Artist Donates Time, Money To Help Kids Appreciate Art
It’s another lean month for artist Michael Engle. He hasn’t made enough off commissions at his North Side art gallery to pay the rent, and his wife is getting tired of being a benefactor.
But there he was last week, shelling out $5 for extra art supplies to help keep a dozen kids from the YWCA summer camp busy. The money seems to appear in an empty basket like fishes and loaves.
The YWCA pays for most supplies, but Engle sometimes pays for some extras.
His generosity - donating time and money - is rare among the struggling Spokane arts community, says Joanne Shiosaki, YWCA spokesman and former Spokane Arts commissioner.
“You don’t often have people in the art field donating services,” said Shiosaki. “When you are self-employed, there are no paid vacations, if you know what I mean.”
Engle’s love for kids doesn’t seem to know a budget. In spite of the struggle to keep his Nomadart Gallery open, he spent hundreds of dollars and a dozen hours making an art table for neighborhood kids to use.
He promises to provide free art supplies and canvases for neighborhood children as long as he is open.
“I’d rather have them hanging with me than out spraying graffiti or something,” said Engle, jabbing his thumb at the kids painting pots on the floor of his gallery.
The kids come in at least once a week, chaperoned by YWCA counselors, to hear how art is more than daydream doodles.
Among the artists Engle represents in his gallery at 1514 N. Monroe is a guy who makes hanging plant holders out of castoff metal gears.
“I like to see what other people are painting and how they design it and stuff,” said Justin Peck, 12. “He’s a pretty cool artist.”
“The kids come in and see this and see what’s possible with just a pencil,” Engle said. Engle, 34, has lived in Spokane all his life and has spent most of his adult years trying to eek out a living as an artist. He creates two- and three-dimensional crushed-glass works.
He worked as a diesel mechanic when he couldn’t.
He got tired of having to rent space for his artists group, comprised of “clean” or “no mad” artists.
These artists shun works that present violent or lewd themes. If the work in Engle’s gallery is indicative, they prefer landscapes and portraits, particularly of animals. Engle said some art outside the “no-mad” genre - such as a recent showing of pornography satire that included Playboy centerfolds - is not fit for his four kids.
He opened the Nomadart Gallery, this spring to give their work a forum.
The gallery is part show space, part community center. Students from Garfield Elementary and Glover Middle School have displayed works in his gallery.
Active in the North Central COPS substation, he held a fund-raiser for the organization last weekend, donating his commissions.
“That man, I hope he really makes good and successful,” said Dave Gunstrom, president of NC COPS. “If anybody deserves it, he does.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo