Spring Art and Craft Event highlights local talent

Artist Linda Christine thinks highly of her community.

“Our population is becoming more art-oriented and better educated regarding the value of art in our environment,” she said. Her beliefs drive her to work hard and organize events in which to highlight local talent.

Christine has assembled 20 artists from Spokane and surrounding areas for a Spring Art and Craft event. “It is fine art and fine crafts,” Christine said. The artists applied for the event and were selected based on their unique talents. Many of them have taken their fine art training and produced crafty wares, blurring the line between fine art and crafts.

One of the artists involved, Kara Orcutt, creates fused glass pieces in a kiln. Using different temperature settings, Orcutt can create different effects from pooling to attaching layers of glass.

Orcutt began working in glass three years ago. Now she has a beading and business area in the kitchen of her North Side home. She keeps the kiln and large glass pieces in the garage. She creates large bowls and platters, layered wall hangings, unique clocks, sinks, jewelry, and memory pieces in which she incorporates a small amount of ashes of beloved pets or loved ones into glass pendants.

She also transforms wine and champagne bottles from special occasions into clocks, adding labels or photographs to forever capture the event. The prices of her pieces range from $10 to over $700. “I want to produce custom pieces from the heart,” she said.

Another artist involved is Stacy Epley. He began studying his craft as a pre-teen. His older sister was a commercial artist and he copied her work, studying the composition. “She was a great inspiration,” he said. For years he doodled and practiced fine-tuning his natural talent.

He works in a large room in the basement of his North Side home, where vintage toys, signs, and “man things” serve as inspiration. He has mastered acrylic paint, a difficult medium to blend.

He works in two distinct styles. His vintage automobiles are exact replicas, stoic and beautifully rendered. His other style is thought-provoking and touches upon social fears like the man in an old mine rescue uniform looking as if he is about to save the world from an airborne virus. Another shows a small girl standing at the top of the basement steps struggling with the decision of whether to save her teddy bear, who lies on the basement floor surrounded by frightening apparitions.

“It’s a subconscious selection of objects and color,” Epley said. “Where the decisions come from, I don’t know.”