Art finds a place in the Valley

On Trent Avenue, in a loft perched above a boulder dealership known as the Rock Barn, Charlie Guthrie cares for Spokane Valley’s creative soul.

There are nudes on the wall, colorful spheres of blown glass resting in a stone-lined fountain, portraits of chaps and blue jeans by a local cowgirl, fire-baked cobalt tiles, and watercolor landscape paintings to remind us why we live here.

There is more art in this tiny loft, no bigger than a tennis court, than there is in the rest of Spokane Valley, which isn’t saying much, because the suburb turned city is absolutely artless.

There are no paintings, no fountains and hardly any statues for the public good in Washington’s eighth largest city, our community of 83,900. Spokane County, the area’s old caretaker, never made the investment. The “new” City Council, two years old and already facing re-election this November, could leave office without hanging a picture in the name of community beautification.

In fact, officials have made City Hall off limits for art displays because the building is rented and they didn’t want to be responsible for the nail holes.

It may seem like a small matter, especially for a city that’s resigned itself to patching streets instead of paving them and leans toward not plowing snow, but art is important.

“It is important,” Guthrie said. “I think it really ties us together. When you think of Seattle you think of Pike’s Market and it’s all artists.”

Guthrie remembers going to public markets at Riverfront Park as a younger woman. The Saturday event was awash with artists and people taking in the local culture. Those days died down, but Guthrie knows there are enough artists in Spokane Valley to crowd the pavilions of Mirabeau Park and decorate a half dozen city halls. She rotates work from more than two dozen local artists through her loft business, Never Ending Garden. What she can’t fit in her gallery she shows wherever she can, the Spokane Valley branch of the Spokane County Library District, or any local office willing to host a rotating art show.

Art defines who we are, the Lincoln statue outside the U.S. Courthouse in Spokane, the massive steel feather protruding from Northwest Boulevard in Coeur d’Alene. It tells the story of what symbols we hold dear and where we come from.

“I think it adds class to a city,” said Diana Wilhite, Spokane Valley mayor. “And it’s nice to showcase your own local citizens’ talents, which would be great.”

But putting up art, not just appreciating its value, is another story, full of the kind of criticism some elected officials hide from.

Just three weeks ago, Wilhite presented the City Council with a steel sculpture offered as a gift to the city by a local gas company. The company had suggested the sculpture, which resembled a large circle positioned above three 8-foot wings, could be purchased by a local benefactor and given to the city. Her fellow councilors had other ideas.

“Can we melt it down?” Mike Flanigan said.

The city has considered creating a gateway to town complete with art, at one of the local interstate offramps, but the sculpture wasn’t it. The council deferred the sculpture decision to its fledgling arts council, which has no space or funding for such a gift. Wilhite won’t acknowledge the sculpture was ever discussed and all mention of the piece has been omitted from the council’s Jan. 4 minutes, the public’s official record of what its elected officials are up to.

Art is not a secret to be kept in the rafters of a Trent Avenue barn. Art is who we are. Without it, we are faceless.