Spiering Rediscovers Roots Spokane Artist’S Display A ‘Modest Offering’

For the last 15 years, Ken Spiering has been immersed in the public art world. With a new “modest offering” opening this week at The Art Spirit Gallery in Coeur d’Alene, titled “At 50 — The Barn as Metaphor,” this Wyoming country boy has returned to his rural roots for inspiration and renewal.

Spiering is best known regionally for his public installations such as the Radio Flyer Wagon in Riverfront Park, the Spokane Transit Authority Plaza waterfall, and the life-sized carved wooden figures in Spokane City Hall.

“I was just completely burned out with doing work that was so scheduled with a third party,” says Spiering. “Not that it hasn’t been rewarding — it has, and I will continue doing commission work — but it hasn’t been self-sustaining. I found I was defining myself by the art I made for the public.”

In his Valleyford studio south of Spokane, Spiering is seeking to rediscover “the fire in my belly.” He wants to know “before it’s too late if I still have what it takes to create art for the reasons I started painting as a kid — for the sheer joy of making something appear on the page.

“Residing again in the rural landscape so similar to where I was raised has rekindled the passion to create, unencumbered by committees, clients or other constraints upon creative freedom,” he says.

A homesteading family, the Spierings never made much money. “My father helped me understand that a good life has nothing to do with making a good living,” Spiering says.

“When I was a kid I would watch my dad and his friends working, talking and laughing. I would sometimes think they were so old. They might have had gray hair, but they had good lives.”

One day, driving to Seattle, Spiering spotted an old barn west of Ellensburg. “The sides were gray and bleached out from the weather but in the center, where the sunlight was striking a stack of straw-colored hay bales, there was a golden glow,” he says. “Immediately I saw the graying of the temples with the heart of gold of the people I knew as a kid.”

Pieces in “At 50 - The Barn as Metaphor” apply not only to his life, but reflect the values Spiering still feels are alive in rural areas - including a sense of community, and acceptance of the amount of work and long hours it takes to make something of oneself.

“This modest body of work reveals not so much about what I have found in this renewed search, but a little bit about what I am looking for,” he says.

The show, which features oil paintings, enamels and bronzes, runs through July 8. An artist reception is Friday from 5 to 8 p.m. at the gallery, 908 Sherman Ave. Regular hours are Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

At other galleries

The Crawford Gallery: “Wild and Friendly Beasts” is an exhibit this month of acrylic, pastels and colored pencil artwork by Debbie Hughbanks, and mixed media sculpture by Melissa Swann Wagner.

An artists reception is from 5 to 7 tonight at the gallery, in the lower level of the Deer Park City Hall, 316 E. Crawford. Regular gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Picture Perfect: Members of the Northern Sky Arts Collective will exhibit current work in conjunction with the grand opening of Picture Perfect, a new framing shop at 205 S. Main in Colville, Wash. The twoday exhibit runs Friday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Pend Oreille Arts Council Gallery: Wood carvings, clay and marble sculpture, and drawings in graphite and charcoal by artist Mark Kubiak are on exhibit through Wednesday at the Old Power House, 120 Lake in Sandpoint. Gallery hours are from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.

Colburn Gallery: Paintings by members of the River Ridge Association of Fine Arts are featured through July 1 at the Colburn Gallery, 203 W. Riverside. Gallery hours are from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. on Saturday.