Jennifer Zurlini

What do you get when you mix a beautiful girl from California with a new life in Spokane? Danielle Hatch. Raised in the paradisiacal garden land of Santa Barbara, about an hour north of Los Angeles, Hatch was brought up as a visual artist.

Traveling down the winding road from Main Street into Peaceful Valley, where the river flows serenely between the north bank and Browne’s Addition at “the heart of the Great Gorge,” the arrival at veteran artist John Thamm’s home and studio is peaceful. His neighbor, poet and author Tom I. Davis, is there bearing a marked-up chapter of his biographical manuscript for the book the two artists have collaborated on, “Vets,” which will be released in the fall.

Exposure. The juxtaposition of two of Webster’s definitions of the word – “presenting a film or the like to actinic (ultraviolet and violet) rays of light,” and “a putting out without shelter or protection” – vividly defines the concept of two innovative photography exhibits opening with First Friday receptions. “Beneath the Surface,” a photography and art installation at Clearstory Gallery by Spokane artist Jim Van Gundy, re-creates a Mexican barrio near Tijuana that he visited during a Christian mission.

Flying shadow boxes with hand-snipped tin wings and cast bronze birds’ feet. Hand-tooled wooden construction trucks, just right for racing across the kitchen floor. Precious stones wrapped in smooth, textured sterling. Still-fresh oils, capturing lush Northwest landscapes. Bamboo wind chimes, cast in bronze, softly clanging in the breeze.

To see the world, then bring it back in a knapsack – and within the pages of a sketchbook, a watercolor pad, a camera and, say, a shipping crate or two. Traveling the world has been one magnificent treasure hunt for Mary Dewey, who at age 77 has returned to, shall we say, the refined bohemian lifestyle she once led.

Next week, the biannual Association of Northwest Weavers’ Guilds conference will wash over the River City, sending a sea of professional fiber artists, novices, students and enthusiasts from six Northwestern states and four Canadian provinces our way. More than 430 participants have enrolled in the “Weaving Waves of Color” conference at Gonzaga University, which features a tapestry of seminars and workshops led by the field’s top fiber artists and artisans, including weaving, spinning and felting professionals.

If you’ve been to Europe, you’ve likely seen laundry hanging out to dry, pinned onto clotheslines suspended from overhead balconies of apartment buildings – one atop another, zigzagging modern and historic architecture alike – or billowing gracefully across pastoral country landscapes. Skirts, dresses, trousers, shirts and undergarments flap openly in the wind, revealing much about their inhabitants.

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.

It’s been said that artists are dreamers. With enough imagination to fill the night’s sky – and pack the house at his first “official” First Friday art opening last week – Art, Music and More gallery owner Seth Everts is nurturing artists’ dreams into being, while his own aspirations continue to evolve by making art in every media more accessible to everyone.

Susan Clusener values the process of creating from clay as much as the end product. “With clay I find something I can’t find anywhere else in life. It has a rhythm that fits me, a different sense of time,” says Clusener, an exhibitor in “Two by Two,” Eastern Washington University’s small-scale ceramic sculpture show.

Ruben Trejo is able to transcend time, space, cultures and boundaries in his artwork and in his life. This nationally treasured Mexican American artist, who lives in Spokane, embodies the magic, colors, flavors and legends of Mexico and the dreams and aspirations of the United States.

Photography as an art form has progressed light years since its inception in the early 19th century, when it was developed as a tool to record people, places and events with functional, historical accuracy. To the three photographers exhibiting at Lorinda Knight Gallery beginning Friday – Jane Waggoner Deschner, Del Lusk and Robert Tomlinson – contemporary photography is a result of experimenting with altered reality, changing what is caught on film into something entirely new, and pushing the boundaries of the medium to new places.

If you want to discover what a town is really all about, take a look at the hand-painted, sun-splashed murals scattered alongside its streets and corridors. Artists have a way of capturing the mood of a place. When a muralist paints the side of a building, an underpass, a bridge piling, retaining wall or any other public structure, he is illustrating his passion for beautifying and documenting the area, while making art available to everyone who passes by.