Following doctor’s orders
Twenty years ago, Betty Jo Cook, 70, was given a prescription. In order to relieve stress and lower her blood pressure, her doctor suggested that she paint. She took his recommendation to heart and has been painting ever since.
She moved to the Spokane Valley in 1942 and attended school in the Central Valley School District. Her mother, who died two years ago, was a creative seamstress and gardener, and was an inspiration. Cook displayed her imaginative streak in the 1960s as a cake decorator and moved on to decorative painting on furniture that her husband of 55 years, Buddie, made for her. He now frames her paintings for her in their Valley home basement next to the studio she uses for painting.
She was a stay-at-home mother until her children were grown and then moved fulltime into real estate. When her doctor urged her to paint, she took her first oil painting class and has since moved on to watercolor.
Her educational background includes instruction from area artists Marilyn Morse and Anne Sherrodd as well as workshops she attended given by nationally known artist Tom Lynch. She has learned many techniques but is now beginning to develop her own style.
“My work is impressionistic, soft and dreamy,” says Cook, “I want people who see my work to get lost in it.”
She is beginning to experiment in a more modernistic style, using charcoal or graphite as an outline in her watercolor pieces. The finished piece is slightly blurred and distorted, giving it a dreamlike effect. She is even considering adding decoupage.
“I dream in art,” she says, “where else would I have come up with bright red irises?”
Her favorite subjects are unusual still lifes such as old rolling pins and pickle jars or flowers. Recently, she has started visual renderings of people, especially children, in action.
Cook has displayed her paintings at Barnes & Noble in the Valley, and is currently showing her work at Lublin’s Gallery in Naples, Idaho, where she will be teaching a workshop in the fall. She teaches classes at Spokane Arts Too in the Spokane Valley. She also teaches privately.
“When I teach, every student’s rendition of an object is different,” says Cook, “it is all in the way they manipulate the colors and use their imaginations.” She finds teaching extremely rewarding.
She is a member of the Spokane Watercolor Society and is actively involved in the Spokane Valley Art Council where she is part of the changing art shows at the Spokane Valley Library.
Cook has donated many of her paintings to various community-oriented auctions including Wampum and Windermere’s Children’s Guild.
Cook finds joy through painting and enjoys sharing it with others. She has been known to give pieces to real estate clients, and even helped decorate Christ Lutheran’s women’s bathroom with one of her paintings of lilacs. A woman who saw it, requested one done in pink.