Andy Tullis / The BulletinPaddleboarders make their way upstream while recreating in the Deschutes river near the Old Mill district in Bend Wednesday afternoon 6-25-14.

On June 25, Olympic decathlon champion Ashton Eaton tweeted, “My dreams were her life. Now it’s her turn. July 4th my MOM has her 1st artshow at @nakedwinery at @oldmilldistrict!”

Eaton was referring, of course, to his mother, Roslyn “Roz” Eaton. A single mom who sometimes worked two and three jobs during her son’s childhood in La Pine and Bend, she remained a supporter and presence during a college career at the University of Oregon and his career as a record-setting track athlete.

His tweet was also referring to the opening of his mom’s first-ever public showing of her art, “Ladies in Waiting,” a series of acrylic, mixed-media and charcoal female figures, faces and nudes. The exhibit opens at Bend’s Naked Winery during this evening’s First Friday Gallery Walk (see “If you go”).

All the works in Eaton’s first solo show will be for sale, and a portion of the proceeds will go to a nonprofit that helps children, though she hasn’t yet decided which.

After Ashton graduated from Mountain View High School and headed to UO in 2006, Roslyn Eaton said, empty nest syndrome hit her hard.

She turned to painting.

“I went to Michaels art supply and I got a $5 thing of watercolors, brushes and some paper,” she said.

In 2010, Eaton participated in a First Friday group show at an area flower shop, but with the approach of the 2012 Olympics, she traveled as much as she could to her son’s track meets, including some out of state.

“We were just really focused on Ashton’s goal,” she said. “Then, after the Olympics, it was just, ‘What am I going to do with myself?’ Embarking on your own personal journey is exciting, but it’s also scary.”

Roslyn has no formal art training, and is not sure what brought her to drawing and painting other than having “always been drawn to beauty,” she said.

“I can’t do anything realistic. Clearly, these are all kind of whimsical ladies,” said Eaton, who makes her living as a bookkeeper.

“I buy this canvas and I just kind of start slapping paint on it, and it just turns out to be something. It’s a process that I’m enthralled with. It’s an amazing process,” she said. “I have no preconceived idea of what’s going to be on the canvas.”

Some of the paintings are period works of 19th-century women. Stories begin to emerge during the hours she spends painting.

“She just kind of evolves, which is fun because I imagine what her life was like,” Eaton said. “At the end, when I see the finished product, I say, ‘Hello, how are you? Nice to meet you.’

“I feel like my artwork is changing. Already, I’ve gone from little to really big canvases,” she said. “(Now) I’m starting charcoal, which I’ve never done before in my life. I’ve never done any of this before.”

She hopes to do more of it. Roslyn said that Ashton and his wife, track and field athlete Brianne Theisen-Eaton, have asked Roslyn where she envisions herself years down the road.

“And I say, ‘I’d love to be in Mexico on a beach somewhere painting and have my grandchildren surrounding me,’” she said.

“And Ashton says, ‘Well, let’s consider that your Olympics.’ And he said, ‘I’m not sure that we can supply the surround part, but hopefully more than one grandchild.’

“So that’s my Olympics, you know?” she said. “That’s my goal.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0349, djasper@bendbulletin.com