural is unveiled at the Pepsi Cola Theatre in Mitchell on Monday, Feb. 22 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at an informal reception.
The procedural journey to this occasion started with an online contest that Shaila entered, requiring a submission of her artwork critiqued by unknown judges. From that submission, she was one of four finalists entered into online and live voting at the Theatre. To her surprise, her entry won and she was commissioned to paint the mural in the lobby of the Pepsi Cola Theatre. What an honor for this once small-town girl, and what a thrill for those who know her!
While painting the mural in Mitchell during October of 2015, she left her studio in Lead, her husband and five-year-old son, and moved back to her parental home in Woonsocket with her two-year-old son, allowing her the time to paint and her parents the time to enjoy their grandson. She said she truly enjoyed spending time in Woonsocket again and seeing the changes and development in the area.
Shaila’s art subjects are nature, and she enjoys participating in “plein air” events in the Black Hills area, which is a French term meaning “in the open air”. Her love of that is very evident in her oil and watercolor  paintings, as flowers, trees and scenes of nature flow from her brush.
Peterson’s paintings are displayed at the “Art Forms” Gallery in Hill City, the Lead Deadwood Arts Center, the Dahl Gift Shop in Rapid City and the South Dakota Art Gallery in Mitchell. She also has a Web site, www.shailapetrson.com, where her artwork can be viewed and prints purchased.