Mobley’S Art Is Making Waves City’S Arts Director Makes Most Of Moving Water

Mixed-media drawings by Karen Mobley will be exhibited all of February in the Spotlight Gallery in Electric Electric, 9 N. Washington.

Mobley, arts director for the City of Spokane, has held one-person shows at the ART Gallery in Auntie’s Bookstore in Spokane and in galleries in Fort Collins, Colo., and Cheyenne, Wyo.

The drawings in her new show, titled “Some Thoughts on Water,” reflect shapes of moving water, topography and patterns like waves.

Mobley’s accomplishments include a grant from the Wyoming Arts Gallery and honorable mentions in that state’s Arts Council Literary Fellowship in 1995 and ‘96.

An artist’s reception in Spotlight Gallery will be from 5 to 9 p.m. on Feb. 5.

The gallery, a part of Kari Gregg’s shop of making and refurbishing lamps, opened 10 months ago.

Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and noon to 5 p.m. on Saturdays.

In City Hall

Of the 170 pieces of art entered into the All Media Juried Show, 33 were selected as winners and are on exhibit at the Chase Gallery in City Hall.

Ross Coates, an art professor at Washington State University, served as juror, making the selections.

Coates is founder and editor of “High Ground: Art Notes from the Plateau,” an art magazine published in Moscow, Idaho, since 1995. He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally, including “From Moscow With Love” which was shown in Vladivostok, Russia.

Local gallery visitors are probably more familiar with his artwork in the exhibit “Two Studios, One Bed” at the Cheney Cowles Museum. He has works in numerous public and private collections.

An artists’ reception will be from 5 to 9 p.m. Feb. 5 at Chase Gallery, with cash prizes awarded at 7.

Artists whose works were accepted to the exhibition are: Rebecca Abell, Linda Beese, Virginia Carter, Sharon Doyle, Susan Parker Ferguson, Cathy Fields, Dolores Gardner, Christopher Hamel, Barbara Hoisington, Robert Kraut, Dan McCann, Mel McCuddin, Mickey McKay, John Mendel, JoAnne Nixon, Laura Nuchols, Kay O’Rourke, Rachel Pettit, Tom Quinn, Ken Smith, Sally Graves Machlis, Frank Werner, Gordon Wilson and Stanley Wood.

The gallery is open whenever City Hall is open.

In Interplayers’ lobby

When playgoers attend “Park Your Car in Harvard Yard” at Spokane’s Interplayers Theatre beginning Jan. 29, they can view Carrie S. Anderson’s artwork during intermission - as well as before and after the production.

Anderson incorporates her huge love of art and nature into very small works of art.

She’s painted since childhood and studied art for years, but began her minimalist nature-study series in 1993, after attending a naturalist’s field-journal class.

“I try to convey my sense of awe in the presence of nature as well as the serenity I feel when I study the intricate detail and beauty that surrounds me,” Anderson has said.

“My plant studies are drawn from live subjects which I believe helps me capture and share some of their life force,” she said. “They are purposefully reduced to their most basic form and placed on a white background to present their simple and awe-inspiring beauty formed from the chaos we experience in our hectic, daily lives.”

Anderson’s style reflects her appreciation of the Sumi-e art form of ink painting.

Another reason she creates small pieces is so their price tags can also be small, making them available to first-time buyers of original art.

“It is a risk to put your work, and yourself, before the public,” the artist said. “I have been delighted to meet and talk to the people who have chosen to take one of my drawings into their homes.”

If you want to see the art but can’t attend the performance, call Interplayers at 455-PLAY to arrange a time.