On the Wall: ArtStyle Northwest centers on fine crafts

For most people, their home is an extension of their personality. The furniture, artwork, essentials and accessories they choose to surround themselves with paint a picture of their lifestyle and personal aesthetic.

An ideal dwelling should nurture its inhabitants with an inviting environment and harmonious atmosphere. Pulling all of the artistic elements in your home together cohesively into a unique, expressive style can be nothing short of challenging.

Creating a niche in the region’s art market, ArtStyle Northwest, a small gallery in the Garland District has crafted a team of professional artists who specialize in various aspects of fine art, craft, and furniture design, offering design services and consultations.

The artists – Gay Waldman, Michael Neiman, Peter Jagoda, Jan Moulder, and Jill and Sean Smith – have had a strong presence in Spokane for many years. Five of them are Inland Crafts artists, participating in the annual juried exhibition of the region’s finest crafts each November at the Spokane Convention Center.

“We are devoted craftspeople,” said Jill Smith, as she stressed the importance of working with artists who exhibit high-quality craftsmanship along with professionalism and accountability.

Between the six owner artists, they offer hand-crafted furniture, sculpture, fine photography, woodwork, pottery, handmade lamps, metal work, cement countertops, multimedia, and custom framing.

Artwork is displayed in the gallery in small vignettes, placing works together in “living spaces” to show patrons how it could be displayed in their homes.

ArtStyle Northwest’s core team juries in regional artists who are represented in the gallery’s design center. Artist portfolios are displayed in the back of the narrow gallery space.

About the artists

Michael Neiman

Wood is Neiman’s specialty. The artisan has been crafting tables, chairs, desks, cabinets, benches and tableware for more than 30 years. Sculptural, curved lines, bent frames and sumptuous woods take Neiman’s craft a cut above, making him one of the premier furniture makers in the region.

Mostly self-taught, he works with domestic woods like western walnut, mahogany, cherry and maple, and incorporates exotics including Makassar, amboyna, ebony and burl.

Neiman’s “Diamond Anniversary Table” features inlaid Indonesian wood placed in a diamond pattern veneer atop the parson table’s graceful, curving legs. The piece signifies the 20th anniversary of Inland Crafts, where he serves on the board.

Peter Jagoda

Jagoda is a metalsmith who works from his barn shop in the midst of his 65-acre animal sanctuary, where he and his artist wife, Kit, rescue all sorts of animals, from gerbils to draft horses.

With an MFA in sculpture from Arizona State University, Jagoda makes forged and fabricated steel tables, benches, gates, trellises, reliquaries, candlesticks, and specialty items. He sometimes incorporates granite or fieldstone slabs and found objects into his contemporary pieces that feature unique lines, shapes and embellishments.

Also a master bladesmith and jewelry designer, Jagoda works as an adjunct jewelry instructor at Spokane Falls Community College.

“When I talk to students I tell them that I really don’t see a difference between jewelry and blacksmithing or sculpture. It’s all very much the same,” said Jagoda. “People often apply the same aesthetic there.”

Jagoda’s jewelry is also displayed at ArtStyle Northwest. The gallery will host the Spokane Jewelers Guild Show in May.

Gay Waldman

“Nature and light – that is definitely my palette,” said Waldman, a photographer who captures Northwest landscapes and close ups from the region’s natural surroundings. Trained as a painter, she treats her digital images as the starting point of an artistic journey.

“The photograph captures reality,” said Waldman. “I’m looking beyond the photograph, to see movement and create a painterly expression within the image.”

Waldman enhances her photographs by painting and drawing with a stylus pen on her computer drawing tablet. She manipulates colors, textures and lighting, and collages and overlays images to create something altogether inspiring and fresh.

She sometimes paints directly onto her photographic prints. A professional framer, Waldman runs a framing shop from her home studio.

Jan Moulder

Nature’s debris – leaves, twigs, branches, lichens, and mosses – is the raw material Moulder draws from to create her handmade paper works of art. Fibers are illuminated by light glowing from within her sculpted paper lamps, which range from 11 to 25 inches in height.

“When I found that I could make paper from the plants growing all around me, I became lost in a world of magical delight,” writes Moulder on her artist statement.

“I’m venturing into the realm of magical items,” she said, referring to a mobile hanging in the gallery made of handmade paper stars stretched across dried trumpet vine twigs. “It’s so rewarding when it starts moving around,” she said.

Moulder’s services include personal shopping (she calls it treasure hunting) and in-home consultations.

“I will seek out the artwork that works (for the client),” she said, “and it’s not necessarily coming out of this gallery.”

Jill and Sean Smith

The mother/son team creates a line of home furnishings called Fox N Bear Furniture.

Sean is a metal crafter who creates urban industrial tables and etageres with poured cement tops, or inlaid with Jill’s clay tile work. He installs poured cement counters, tinted in various patina hues, in area homes and restaurants.

Jill creates raku-fired pottery, producing beautiful, intense, iridescent colored vases, platters, candlesticks and wall hangings.

Raku has been Jill’s emphasis for the last half-dozen years. “I like the process,” she said. “You have to like to play with fire – it’s the sport of pyromaniacs.”

She’s endeavoring to return to functional, earthenware pottery – pitchers, pie plates, canister sets – as well, since it was very popular for her in years past when she sold scores of it at the Bellevue Arts and Craft Fair.

“There’s a loose line between functional and decorative art,” said Jill. “If art brings enjoyment to you and it’s decorative, still in a way, it’s functional.”

“It’s an eye rest. When you’re tired of the mundane things in your life…beauty is very functional.

ArtStyle Northwest’s featured guest artist of the month is Wendy Zupan Bailey, who is displaying whimsical art dolls made from clay and colorful fabrics.