Public and Private Art — The Metal Sculpture of Joseph Rastovich

October 4, 2016/in abstract, Art, design, Events, furniture, Gallery, Gifts, Home, Home Decor, Lifestyle, Metal Work, Pacific Northwest, Sculpture, Washington/by Carolyn Henderson

Desert Grass, public art piece in Richland, WA, by Joseph Rastovich

Falling metal, flying shrapnel, punishing heat, blinding light, loud noises — it doesn’t sound like an artist’s studio, but then again, the making of Joseph Rastovich’s art doesn’t fit into a small space. The Kennewick artist, whose primary medium is fabricated sculpture in steel, designs wall art, furniture, and lamps, in addition to significantly sized public art pieces.

Lady Tree, side table furniture, by Joseph Rastovich

He started working with metal when he was 14 years old, after inheriting classic cars from both sides of his family.

“I had to learn metal work to fix these cars, and that quickly transformed into my art career,” Rastovich says. “I had a job as a dishwasher at a jazz and wine club during that time and spent my paychecks solely on metal working tools.”

Ten years later, Rastovich’s studio, which is primarily outside his home (“luckily all my neighbors like me and accommodate my unusual profession”), boasts a plethora of the specialty tools necessary for metalwork: welders, plasma cutters, air compressors, grinders, sheet metal roller, clamps, gantry cranes, vises, sandblasters, an oxyacetylene kit, and forklift among others. These are just the tools. Finding the supplies with which to create is another matter.

“Unlike most artists, when I go to an art supply store, there effectively is nothing I can use,” Rastovich says. “Instead, I source my materials and supplies from industrial stores such as steel yards, welding supply stores, and industrial paint stores.”

Tree of Zen, wall art by Joseph Rastovich

The son of two artists — LuAnn Ostergaard, whose box mounted art prints are sold to private and corporate collections nationwide, and Michael Rastovich, an artist of multiple mediums whose resume includes creating a float for the Portland Rose Parade — Rastovich was “unschooled” for much of his educational career, an experience that allowed him to pursue creative endeavors with full focus.

“Curiosity and awe is the foundation of which intelligence is built,” Rastovich says.

“I was free to study philosophy, learn quantum mechanics, create music, look at great art, witness the running of a business, build things, and commune with nature.” The result, for him, is a 21st century Renaissance Man who not only has a passion about everything, but is extremely fit.

“It is a very physical profession,” he explains, one of the reasons he calls himself a metal wrangler, complete with signature cowboy hat, that is, when the situation doesn’t require a hard one.

Vortex sculpture by Joseph Rastovich

“Everything is heavy. Before I bought my forklift, half my time was spent just moving steel plate with pry bars, rollers, and blocking.” And while the forklift has made certain aspects of his job easier, it still isn’t . . . easy. Because the work takes place primarily outside, Rastovich finds himself in all types of weather, ranging from 120 degrees to 0 degrees, from full, blazing sun to pouring rain and falling snow.

Rastovich sells his smaller work through galleries as well as furniture, gift, and jewelry stores throughout the Pacific Northwest. His larger, public works are installed in parks, schools, business districts and hospitals in the Tri-Cities, Spokane, and Tualatin, OR. He also attends select art festivals, including the Sausalito Art Festival in California and the Bellevue Art Festival, both prestigiously difficult to get into.

“At art festivals, I often admire jewelers because their entire inventory fits in a suitcase,” he observes wryly. “I have had shows where I needed to bring a forklift. But alas! I enjoy the scale and gravity of my work.”

Visual art, he believes, is like a static form of music, and like music, has the ability to bring forth powerful emotions in the viewer, from tears to joy, from quiet contemplation to the impulse to dance. It is his goal that his own art, large pieces or small, bring on a sense of awe and inspiration.

“I create art to provide relief from normalcy.

“What was a bare wall of insignificance becomes a reason to stop and slow down.

“What was empty space becomes a place for inspiration.

“What was a normal average day can be transformed into a power memory, when one encounters art.”

Joseph Rastovich is the featured Pacific Northwest Art Event artist from Monday, October 10 through Saturday, November 5.

Contact the gallery, located at 219 East Main Street, Dayton, WA, by phone at 509.382.2124 or e-mail art@wenaha.com. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday through Saturday, and by appointment. Visit the Wenaha Gallery website online at www.wenaha.com.

Wenaha Gallery is your destination location for Greenwich Workshop Fine Art Prints, professional customized framing, and original fine art paintings and sculpture by notable Pacific Northwest artists. Books, gifts, note cards, jigsaw puzzles, and more are also available. Visit at 219 East Main, Dayton, WA.

The Wild Life of Wildflowers — Watercolor Art by Jean Ann Mitchell

September 20, 2016/in Art, Artist, Events, Flowers, Gallery, Gifts, Home, Mountains, Nature, Oregon, outdoors, Pacific Northwest, Washington, Watercolor, Wildflowers/by Carolyn Henderson

Northwest Trumpet Honeysuckle by Jean Ann Mitchell

Northwest Trumpet Honeysuckle (detail) by Jean Ann Mitchell

Wildflowers are rarely associated with danger.

“Rarely” and “Never” are two different terms, however, and for watercolor painter Jean Ann Mitchell, capturing the area’s native flora has not been without adventure.

Upland Larkspur, wildflower watercolor painting by Jean Ann Mitchell

“I’ve been stalked by elk in the fall, (inadvertently) clocked a bear running 35 miles an hour, glimpsed a cougar from inside a rig, experienced snakes under foot, and once a bird landed — briefly — on my clipboard,” the Milton-Freewater resident says. Over 13 summers in which Mitchell worked with the U.S. Forest Service, on projects largely involving plant identification and use of native plants in restoration, she has traveled, generally by foot, to isolated places.

“There was a LOT of hiking involved,” she remembers.”This was seldom on roads, and almost never on paths, but almost always cross country, reading maps and relying on compass orientation, aerial photos, and relocation directions — across dry open scab, through forested areas, mountain meadows, riparian areas, and sometimes through yew, alder or ceanothus thickets.”

Mitchell, who holds a university degree in art history and served three years with a mission in Nigeria, did not start out adult life with an expertise in Pacific Northwest flora and forbs (herbaceous flowering plants other than grass). But after “marrying into the Forest Service” and moving to the area, she became fascinated by the rich diversity of native plants. When her husband presented her with the Peterson Field Guide to Pacific States Wildflowers, she voraciously devoured every page, then embarked upon a self-directed study that included plant and botany courses at both Blue Mountain and Walla Walla Community Colleges. Concurrently, she worked for the Forest Service Native Plant Seed Program, identifying grasses; leading crews; teaching identification skills and gathering techniques; and learning to carefully catalog.

Queen’s Cup Bead Lily, wildflower watercolor painting by Jean Ann Mitchell

While she considers herself retired now from the Forest Service aspect of her work career, Mitchell continues to hike, research, study, gather wildflowers (“I never take a plant out of the ground unless there are more than 20 others in the immediate area”) or get down on the ground to draw, in situ, an endangered plant, resulting in a collection of wildflower paintings that encompass more than 100 different species, and counting.

“Keen observation of the living plant is not something you can fake,” Mitchell says, adding that Ziploc bags, and refrigeration, are two friends that allow her to collect specimens (NOT endangered ones) and save them for later, although not too much later, for drawing.

“To draw a plant looking fresh — and you do want to have the buds, petals, and leaves oriented as though growing — it has to be done immediately, within a day or so,” Mitchell explains. Because the family refrigerator is the best place for temporary storage, it’s important to clarify what is, and isn’t, suitable for meal preparation.

“While my family has grown used to being cautious with any Ziplocs in the refrigerator, I always live in fear with guests,” Mitchell says.

Yellow Fawn Lily, wildflower watercolor painting by Jean Ann Mitchell

As Mitchell grew in knowledge of native plants, as well as the artistic ability to render them, the student segued into instructor, and she has taught native plant botanicals for public school science classes, Walla Walla Community College, the Blue Mountain Land trust, specialty camps, and the Daniel Smith art supply center in Seattle. Working with the Native Plant Society of Oregon, she produced a number of drawings which were published in the Trailside Guide of Wildflowers in the Blue Mountains near Walla Walla.

Note card sets of her work “have been a great hostess gift while traveling,” with the result that Mitchell’s art finds itself in Germany, Finland, Poland, Jordan, Brazil, South Korea, and more. Closer to home, Mitchell’s cards are available at the Fort Walla Walla gift shop, the Arts Portal Gallery in Milton-Freewater, and Wenaha Gallery in Dayton.

There’s something about botanical art that draws people closer, “like a bee to honey, or a . . . flower,” Mitchell observes.

“Native plants are breathtaking, the way they are truly, divinely put together, pigmented, orchestrated to carry out their life cycle and play their part in the ecosystem.

“‘Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these.'”

Jean Ann Mitchell is the featured Pacific Northwest Art Event artist from Monday, September 26 through Saturday, October 22.

Contact the gallery, located at 219 East Main Street, Dayton, WA, by phone at 509.382.2124 or e-mail art@wenaha.com. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday through Saturday, and by appointment. Visit the Wenaha Gallery website online at www.wenaha.com.

Wenaha Gallery is your destination location for Greenwich Workshop Fine Art Prints, professional customized framing, and original fine art paintings and sculpture by notable Pacific Northwest artists. Books, gifts, note cards, jigsaw puzzles, and more are also available. Visit at 219 East Main, Dayton, WA.

Great Horned Owl painting on feather, by Wenaha Gallery guest artist Deborah Otterstein

Featherlight Touch — The Wildlife Art of Debra Otterstein

September 6, 2016/in animals, Art, Artist, birds, Events, Gallery, Gifts, Home, Home Decor, Nature, Oregon, outdoors, Pacific Northwest, painting, Wildlife/by Carolyn Henderson

Great Horned Owl painting on feather, by Wenaha Gallery guest artist Debra Otterstein

Frequently, our biggest life decisions are the result of little things.

For wildlife artist Debra Otterstein, her determination to paint intricate animal portraits on domestic turkey feathers came about because of

her lack of success in home economics and
guilt.

Calliope Hummer by wildlife artist Debra Otterstein

“I did not find art when I was young, nor did I know that I would be a wildlife artist; I had to discover art,” the Cove, Oregon painter says. In high school, when presented with the elective choice between home economics and art, she chose the latter, because her earlier foray into the former “didn’t go so well.” Quite fortunately, she was not doomed to repeat the experience.

“The first day I picked up a piece of charcoal and started to draw, my life changed, and art has been with me ever since.”

A subsequent associate of science degree from Boise State University led Otterstein to eventually adopt a dual identity — medical coder by day and wildlife artist by night — and although these two pursuits seem at variance with one another, they are surprisingly compatible:

“Both are very detailed endeavors, both take into account anatomy, and both require that you spend many hours working alone after doing much research,” Otterstein explains.

If you’re wondering by now where the guilt factors in, it has to do with Otterstein’s brother-in-law, who regularly found photos he wanted to see developed into paintings.

“One day he brought me the strangest eagle photo and he wanted me to create, using this reference, a very large painting,” Otterstein recounts. “This photo did not inspire me, and I could not bring myself to do as he asked, so I painted a tiny painting.

Cougar Cub, by Debra Otterstein

“Then I felt guilty.”

A second attempt resulted in further dissatisfaction, and more guilt. Daunted by the prospect of permanent mental turmoil, Otterstein decided that the third time would definitely be the charm.

“I knew I needed something really fun and interesting, so I painted an eagle on a feather.

“My guilt went away, and I found feather painting.”

It is an unusual substrate, one that requires intense concentration, unlimited patience, a steady hand, and a light, yet firm approach. Viewers and purchasers of Otterstein’s work observe that she paints with a feather-light touch, capturing special wildlife moments on a canvas of feathers. One of the first questions many people ask is where she gets the feathers upon which she creates her art.

“I am an upcycler, as I use domestic turkey feathers,” Otterstein explains.

“Many people do not realize that there is a law that protects bird feathers and nests: it is called the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. This act makes it illegal to possess feathers and nests.” Designed to prevent decimation by commercial trade in both birds and their feathers, the act lists some 800 species on its protected list, which pretty much means that, unless the feather is from a domestic bird (turkey, chicken, or duck), or from a non-native invasive species (sparrow or starling), it’s not something one picks up, or paints on.

The Otterstein painting which wildlife artist Terry Isaac calls “a Masterpiece.”

With collectors throughout the United States, as well as in international locales as far flung as Australia and Qatar, Otterstein works closely with some of the top wildlife artists in the world: John Seerey-Lester, Terry Isaac, Daniel Smith, and John Banovich. Isaac labeled one of Otterstein’s works — depicting, on traditional canvas substrate, a cougar crossing a river — “a masterpiece.”

“From these top artists, I have learned the importance of always conducting research before I start to paint, by doing field work and studying the physical appearance of each creature and its environment,” Otterstein says.

“I have learned that this is truly the best part of being a wildlife artist.”

In the 14 years that Otterstein has participated in the Wallowa Valley Festival of Arts at Joseph, OR — one of the premiere art exhibitions of the Pacific Northwest region — she has garnered numerous awards, including multiple First and Second Places, and People’s Choice. Other accolades include being named gallery featured artist in Baker City, OR, and receiving the Artist of the Year Award by the Eskridge Family Trust.

But what matters most to Otterstein, she emphasizes, is the subject matter — the wildlife with whom we share this planet, and which depends upon us to maintain a harmonious, peaceful, coexistence. If she can capture the viewer’s attention and evoke a sense of awe, then she has truly succeeded.

“By using a feather as my canvas, it symbolizes the balance of how delicate nature is, but also how strong it must be to survive.”

Debra Otterstein is the featured Pacific Northwest Art Event artist from Monday, September 12 through Saturday, October 8.

Contact the gallery, located at 219 East Main Street, Dayton, WA, by phone at 509.382.2124 or e-mail art@wenaha.com. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday through Saturday, and by appointment. Visit the Wenaha Gallery website online at www.wenaha.com.

Wenaha Gallery is your destination location for Greenwich Workshop Fine Art Prints, professional customized framing, and original fine art paintings and sculpture by notable Pacific Northwest artists. Books, gifts, note cards, jigsaw puzzles, and more are also available. Visit at 219 East Main, Dayton, WA.

Coyote Winters, scratchboard art by Judy Fairley

Wildlife Woman – The Scratchboard Art of Judy Fairley

August 30, 2016/in Art, Artist, birds, Events, Gallery, Home, Home Decor, Idaho, Lifestyle, Nature, outdoors, Pacific Northwest, Scratchboard, Wildlife/by Carolyn Henderson

Great Blue Heron, scratchboard art by Judy Fairley

Great Blue Heron by Judy Fairley

There’s something mesmerizing about scratch art.

Many of us remember, as children, coloring a sheet of paper with wax crayons, then, once we filled the entire piece with hues, finishing it off with a black crayon over the entire top. Using a stick or sharp implement, we created magical pictures by scratching a design into the blackness, revealing the color underneath.

Such an experience is not limited to childhood.

Coyote Winters, scratchboard by Judy Fairley

“I love this medium because of the fine detail it affords me,” says Judy Fairley, a Clarkston artist who has taught scratchboard for nearly four decades at the Clarkston campus of Walla Walla Community College. Portable, economical, but labor intensive, scratchboard for adults involves a thin layer of clay on a Masonite or fiberboard backing, which is then coated with an application of black India ink. The final image emerges as the artist scratches through the ink to the white clay below using an arrow point tool, X-Acto knife, or scalpel.

Often, Fairley applies watercolor or colored inks to tint the exposed clay before covering it with black, resulting in a full colored scratchboard painting. A signature member of Women Artists of the West, a professional organization that focuses on the promotion and development of female artists, Fairley specializes in wildlife art, creating intricately detailed portraits of wolves, coyotes, bears, deer, moose, and more. Her reference photos she takes herself, many from zoos and wildlife rescue operations.

“There was a woman near Hamilton, Montana, who had a wildlife rescue, and I would go there to get photos,” Fairley remembers. “She was the closest to a mountain woman that I could imagine, with skin as brown as a leather saddle and twice as worn, but she had the formulas to bring any wild creature back from the brink of starvation.”

Brown Pelican, scratchboard art by Judy Fairley

Brown Pelican by Judy Fairley

One time, when Fairley was having promotional photos taken for a brochure, the rescue professional suggested posing with a grizzly cub, comfortable with humans because he was part of an educational presentation for children.

“So I went, thinking, ‘what could possibly go wrong with this scenario?’”

When Fairley entered the cub’s pen, “he took one look at me and came running at full speed. When he got to me, he proceeded to climb me like a Ponderosa pine tree.”

The photos, capturing “this complete panicked and frantic look” on Fairley’s face, were unusable, but everyone but Fairley enjoyed the show. “He’s never done this before,” the rescue professional told Fairley. “He must really like you.”

Most of the time, creating artwork is not so dramatic, although even the most mundane of actions results in surprises.

“I had an incident when the person watching me do a bobcat, sneezed on the piece,” Fairley says. “It lifted the ink on all the areas of black that the phlegm landed on, creating a speckled pattern.

Wrangler, scratchboard by Judy Fairley

“So I put the bobcat in a snow storm . . . actually I liked it better.

“But, I make sure to tell people to please don’t sneeze on my work: everything can’t be in a snow storm!”

Fairley works out of two studios, one in her home, and one at the Dahmen Artisan Barn in Uniontown, 16 miles away, where visitors are free to watch – but not sneeze upon – the artists at work. In addition to the teaching Fairley does at WWCC, which also includes pastel drawing, the artist recently offered a scratchboard workshop on a Princess cruise ship from Seattle to Alaska, and is presently looking to organize another cruise workshop to the Mexican Riviera.

Thanks to the portability and inexpensive nature of the medium, Fairley packed supplies for 20 students, along with a personalized tote bag for each, in a roller suitcase.

“I tell people when I am doing demos, that the only cheaper method to do in art is drawing with a pencil and a piece of paper.” Cheaper, she adds, does not translate into faster: some works take months to do, and the concentration required is demanding.

With work in collections from England to Australia, Fairley participates in numerous shows, from those sponsored by the Women Artists of the West, which span the country, and the International Society of Scratchboard Artists (February’s show is in Australia), to events closer to home, including the Snake River Showcase in Clarkston and the Oldfield Western Art Show in Puyallup.

It is the perfect blend of travel, teaching, learning, networking, interacting and creating. Just so long as nobody sneezes, or mistakes her for a tree.

Judy Fairley is the featured Pacific Northwest Art Event artists from Monday, August 29 through Saturday, September 24.

Contact the gallery, located at 219 East Main Street, Dayton, WA, by phone at 509.382.2124 or e-mail art@wenaha.com. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday through Saturday, and by appointment. Visit the Wenaha Gallery website online at www.wenaha.com.

Wenaha Gallery is your destination location for Greenwich Workshop Fine Art Prints, professional customized framing, and original fine art paintings and sculpture by notable Pacific Northwest artists. Books, gifts, note cards, jigsaw puzzles, and more are also available. Visit at 219 East Main, Dayton, WA.

This article was written by Carolyn Henderson.

Beauty from Broken Pieces — The Glass Art of Alice Beckstrom

August 9, 2016/in abstract, Art, Artist, design, Events, Gallery, Gifts, Glass, Home, Home Decor, Idaho, Lifestyle, Oregon, Pacific Northwest, Stained glass, Tempered glass, Washington/by Carolyn Henderson

Glass Window Art by Wenaha Gallery guest artist, Alice Beckstrom of Richland, WA

Recycling is not a new, chic concept.

Eighteen centuries ago, Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria urged others to not throw away items that could benefit one’s neighbor.

Prisms of Hope, glass art by Alice Beckstrom

“Goods are called goods because they can be used for good, in the hands of those who use them properly,” Clement said.

Back in the present, one person who uses goods properly and with a sense of their value is glass artist Alice Beckstrom. The Richland artist, whose business motto is, “Recycled, Repurposed, Recaptured into Functional Art,” collaborates with local glass replacement businesses by picking up their unwanted materials — miscuts and wrong orders that are too expensive to ship back.

“It’s a win/win for all,” Beckstrom says. “Most recently, with more people becoming aware of my art and the desire to keep as much as possible out of the landfills, I often get emails and notes letting me know when and where old doors or windows are available.”

And what does she do with buckets of broken glass, at her disposal within a 500-square-foot home studio?

Krustallos Candle Holder, repurposing unwanted, cast-out tempered windows and doors into beautiful, usable art, by Alice Beckstrom.

“I have always tried to look for new and interesting ways to work and create with glass,” Beckstrom says of her 40-year career as an artist using this varied, variegated, versatile, yet challenging medium. A chance encounter with the creations of California artist Ellen Blakely, whose tempered glass murals span city blocks, inspired Beckstrom to add experimenting with recycled materials to the traditional outlet of stained glass work.

“(Blakely’s art) was unbelievably beautiful, and I recognized then the unending possibilities of tempered glass as a base for a myriad of art forms,” Beckstrom says.

Hours of “practice, practice, practice” in conjunction with “experimenting with no particular expectations” have led to a collection of pieces unique in their style, form, and function, ranging from Krustallos (Greek for crystal) candle bases to full-sized skis. These latter, embellished with broken tempered glass pieces glued across the surface to create a design or message, are especially popular with visitors at the Art Works Gallery in Sandpoint, ID, where tourists fly in from all over the world to the nearby Schweitzer Ski Resort.

Tempered glass embellished skis by Alice Beckstrom

This last winter, a couple from Scotland fell in love with one of Beckstrom’s skis, but shipping it back was the problem: how does one package a long, glass-encrusted ski so that it safely arrives at its destination, but doesn’t cost as much as a plane ticket to do so?

“The worker at the UPS store was a skier himself, and he suggested that, since they had all had their skis brought with them, why not just bubble wrap this ski and slide it into their ski bag that they were already going to check at the airlines.

“So, off my ski went to Scotland!”

With gallery and gift shop locations throughout the Pacific Northwest, Beckstrom finds herself scheduling a regular loop around Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, restocking unique work that is easier to drive in than ship. As an added bonus, she enjoys mini-vacations in some of the region’s most beautiful places.

“This is one of the biggest benefits of my art,” Beckstrom says. “I love the travel opportunities.”

Sometimes those travel opportunities take Beckstrom to exceptionally unusual venues, like the local home of a U.S. Congressman, the wife of whom fell in love with a piece displayed at the Prosser Art Walk and Wine Gala.

Santa in Glass by Alice Beckstrom

“To guarantee its safe arrival at their home, I offered to deliver it myself the following morning. Carol (the Congressman’s wife) was very gracious and gave me a tour of their home.”

Other pieces in prominent places include an Oakland Raider’s stained glass window installed in the owner’s box at the Oakland Raiders Coliseum, as well as numerous stained glass “trophy windows” custom designed for golf tournaments and country clubs, a welcome variation to “the same old engraved crystal bowls for tournament awards.

“Everyone was thrilled to have something new and original.”

Given Beckstrom’s commitment to, and creativity with, working with recycled materials, one can’t help but think that Clement of Alexandria would heartily approve. With each piece made from more than 80 percent recycled materials, Beckstrom’s art is earth conscious and eco-friendly, which in itself is its own inspiration:

There is a quote Beckstrom uses on her website, and while the most frustrating aspect about it is that she has not been able, in ten years of searching, to find its author, the words fit perfectly with her process of thinking and creating:

“When you are left with nothing but broken pieces . . . take them . . . rearrange them . . . and make a masterpiece!”

Alice Beckstrom is the featured Pacific Northwest Art Event artists from Monday, August 15 through Saturday, September 10.

Contact the gallery, located at 219 East Main Street, Dayton, WA, by phone at 509.382.2124 or e-mail art@wenaha.com. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday through Saturday, and by appointment. Visit the Wenaha Gallery website online at www.wenaha.com.

Wenaha Gallery is your destination location for Greenwich Workshop Fine Art Prints, professional customized framing, and original fine art paintings and sculpture by notable Pacific Northwest artists. Books, gifts, note cards, jigsaw puzzles, and more are also available. Visit at 219 East Main, Dayton, WA.

This article was written by Carolyn Henderson.

Encaustic Mosaic by Wenaha Gallery guest artist Joyce Klassen

Fire and Water: The Artwork of Joyce & Randy Klassen

July 26, 2016/in abstract, Art, Artist, design, Encaustic, Events, Flowers, Gallery, Home, Home Decor, Lifestyle, Pacific Northwest, religious, Washington, Watercolor/by Carolyn Henderson

Encaustic Mosaic by Wenaha Gallery guest artist Joyce Klassen

Most of the time, she is tidy and neat. He . . . is not.

But in the studio, the situation reverses: while Joyce Klassen attacks hot wax with a blowtorch to create encaustic collage, her husband Randy sits behind an easel, watercolors tidily arrayed as he quietly paints.

Or, more often when he sees Joyce reaching for the firepower, he finds something else to do.

Design and Texture with F Sharp in the Key of G, encaustic by Joyce Klassen

“Randy is not mechanical,” the yin half of this wife/husband Walla Walla art duo explains. “Every time I pick up that blowtorch, it strikes fear in his heart. He’ll say, ‘Do you need to get the car filled with gas, or does it need washing? I’ll go do some errands.'”

Fortunately for Randy and his art, Joyce is not always blazing away, or, as she terms it, bringing form out of chaos. While Joyce designs, finding precisely what she needs in piles that look suspiciously like random jumbles of indiscriminate stuff (“Those who know me well are surprised at this aspect of my personality”), Randy creates dogs, cats, people, geese, old trucks, towns, and cathedrals in what is often described a most difficult, unforgiving medium.

Watercolor, for Randy, goes back to a childhood spent painting with his father, Jacob Klassen, a Russian emigre who settled in Canada and, in a career spanning 70 years, made a name for himself as an artist.

“He was a high school teacher — German, geography, and art,” Randy says, “but he painted, and I went out and painted and sketched with him.” It was an apprenticeship, really, resulting in a familiarity and expertise so deep that viewers of Randy’s art are convinced he graduated from some prestigious art academy.

To Such Belongs the Kingdom of God by Wenaha Gallery artist Randy Klassen

To Such Belongs the Kingdom of God by Randy Klassen

“People ask what art school I went to. I never went to art school.”

He did, however, attend seminary, and upon earning his degree from Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, CA, embarked upon a 50-plus year career in pastoral ministry, with a six-year Sabbatical during which he and Joyce worked fulltime as artists — initially the proverbially starving, then eating a bit more, and finally making a business of it, at one point traveling to China as part of a cultural exchange.

It was during this period of poverty that Randy created one of his most endearing and enduring works, “To Such Belongs the Kingdom of God,” featuring a small child opening the massive, arched, Gothic cathedral doorways to a church.

“I wanted to express how childlike faith could open the biggest doors,” Randy explains. “That painting turned out to be a winner,” with lithograph and Giclee editions selling out all but two prints. But the most wonderful aspect of the work, Randy continues, is the story behind the child:

Autumn Leaf Fantasy by Randy Klassen

The doors had been sketched, stumbled upon when Randy was driving about, scouting possibilities and discovering St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Evanston, IL. The image of the child he found when looking through old papers on his desk (remember, he’s the untidy one).

“I thought it was a boy, and I painted him into the picture.

“A couple weeks after the first lithograph came out, a lady called from California and said, ‘Thank you for painting my little girl,'” the image of whom had appeared in the reference he used.

“The thing that’s wonderful, though, is that Jesus put a child in the midst of them — not a little boy, not a little girl, no partiality between men and women.

“I wish the church had caught on.”

Palouse Falls in April by Randy Klassen

But Randy gets it, and he and Joyce are equal partners in an art career that is full time again. Upon retirement from their final church in Valley Springs, which started in a real estate office and grew to the largest church in Calaveras County, CA, Randy and Joyce arrived in Walla Walla in 2003, where Joyce, in addition to creating mixed media works spanning abstract to realism, participates in community theater across three states. Her work with encaustic drives her eye to look everywhere, all the time, for potential “junque” to incorporate within an artwork, the less perfect, the better.

“I like the junky stuff better than the pretty ones — if I find a sand dollar, I don’t like it to be perfect. It has more interest in a piece if it’s not.

“It’s kind of like people — It’s the little imperfections that make them special.”

One could almost add, to such sorts belongs the Kingdom of God.

Randy and Joyce Klassen are the featured Pacific Northwest Art Event artists from Monday, August 1 through Saturday, September 3.

Contact the gallery, located at 219 East Main Street, Dayton, WA, by phone at 509.382.2124 or e-mail art@wenaha.com. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday through Saturday, and by appointment. Visit the Wenaha Gallery website online at www.wenaha.com.

Wenaha Gallery is your destination location for Greenwich Workshop Fine Art Prints, professional customized framing, and original fine art paintings and sculpture by notable Pacific Northwest artists. Books, gifts, note cards, jigsaw puzzles, and more are also available. Visit at 219 East Main, Dayton, WA.

This article was written by Carolyn Henderson.

Green Head on Rock, sculpture by Penny Michel, guest artist at Wenaha Gallery

Ancient Art of Modern Day — The Clay Sculpture of Penny Michel

July 12, 2016/in Art, Artist, Events, Gallery, Home, Home Decor, Pacific Northwest, Sculpture/by Carolyn Henderson

Green Head on Rock, sculpture by Penny Michel, guest artist at Wenaha Gallery. Photo credit Leaman Studios.

Childhood memories are powerful ones. Where we lived, whom we knew, the games we played — these shape our lives as adults in unique and characteristic ways.

For ceramic artist Penny Michel, the summers spent at the grandparents left a mark that touches the work she creates today. Born in Tunisia, a former French protectorate located in North Africa, Michel moved with her family to the United States when she was four years old, but visited extended family every year in an ancient land, with a history rich in venerable cultures.

Sitting Lady, Clay sculpture by Penny Michel

“In Tunisia, we lived near Carthage on the beach, and we were surrounded by ancient ruins and different cultures,” Michel remembers.

“Often when houses were built or renovated, ancient artifacts were found. Archaeologists were always working in the area.

“Consequently, since a young age, I have been drawn to ancient art such as the art of Mesopotamia, Greece, Oceania, and the Ottoman Empire.”

With a B.A. in art from Western Illinois University, Michel focuses on clay in various sizes and formats, from wheel-thrown bowls to hand-crafted vessels, from small sculptures for the home to large scale, site-specific commissioned pieces, but before she really got into doing her art, she got out of it first.

“After getting my degree, I didn’t work in art for about ten years,” Michel says. “I didn’t think I was ‘talented enough,’ so I took a detour into banking for awhile.”

But the detour led back to the main road, and for the last 30 years, Michel has been fashioning sculpture that is redolent of those summer days of childhood. An homage to the past, offering hints and traces from another era, Michel’s work looks like something an archaeologist would excitedly find and remove — with great care and precision — from the dig. Surface design, multiple glazing, and texturized elements combine into exotic, willowy statuettes; layered masks; primeval fish; and human faces — set upon armatures created by local Walla Walla artist Doug Geise — that look like mummies.

They’re haunting, mystical, fascinating, and teasingly enigmatic.

Small Green Fish, Clay sculpture by Penny Michel. Photo credit Jenna Gard.

“My art work definitely has another-world quality,” Michel says. “Like it was just dug out of the ground or found in the ocean and from another world or culture.”

Michel has shown and sold her work worldwide, including to collectors in Ios, Greece, and Brussels, Belgium, and in 2012 completed the Artist in Residency Program at the International Ceramic Studio in Kecskemet, Hungary, which houses one of her pieces in its permanent collection. Gallery representation has ranged from Chicago to San Francisco and embraces her present home, Walla Walla, where she is a resident artist at Studio TwoZeroTwo in downtown Main Street.

Ice Woman III and Ice Woman IV by Penny Michel. Photo credit, Wardell Photography.

One of her larger pieces, for several years exhibited outside the Sonoma Museum of Visual Art in California, is now part of the permanent collection of the Corliss Estates on Second Street in Walla Walla. A similar piece is in the permanent collection of the di Rosa Preserve in Napa, California, considered the most significant holding of Bay Area art in the world. Set in a 200-acre park-like setting, the collection houses more than 2,000 works of art by 800 artists.

“The di Rosa preserve is one of the most beautiful art venues I know,” Michel says. “I encourage art lovers to visit it.”

In addition to creating, showing, and selling her work, Michel offers regular ceramic sculptures classes in her studio, working closely with three or four students at a time. Many have been with her for awhile, finding in their own histories a connection to the past that ties in with the present.

Art, whenever and wherever it is, never goes out of style.

“My work is heavily influenced by ancient cultures and civilizations,” Michel says. “And while texture and surface are very important to me, I do not try and make a specific statement with my art.

“I want the viewer to get what they need out of it.”

Penny Michel is the featured Pacific Northwest Art Event artist from Monday, July 18 through Saturday, August 13.

Contact the gallery, located at 219 East Main Street, Dayton, WA, by phone at 509.382.2124 or e-mail art@wenaha.com. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday through Saturday, and by appointment. Visit the Wenaha Gallery website online at www.wenaha.com.

Wenaha Gallery is your destination location for Greenwich Workshop Fine Art Prints, professional customized framing, and original fine art paintings and sculpture by notable Pacific Northwest artists. Books, gifts, note cards, jigsaw puzzles, and more are also available. Visit at 219 East Main, Dayton, WA.

This article was written by Carolyn Henderson.

A hand-thrown pottery Brie baker, with curled handle, by Rose Quirk

Timeless Fashion: The Functional Pottery of Rose Quirk

June 14, 2016/in Art, Artist, design, Dinnerware, Events, Gallery, Gifts, Home, Home Decor, Kitchen, Lifestyle, Pacific Northwest, Pottery/by Carolyn Henderson

A curved, hand-built pottery platter by Rose Quirk, Wenaha Gallery guest artist from Richland, WA

Human beings are not machines.

Sounds sort of obvious, doesn’t it? While the statement would make a fine social media meme — short, punchy, rhyming, and good for a share or two and 7.5 seconds of fractured reflection — it makes a point well worth comprehending:

Human beings are not machines.

A hand-thrown pottery Brie baker, with curled handle, by Rose Quirk

And when those human beings are artists, creating items with their very human, very skilled hands, the resulting craftsmanship is not designed to be found, shrink-wrapped, in a child’s meal.

“Each piece I create is unique, handmade, and even pieces that are part of a set can be different,” says Rose Quirk, a ceramic artist from Richland who specializes in functional wheel-thrown and hand built pottery.

“Mugs are slightly different sizes; the glaze on each piece is unique and has its own personality. This is both wonderful, and challenging.”

Consider, for example, a stack of dinner dishes, she adds. They must, and do, stack evenly, but part of their singular, unparalleled charm is that they do not look like precisely the same piece, eight times over. Before approaching the wheel, Quirk meticulously weighs out the clay, apportioning an equal amount for each item. One after another a plate is shaped on the wheel, guided by steady hands that, after more than 20 years, know what “feels” right. A ruler measures and confirms the final step. The resulting dinnerware, while close in size and shape, is far from being a clone.

Fractured Fish ceramic wall art by Rose Quirk

“Because each piece is hand-formed, there’s not going to be that exactness that you get in commercial pottery,” Quirk explains. “There are ways to control it without using a mold, but you can’t control it exactly,” nor should this be the driving focus.

“You can go to Walmart and buy a mug for a dollar, but when you spend $25 or $30 on a hand-thrown mug, you appreciate the aspect of its being hand-thrown.”

Such attention to detail, in conjunction with an understanding that nothing is 100 percent predictable, reflect the duality of Quirk’s professional background: a biochemist who has worked for medical and pharmaceutical firms throughout the nation, Quirk concurrently pursued her interest in pottery. Upon moving to Washington State with her husband (“I think we’re here permanently, now”), Quirk focused her attention on the art side of things.

Interior and exterior views of large pottery serving bowls by Rose Quirk

“Science and art have frequently gone hand in hand for me,” Quirk says. “There is a strong correlation between the visualization skills needed to see and understand chemical elements and molecules and the art of creating a three-dimensional piece of pottery.”

Precision, experimentation, observation, research, creativity — a host of elements come to play as Quirk works in her 500-square foot home studio, where half the room is devoted to throwing and firing clay (“This can be quite messy . . . “) and the other half is devoted to finishing, including the addition of embellishments such as collage and fiber.

With an eye on food an entertainment trends, Quirk combs through Pinterest for ideas, which she then transforms into signature, trendy pieces of timeless appeal: a delicately curved, hand-formed platter to hold hors d’oeuvres and finger foods; a shallow dish for creamy Brie cheese; a gently sloping, texturized serving bowl that looks as good everyday on the coffee table as it does in the middle of a holiday gathering. The glazes are rich, warm, earth-toned, and perpetually in vogue.

Celestial Dream ceramic wall art by Richland, WA artist Rose Quirk

“My art is in kitchens all across the Mid-Columbia,” Quirk says. “It is to be handled, used and enjoyed every day.”

A member of the Allied Arts Association in Richland, Quirk is a longtime board member who serves as the Featured Artist Chairperson, responsible for setting up and managing the exhibits that rotate through the facility’s 1800 square feet of gallery space. In 2015, she was honored by receiving the coveted Szulinski Award, recognizing artists who have distinguished themselves by their excellence of craftsmanship in a three-dimensional medium.

Such recognition is always positive, but for Quirk, an even greater joy is the creation of her work, melding science with art, and finding that harmonious balance of individuality with congruity. An achievement like this, she notes, is lasting success.

“It has always been my goal to create beautiful, one-of-a-kind, functional pieces.”

Rose Quirk is the featured Pacific Northwest Art Event artist from Monday, June 20 through Saturday, July 16.

Contact the gallery, located at 219 East Main Street, Dayton, WA, by phone at 509.382.2124 or e-mail art@wenaha.com. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday through Saturday, and by appointment. Visit the Wenaha Gallery website online at www.wenaha.com.

Wenaha Gallery is your destination location for Greenwich Workshop Fine Art Prints, professional customized framing, and original fine art paintings and sculpture by notable Pacific Northwest artists. Books, gifts, note cards, jigsaw puzzles, and more are also available. Visit at 219 East Main, Dayton, WA.

This article was written by Carolyn Henderson.

Cowboys Still Exist — The Western Art of Chris Owen

May 30, 2016/in abstract, Art, Artist, Events, Home, Home Decor, horses, Lifestyle, Montana, outdoors, Pacific Northwest, painting/by Carolyn Henderson

Back to Your Momma by Chris Owen

Thanks to the movies and TV, even the most citified of urban dwellers has a working knowledge of America’s icon, the cowboy: this legendary person wears a unique hat, sits a horse with cool assurance, swings a lasso, drinks appalling coffee, and speaks with a drawl.

But does this person still exist? Are there cowboys in the 21st century?

Comfort, by Chris Owen

Yes, there are. According to Wide Open Country, an online platform showcasing country music and the rural lifestyle, more than one million beef producers in the U.S. are responsible for more than 94 million head of beef cattle. From major establishments to small ranches, cowboys are an essential part of cattle’s lives.

“My grandparents were salt-of-the-earth ranchers who lived the simple life,” western art painter Chris Owen of Billings, who was born and raised in Montana’s modern west, told writer Mark Mussari in Southwest Art Magazine’s article, Chris Owen: Setting a Mood.

As a young boy spending summers on his grandparents’ small ranch in the Judith Basin, Owen embraced rural life, developing an appreciation for the importance of the agricultural community. His grandfather’s stories of meeting C.M. Russell — the late 19th, early 20th century cowboy, writer, environmentalist and artist — inspired dreams in a young boy that later, after art studies at Montana State University in Billings, and the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA, grew into a professional career as a painter, capturing the real, gritty, literally earthy life of the contemporary cowboy.

Holding Things Together by Chris Owen

“After my formal art education, I decided to work with the western cowboy and horse theme,” Owen explains. “I spent the first few years on several operating ranches in the region, and made acquaintance with working cowboy owners and employed cowboys.

“The experiences with them taught me a great deal.”

Not only from humans did Owen learn his subject, and learn it well. The owner of three horses — Jake, Buck, and Badger — Owen clues in on the animals’ non-verbal language with each other and their human companions, translating that language to canvas in works that, according to Mussari’s article, “are surprisingly dark and make rich of contrasts between light and dark.”

“There is a difficulty of the subject matter, painting human and horse figures with gesture, light, shapes, color and anatomical accuracy,” Owen says.

“Much of the western art has been more about illustration than the use of a more subjective approach of nonrepresentational art.

Early Morning y Chris Owen

“I wanted to establish my own unique style which moves more toward these fine art concepts.”

By major indications, Owen has successfully created his signature style, garnering both awards and exhibitions at major western art events such as the Cheyenne Frontier Days Western Art Show, Cheyenne, WY; the National Coors Western Arts Exhibit, Denver, CO; and the C.M. Russell Western Art Auction, Great Falls, MT. In addition to Southwest Art Magazine, Owen has been featured in Heartland USA, Wildlife Art, and Western Horseman magazines.

In 2001, Owen contracted with Ashton Company, and later Somerset Art, to create prints of his work, but in 2011 he began his own publishing company, which provides high quality giclee art prints through select galleries.

Standing By, by Chris Owen

With a strong focus on earth tones — browns, umbers, burnt orange, and gold — Owen’s work celebrates the symbiotic relationship between cowboys and their horses. This is the real world of today, not a pretend or romanticized view of the past, with movement, action, and force, even when the subjects are standing still.

“I soon learned taking pictures from a horse on the gallop was not going to work,” Owen says of capturing the action of real life. “So, the idea of riding a horse at a loop, keeping up with a cowboy on the move at the same time taking pictures at the right angle in the right light was not a viable option.

“There is a challenge of painting action pieces.”

It is a challenge he has solved, fusing representational art with abstract overtones, translating a world that most of us know only as legend into images that the viewer can experience today, in real time.

“The cowboy endures as the foremost American icon,” Owen says. “His ongoing endurance as the premier American cultural hero stands as testament to the spirit and values that have made the West great.”

Chris Owen is the featured Pacific Northwest Art Event artist from Monday, June 6 through Saturday, July 2.

Contact the gallery, located at 219 East Main Street, Dayton, WA, by phone at 509.382.2124 or e-mail art@wenaha.com. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday through Saturday, and by appointment. Visit the Wenaha Gallery website online at www.wenaha.com.

Wenaha Gallery is your destination location for Greenwich Workshop Fine Art Prints, professional customized framing, and original fine art paintings and sculpture by notable Pacific Northwest artists. Books, gifts, note cards, jigsaw puzzles, and more are also available. Visit at 219 East Main, Dayton, WA.

This article was written by Carolyn Henderson.

Copper Wheat metal sculpture by Richard Czyhold, Wenaha Gallery guest artist

Upcycled Chic: The Recycled, Refashioned Art of Czyhold Metal Design

May 17, 2016/in Art, Artist, Blacksmithing, Events, furniture, Home, Home Decor, jewelry, Lifestyle, Pacific Northwest, Sculpture, Washington/by Carolyn Henderson

Copper Wheat metal sculpture by Richard Czyhold, Wenaha Gallery guest artist

One of the challenges of living in a throwaway society is that we are in danger of losing our connection to the past. For example, it’s difficult to comprehend that the ubiquitous plastic gallon milk jugs, which most of us see as trash, are possibly the blue-glass medicine bottles of a century ago. By the time we realize that what we call junk isn’t always rubbish, newly appreciated material may not be around anymore.

An altar design and pulpit by Ben Czyhold

Thanks to imaginative, foresightful, and artistic people like the Czyhold (Sea’-Hold) family, however, the stuff of the past is not doomed to be buried in landfills. The three-person team — consisting of Richard and his recycled metal sculptures; Richard’s wife Judy and her recycled copper and found object jewelry; and the couple’s son Ben, a working blacksmith — creates new fashions from old things, or, in the case of Ben, from old techniques.

All three work in designated studio spaces at the Walla Walla family home, which continues to operate as a working farm. Indeed, it’s that farming background that launched the whole process, beginning in 1995 when Richard was commissioned to create a sculpture for the neighboring Bunchgrass Winery. Inspired by nature as well as an innate drive to recycle and reuse , he looked around at what he had — a vast quantity of farm machinery parts — and saw, not junk, but future native grass, cat tail, and wheat sculptures welded and melded from metal.

“‘When farm machinery is repaired, most farmers have what is known as a bone yard where they pile all the worn out parts,” Richard explains. “On our farm, we try to reuse parts, but when that is no longer possible, they become artwork.”

As the family became more involved in metal design, they found, ironically, that they didn’t have enough extra material to keep up with demand, so they started looking around for more.

Bracelet by Judy Czyhold

“We use found objects that come from all different sources, auctions, and yard sales,” Richard says. “Many times, other farmers and clients will bring me parts, bits and pieces of unusual things.”

Not all of these unusual things wind up in Richard’s sculpture, especially if Judy gets to them first. Using traditional metal smith techniques of riveting, brazing, or soldering, Judy transforms disparate matter such as recycled copper roofing, electrical wires, engine parts, and pieces of 40-foot aluminum sprinkler pipes into bracelets, necklaces, and earrings with no twin on earth.

“Scrounging in the junk bin at the shop has produced many great found objects to incorporate into my pieces,” Judy says. Literally, it’s a treasure hunt.

Fortunately for the couple and their voracious appetite for salvaged materials, their son Ben works primarily with new steel. What is old in his art is the occupation itself — blacksmithing — and the venue in which he does it.

Ben Czyhold in his blacksmith shop

“My shop is on the family property,” Ben says. “The overall design and layout of it was influenced by another blacksmith shop that once existed on my family’s land over 70 years ago.” Ben creates everything from household hardware to architectural ironwork, maintaining a product line of small hardware and decorative pieces for sale at various venues. And while much of his larger work — like a customized wrought iron porch railing, or gate hinges shaped like a fleur de lis — is not portable, he is, transporting the necessary equipment to the Walla Walla Farmer’s Market to do live forging demonstrations near Richard and Judy’s vending booth. Beginning in June, the family will also show at the Richland Farmer’s Market.

“We meet such great people from all over the world at the markets, and they really enjoy seeing Ben hammering,” Judy says. During the off-market season, the trio travels to 6-8 arts and crafts shows throughout the Northwest.

It’s something new from something old, beauty from trash as opposed to rising from the ashes. And thanks to the cosmopolitan nature of today’s community markets, Czyhold creations are in homes throughout the United States, as well as Europe and Japan. Innovation is timeless, Richard points out.

“Our favorite part of the whole process is taking something that would have been thrown away and transforming it into something that brings a smile.”

Czyhold Metal Design is the featured Pacific Northwest Art Event artist from Monday, May 23 through Saturday, June 18. There will be a special show Saturday, May 28 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the gallery, where Richard and Judy will be on site with their artwork. A short distance away, at the Dayton Historic Depot, Ben will do live forging demonstrations from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Free refreshments provided at the gallery.

Contact the gallery, located at 219 East Main Street, Dayton, WA, by phone at 509.382.2124 or e-mail art@wenaha.com. Gallery hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. from Monday through Saturday, and by appointment. Visit the Wenaha Gallery website online at www.wenaha.com.

Wenaha Gallery is your destination location for Greenwich Workshop Fine Art Prints, professional customized framing, and original fine art paintings and sculpture by notable Pacific Northwest artists. Books, gifts, note cards, jigsaw puzzles, and more are also available. Visit at 219 East Main, Dayton, WA.

This article was written by Carolyn Henderson.

Public and Private Art — The Metal Sculpture of Joseph Rastovich

The Wild Life of Wildflowers — Watercolor Art by Jean Ann Mitchell

Featherlight Touch — The Wildlife Art of Debra Otterstein

Wildlife Woman – The Scratchboard Art of Judy Fairley

Beauty from Broken Pieces — The Glass Art of Alice Beckstrom

Fire and Water: The Artwork of Joyce & Randy Klassen

Ancient Art of Modern Day — The Clay Sculpture of Penny Michel

Timeless Fashion: The Functional Pottery of Rose Quirk

Cowboys Still Exist — The Western Art of Chris Owen

Upcycled Chic: The Recycled, Refashioned Art of Czyhold Metal Design

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