Strawberry Days brings Glenwood Springs to life each summer with a parade, concerts, fresh strawberries and an array of vendors offering everything from food to handcrafted goods.

Among the artists setting up shop this year is Tempest Manthei, a Florida native who moved to the Roaring Fork Valley in 2008 and found her home in the mountains.

Before becoming a nurse, Manthei studied fine arts at the University of North Florida. When she relocated to Colorado, she began working as a camp counselor at Anderson Farms before eventually earning her associate and bachelor’s degrees in nursing from Colorado Mountain College.

“I couldn’t be a camp counselor forever,” she said, laughing.

Now a mother of two, Manthei said her art often fills the time when her children are away.

“I have a lot of anxiety,” she said. “It’s a great way to work through it.”

Her creative process sometimes includes her son, who came up with the idea for one of her most popular series — a cactus in the shape of a dinosaur.

“I illustrated it, and then he painted it with watercolors,” Manthei said. “It’s one of my best-selling series. They’re all different kinds of dinosaurs — brontosaurus, stegosaurus, all different kinds — and then we did a bug series.”

The dinosaur series has become especially popular among parents decorating nurseries or kids’ rooms.

“They have a whimsy to them, probably because they come from a child’s perspective,” she said. “They’re so cute.”

Manthei’s solo work focuses more on the natural world — especially flowers — and their intricate details, as seen in her painting “Stellar Orchids.”

“I’ve loved flowers since I was young, especially the little details — the veins, the shape of the petals, all of it,” she said. “They’re my favorite to work on, but I’m also obsessed with the Colorado horizon.”

Manthei said dusk is her favorite time in the mountains, when light casts layered shadows and glows across the peaks.

“I don’t think photographs do it justice — not that there aren’t amazing photos out there — but I think there are so many layers you can get through painting it,” she said.

Her creativity also finds its way into her nursing work, especially in wound care.

“It helps when I need to create a bandage that will fit a person correctly,” she said. “No one is the same, so when a square bandage doesn’t fit an odd place someone might be wounded, it helps to make one that works for their body. It’s like creating a bandage with macrame.”

For this year’s 128th annual Strawberry Days, Manthei was asked to create a piece of art for the event — and she delivered with a bear in sunglasses.

“I wanted it to have things only locals would recognize — a piece for ourselves,” she said.

The artwork features the Glenwood Caverns gondola, Hotel Colorado, the confluence of the Colorado and Roaring Fork rivers, and the cross atop the mountain to the left. The right side includes Doc Holliday’s grave, Annie Zancanella’s Wishing Tree, Manthei’s signature florals and sunglasses made of strawberries.

“They didn’t originally have a background, so I put the sunglasses on a bear,” she said. “It’s also Straw-bear-y Days.”

Manthei said she’s honored to be this year’s featured artist.

“I’ve been a vendor for two years at Strawberry Days now, and before that, I attended every year,” she said. “I didn’t know I could be a vendor unless I was a traveler, but being a local vendor is amazing.”

Being able to walk out her back door with her kids to the river, Manthei said, feels like a dream.

“I used to live on the beach in Florida, and the ocean is wonderful, but the ocean is the ocean is the ocean,” she said. “The mountains and the river — they change every day. Sunlight Mountain is right there. The outdoors are so close, and I love it here.”

Manthei’s business is Columbines to Creatures, and her work can be found on Instagram @columbines2creatures. She will be set up all weekend at Strawberry Days in her vendor tent.