Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
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They had a dream that they worked together to fulfill – and they did. Twenty-nine years ago, Ed Harri (who grew up in Dayton) and his wife Pat launched the Wenaha Gallery at 219 East Main Street. The couple, who both loved art, decided to share that love with Ed’s hometown by opening up an art and framing gallery in 1993. Though the Harri’s lived in Salem, OR, they hired excellent associates who kept in daily contact with them. Ed and Pat also drove regularly from Oregon to Washington to be in the gallery in person and connect with their clien...
Money and time. Most people wish they had more of both. Rare is the person who feels they have adequate amounts of each. But as important and necessary as money and time are, there are two elements that are just as, or even more important-two elements that we simply can't get too much of: Hope and encouragement. Watercolor painter Shawna Wright focuses on these two elements in her paintings. The Milton-Freewater, Ore., artist, who began seriously painting five years ago, creates watercolor...
Many little girls dream about weddings – their own, someday, but also just the magical beauty of it all. There's so much sparkle and gleam, the shimmering beauty of jewels and satin and lace. It's a world of princesses and fairy tales, but a world that is real as well. "When I was a very young girl – five years old – my favorite thing I owned was a bride doll," says College Place jewelry artist Sharon Demaris. "I loved her beautiful satin and lace dress with all of the sequins and pearl...
Even in the most beautiful places, it's easy to walk by and not notice our surroundings. If we're more focused on our thoughts, or our phone, we don't pay attention to what's under our feet, over our head, or all around us. Unless, of course, we're hiking with Doug Paulson. The Salem photographer, who describes himself as a "gotta know why" kind of guy, notices detail, and because he doesn't like keeping good things to himself, he mentions those details. "I will go on walks with people, and...
Not all people, upon retirement, stop working. Some people, like Nancy Monacelli of Walla Walla, find themselves working long days, all through the week, and enjoying every moment of it. "I launched my business three years ago when I flunked retirement," the confectioner, who creates artisan toffees, chocolates, and snacks from recipes she has been refining for the last 30 years, says. "For years, I made baskets of my candy for family, friends, and co-workers, as well as to take to gatherings...
Some people are observant, and others . . . not so much. For an artist, it helps to NOT be in the "not so much" category. "I have always loved detail," says Walla Walla acrylic painter Mary Soper. "My husband told me once that he really didn't notice things until he married me. I was constantly pointing out unusual or beautiful things to him that attracted my attention." Not only does Soper notice the world around her, she wonders about what she sees. On passing an old pickup truck, abandoned al...
There is an art to living. Now if we want to, we can limit ourselves to being very "scientific" about it, describing life as the process of breathing, of specific physiological procedures taking place when and how they should. Under a microscope, life wraps around molecules and cells, hormones, energy consumption, chemistry, entropy and a host of other factors students encounter in textbooks and the general populace reads about in newspapers, blogs, and internet sites. If there's any mystery...
It's not until you spend time in the city that you realize how much space there is in the country. As a lifelong small town girl, I consider "city" to mean Spokane, Portland, or anything on the west side of Washington State nestled next to Puget Sound. I can't even imagine Hong Kong. And while I enjoy the sights and sounds and lights and activity of the city, what I love about the country is its landscapes-those winding gravel roads that leisurely wend their way past meadows and fields, "empty"...
One of a kind. This is what every human being is. And, when human beings use their hands, hearts, and imaginations, look at what they create: one-of-a-kind works of art. It’s easy to forget this simple, yet profound truth. We live in a world filled with big stores, which themselves are filled with quantities of products, many of which are mass produced to look exactly like their mates, which can run into the thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions. These items may be pretty, they m...
It's easy to forget that we live in an incredibly beautiful area. Mountains, meadows, farmland, trees, and – easily underlooked because we forget to look up – clouds: these elements of our landscape invite us to think big and expand our world. Nancy Richter thrives in this big, expansive, and beautiful world. The Kennewick photographer, who grew up in Montana's Big Sky Country, especially loves clouds. "I love them all – pink and salmon, fluffy, lenticular and cirrus, stormy and wild," Richt...
Many times, when people attend art festivals and see an item they like, they say, “I could make that myself.” And then they never do. But Nancy Waldron is different. The first time the Colfax artist saw a rope basket in a catalog, she figured it would be no problem replicating the item, and proceeded to try. “I figured I could make my own,” Waldron remembers. “Being a team roper, I had more than a few old ropes lying around. “Well I was wrong. I had no clue how to make them. My first attem...
Anyone who has driven Highway 101 on the Washington, Oregon, and California coasts knows that it's not something you rush through. The road winds and wends, there are few places to pass, and your speed is often dictated by the driver in front of you. But for Yakima artist Paul Henderson, that's okay. The acrylic painter and his wife decided that life was too short to rush, and focused on doing something they had always wanted to do: drive Highway 101, slowly. "We took a 16-day trip on Highway...
Many people are attached to their first baby blanket, and a surprising number of adults still possess it in parts or entirety. Generally, it's a quilt, fuzzy fleece, or knitted/crocheted heirloom. Artist Sandra Haynes possesses such an heirloom, but it's . . . different from the standard baby blanket. Haynes' childhood treasure is a bobcat hide, taken from an animal that her mother shot when it was raiding the family henhouse. "Being around wild animals has always been a part of my life,"...
Around the age of 10, a certain percentage of girls goes crazy nuts for horses. Artist Alison Oman of Clarkston was one of these girls, and her experience was idyllic: she learned to ride in the fields and parks around her home in London, England, just like a character in a book. Adding to her passion for horses was the discovery of drawing, which meant that when she wasn't riding horses, she was drawing them. Years later, upon moving to the U.S. and becoming a citizen, Oman added a third love...
It's rare to take a country walk without seeing them. Hidden in the grass, hiding behind trees, half in and out of ditches: rusty old decaying trucks peek out, inviting us – pleadingly -- to stop a moment and look. "Every old truck has a history of service," says Walla Walla watercolor painter Randy Klassen. "They transported all kinds of material from its base to where it was needed: agricultural products, machinery, lumber, and all kinds of items." Like people, every truck has its history, b...
Treasure hunting doesn't have to involve sunken Spanish galleons and buried chests of gold doubloons. Today, we encounter treasures in vintage stores, second-hand shops, yard sales – and people with an eye out for repurposing the past into art for the present get really excited about their finds. "I collect all sorts of objects," says Jennifer Schock, a Dayton artist who creates both jewelry and hand-crafted cards using unique vintage elements. "These collected things wait in the closet until I...
A column by Carolyn Henderson Plein air painters get used to all sorts of weather. Because of the nature of their studio – outside, in the plain air – they operate without a roof over their heads. Unless, of course, they choose to bring one of their own. "During the Paint du Nord Quick Draw competition in Duluth, MN, we painted in a huge rainstorm," watercolor artist Jan Vogtman remembers. "The competition lasted two hours, exactly – they blow a horn to start and stop." Told to paint what she s...
By the time most of us become adults, we have stopped making mud pies in the back yard. But for potter Kassie Smith of Moscow, Ida., the activities of childhood have morphed into the artisanship of adulthood. "I get to play in the dirt every day, and it's awesome," the artist says. Smith, who holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Idaho, juggles a number of pursuits in her career as an artist: she is a ceramics technician and instructor at Washington State University. When she's not...
Many artists find their studio space too small. They dream of something bigger, grander, more spacious. Spokane oil painter Teresa Adaszynska, however, doesn't complain about the size of her studio because it's . . . well, pretty big. "I have a separate studio space in my home," Adaszynska explains, "but I consider the majestic outdoors of the Pacific Northwest as my personal favorite studio." Other studios this landscape painter has enjoyed have been, literally, in the Colorado Rockies,...
If you think 101 Dalmatians is impressive, you should see 103 carved fish. That's how many wooden fish sculptures Tom Schirm, a habitat biologist for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, has carved over the last 25 years. Considering that each sculpture takes between 80 and 200-plus hours, that's a lot of time with both hand and power carving tools, airbrushes, and paint to turn several pieces of exotic hardwood into not only a fish, but the habitat in which it lives. Because, you...
ost of the time, it's not par- ticularly pleasant being bitten by a bug. Ticks, mos- quitoes, bees, killer ants, and large, ag- gressive, unidentifiable buzzing things with wings tend to provoke adverse emotional and physical reactions in hu- man beings. But there is one bug that artist Sum- mer Barcenas welcomes being attacked, and bitten, by: "I was bitten by the travel bug years ago, and continuous travel is my medi- cine," the Walla Walla painter says. "The main theme of my art is wan-...
Not everyone is interested in pursuing a career in science or math, which is fortunate, because if the whole planet were filled with scientists and mathematicians, there would be no artists. "I struggled through all the academics of high school but found refuge in my art and shop classes," says Dennis Zupan, a potter of extraordinary ability who spent 30 years teaching pottery and jewelry making at public schools, colleges, and universities. He considers art vital and necessary "refuge classes"...
Nobody likes deprivation, being without, suffering a lack of something needed. But sometimes, our very hardships are what make the difference, prompting us to wrack our brains for a creative solution. This is the option Walla Walla artist David Partridge took 60 years ago when his 4th grade teacher assigned the class to each carve a buffalo out of Ivory soap. "My family did not have the money for a bar of Ivory Soap," Partridge recalls. "The teacher, Mrs. Hill, wanted to know what I was going...
There is a joke – more true than funny – that most people who graduate with a particular degree never use it in their eventual career. Kennewick photographer John Clement, who graduated from Central Washington University with double degrees in geography and geology, sort of kind of uses his degrees because he takes photos of landscapes from all over the world. But what really factored in his eventual career was the one elective class he took in photography. "I had to borrow a camera to get thr...
A column by Carolyn Henderson There's a lot more you can do with an old horseshoe than nail it over your doorway for luck. At least, if you're Annie Behlau of Milton-Freewater, who creates sculptures of everything from Scottish Terriers to modern dancers, using old horseshoes and their ilk. "I gather steel scrap from salvage yards, junk piles, yard sales, and farms," the artist, who raised her now grown family on a 100-acre farm just outside of Dayton says. "I also use horseshoes gotten from my...
