Local artists featured in showcase
The studio behind her home is filled with unfinished canvases – true masterpieces in the making – and finished oil paintings with vibrant landscape colors and blends.
Chelsea Cordova discusses art with a fierce passion that is also evident in her work.
“Art is a spiritual experience for me,” Cordova says. “It is outside of the physical concerns of how we operate in our culture – an escape from the constant decision-making and stresses of everyday life.”
Cordova believes everyone has a basic creative energy, and that everyone has a different way of channeling that energy.
“I choose to channel my energy in the expression of art on canvas.”
Cordova is one of the 38 artists who will be featured at the fifth annual Artists Showcase 2006 Friday, next Saturday and April 30, at the Kootenai County Fairgrounds, Building 19. The showcase is presented by the Coeur d’Alene Art Association. Admission and parking are free.
Cordova grew up in Boise, and it was her mother who encouraged her to pursue her interest in art from a very early age.
In high school she took pottery and purchased a wheel. She also worked as an artist and muralist while attending Boise State University. But it was in 1994 after a move to Coeur d’Alene, that her stepfather introduced her to oils.
Cordova got serious about art while she was taking classes from Patsy Parsons of Spirit Lake. She joined the Coeur d’Alene Art Association in 2002, where she has taken on the duties of publicity chairwoman for the showcase.
“The association has been a great social outlet for me and has given me an opportunity to learn skills that help me to market my art,” says Cordova. “I want to be the best landscape painter I can be.”
The Coeur d’Alene Art Association is a nonprofit organization “formed for the purpose of fostering the knowledge of art and encouraging the practice in this field for the good of the individual and the community.”
Formed in 1961, the association currently has 80 members, and includes hobbyists, beginners and professional artists who work in various media from traditional oils and watercolors to acrylic, gouache, photography, pottery, metal, fused glass and collage.
The showcase kicks off with a Purchase Patrons’ reception, Thursday at 5 p.m. where local businesses and individuals who have agreed to purchase paintings are hosted to a preview reception with refreshments.
There will be a public reception on Friday at 5 p.m. with wine and hors d’oeuvres, jazz music by Bill Parsons of Spirit Lake, and an opportunity to meet the artists.
The show runs through the weekend with live demonstrations, a bargain bin and a two-painting raffle which will benefit a children’s arts program.
There will be juried selection with first through third prizes awarded. The juror is nationally recognized artist Stan Miller of Spokane.
Yvonne Benzinger, who has been involved in the association for many years, and is the director of the Coeur d’Alene Arts Commission summer arts program, says the showcase is important because the artists have an opportunity to hear how people feel about their work.
“Artists need to hear what people are saying about their individual work – favorable comments keeps enthusiasm high and keeps the artist motivated to create,” says Benzinger.