Animal lover? Boettcher gonna love this exhibit
Tamara Boettcher has two obsessions: animals and art.
“I’ve loved both since I was a child,” says the Deer Park veterinarian. “Now I’m taking the time to do both.”
Boettcher’s first art show in the Inland Northwest, “Combining Two Loves,” is under way at the Crawford Gallery in Deer Park through April 6.
As the story goes, Boettcher’s fascination with drawing goes back to grade school in Nebraska. “I’d sketch stick horses, running and jumping all over my notebooks,” she says.
Although she had a “terrific art teacher” in junior high school, she knew at an early age that her passion for animals and science would ultimately lead her to a career in veterinary medicine.
After graduation from the University of Iowa in 1983, Boettcher practiced in mixed-animal veterinary clinics in the Midwest before moving to Deer Park last year. Beginning last October she quietly started her independent, mobile “all creatures great and small” veterinary practice, making in-home and in-barn calls.
Throughout the years, making art never lost its appeal.
“It’s always been one of my dreams to invest more time in art,” Boettcher says. “I think the catalyst was moving here last year. This is such a beautiful area, and there is a very supportive art community.”
Her Crawford Gallery show features 13 pieces in pastel, watercolor, scratchboard and acrylic mediums.
It’s no surprise that all of the images are realistic animal portraits.
“With my animal anatomical training I am totally into realism and the precise portrayal of my subjects,” says Boettcher.
Her color pencil and scratchboard images are especially detailed, says gallery manager Brenda Lippert.
“You can see the individual hair, feather, whisker or spark of light in the eye,” says Lippert.
“Tami seeks to portray the subject as if it were right in front of the viewer, as if suddenly coming upon it through the trees, or in a moment suspended in time.”
A closing reception is April 6 from 5 to 7 p.m. in the gallery, 316 E. Crawford, in the lower level of Deer Park City Hall. View the work Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
‘Casstevens Madison: EXTANT’
Husband-wife team Kurt Madison and Margot Casstevens open a joint show on Friday at Tinman Gallery, 811 W. Garland Ave. Casstevens continues her exploration of the human form with her new sculptures and jewelry.
Madison is showing a series of surreal and colorful photomontages, each with a piece of jewelry designed to illustrate a theme in the photo.
“Kurt loves to be involved in collaborative projects with other artists, feeling that it pushes his threshold of creativity,” says gallery owner Sue Bradley in a news release.
“Margot explains her work as combining diverse materials with cast body fragments to create visual moments in time, like captured pieces of dance or theater,” Bradley says.
Meet Casstevens and Madison at an opening reception Friday from 5 to 8 p.m. at the gallery, 811 W. Garland Ave. The show runs through April 1.
Sandhill cranes in Othello
The Old Hotel Gallery in Othello, Wash., is getting ready for the Sandhill Crane Festival set for the last weekend in March.
Featured artists are painter Ed Newbold, crafter Debbie Matzick and weaver Mavis Beth Mueller.
“ Wildlife painter Newbold of Seattle created the 2004 Sandhill Crane Festival poster. The gallery is displaying 17 of his framed paintings and giclee prints. The successful, illustrative painter has a thriving storefront in Seattle’s Pike’s Place Market.
“ Crafter Debbie Matzick, a Spokane native, specializes in one-of-a-kind birdhouses fashioned out of old barn wood.
“Debbie creates themes on them with rescued and recycled items you would typically find around the attic or barn,” says gallery director Patricia Pertzborn Gaimari. “She has incorporated these rescued items into three-dimensional, American folk art.”
“ Mueller, of Homer, Alaska, is a self-proclaimed “craniac.” She follows the American sandhill cranes when they migrate south in the fall and returns to Alaska just days before they arrive back in mid-April.
She will be in Othello on Wednesday to display her baskets and crane art, including her distinctive handcrafted books. The work will be up through the end of March.
Mueller will teach a workshop, “Woven Visions,” on March 26 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the gallery. Cost is $35, materials included.
The gallery, 33 E. Larch St. in Othello, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For directions call (509) 488-5936.
WSU’s Gallery II
“One Year Later,” an exhibit of new work by Washington State University 2005 Master of Fine Arts alumni, opens Monday.
The show is up through March 24 in WSU’s Gallery II, Room 5072 in the Fine Arts Center on the Pullman campus. Visit the free gallery weekdays from 8 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Contact (509) 335-8686 or go online to www.finearts.wsu.edu/galleries/.