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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Lost Art A Flooded Basement Inspires Latest Work From Spokane Artist Kay O’Rourke And Her Partner

Beverly Vorpahl Staff writer

Spokane artist Kay O’Rourke loves her home along the Little Spokane River. The key word in that sentence is “along.”

Last spring, the river was in her home when it overflowed its banks. Since she and her husband, Jim, live on a 100-year flood plain, O’Rourke figures it must have been the hundredth year.

But, as she good-naturedly said, some good comes from everything. Even though she lost many of her paintings when water filled her basement studio, she was able to recycle parts of them to use in her newest form of art - woodcarving.

When the O’Rourkes moved to their six acres north of Wandermere, she named their property Wake-robin, after a flower in the trillium family which grows in abundance there. And, the name of her venture with art partner Craig Brudnicki is named Wake-robin Wood Sculptures.

Their combined work is part of the Inland Craft Warnings’ annual three-day sale and exhibit, which opens Friday in the Crescent Court’s Lower Exhibition Hall.

The partners-in-art met eight years ago when O’Rourke hired Brudnicki as a carpenter to remodel her studio.

Brudnicki was working at her house when a woman stopped by to commission a wood sculpture of two cats in a canoe, based on a photo. O’Rourke looked at her carpenter and asked if he could help.

They were so pleased with their first venture that they crafted a dozen pieces to enter into that year’s Art Fest - and walked away with the Best of Show award.

“What do you do for an encore?” Brudnicki asked of his first-ever arts competition.

What they did was enter four shows and win awards at two of them, including the prestigious Bellevue Arts Fair, with its 350 entrants. That time, they were one of five artists to win booth awards.

O’Rourke’s award-winning work has always been out of the ordinary. She’s part artist and part storyteller. There’s a story behind every piece of art she creates.

When she was working with oils, “my paintings told stories about the people in my life,” she said.

“My work is about where I am and the things around me,” O’Rourke said.

Now that she’s concentrating on wood carvings, her art tells stories about the plants and wildlife she happily shares her property with.

Her art and story subjects these days include osprey and crows and bluebirds, kingfishers and wood ducks and beavers.

She and Brudnicki have created grandfather clocks from the tailings beavers left after gnawing down trees. A few years back she titled one art piece “The Porcupine Preferred Patent Roses.”

The stories she tells are fantasies, fairy tales, myths.

“When things happen, it triggers stories to be told in my art.”

Those who view and buy her work “are fascinated by the stories,” she said.

She and Brudnicki created functional - and playful - pieces of art for the craft show, including clocks, garden gates, benches, wall shelves - every one with its own story.

They incorporated waffle irons, crows and pears for one grandfather clock; a waffle iron and crows make up a wall-shelf clock, while another was fashioned from yet another waffle iron with a woman’s face on its dial, accented with bluebirds and daisies.

Their furniture pieces are art - functional pieces of art, O’Rourke said.

She comes up with ideas for most of the pieces they fashion.

“She’s my teacher,” Brudnicki said. “I’m the mechanic. She’s the artist.”

O’Rourke sketches out her ideas, but “when it comes to building them, it’s like …,” she said, making a sound all her own to express wonderment about how the ideas can ever possibly materialize.

“Somehow he can put these things together. He guarantees my ideas will work,” O’Rourke said, then, adding with a laugh, “I get yelled at once in a while.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color photos