Palouse artists take spotlight

‘The Palouse is alive with creative fervor.”

That’s what Washington State University Museum of Art curator Keith Wells is proclaiming these days.

“The trouble is,” he continues, “that few people are aware of the multitudes or caliber of artists that live in the area.”

Wells and the WSU museum staff are attempting to change that with the first in a series of “Curator’s Choice Exhibits” that will showcase the talents of Palouse artists.

“We felt it was high time to pay attention to artists in our own backyard,” says Wells.

Opening Monday is an exhibit that highlights the work of painters Heidi Oberheide and Henry Stinson, and sculptor James Loney.

Pullman artist Stinson paints boldly colored images of appliances, toys and female figures, including “Beauty School Dropout.”

“His sense of humor is revealed in whimsical juxtapositions,” says Wells. “He has a great deal of skill in painting a direct realism.”

Oberheide lives in Palouse, Wash., and is represented by the Linda Hodges Gallery in Seattle.

“Since her earliest work,” states her online gallery profile, “Oberheide has been investigating the subject of landscape and its influence on our sense of place in the natural world.”

Says Wells: “Heidi paints very expressive landscapes and strong abstract images with precise brushwork.”

Sculptor Loney, of Moscow, Idaho, creates a trompe l’oeil sculpture that uses “realistic imagery to fool even the most scrutinizing eye,” Wells says.

Trompe l’oeil, a French term meaning “deception of the eye,” refers to artworks that are so realistic that they may fool the viewer into thinking that the object depicted is real rather than created.

“His working of the surface is extraordinary,” says Wells. “The amount of detail is phenomenal. It is wild.”

The free show remains up through July 23. The museum is on Wilson Road across from Martin Stadium in the Fine Arts Center on the Pullman campus. Beginning Tuesday, the museum’s summer hours are noon to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday.

Visit the WSU Museum of Art Web site at www.wsu.edu/artmuse or call (509) 335-1910 for more information.

EWU BFA

“Diversity of style and media” is how gallery director Nancy Hathaway describes the “2006 BFA Senior Exhibition” opening Friday in the Eastern Washington University Gallery of Art.

“Content-wise it stretches from Amy Whitworth’s paintings on the nostalgia of the 1950s family,” says Hathaway, “to Gabe Brown’s performance art concerning homelessness and consumer culture.”

In addition to Whitworth and Brown, the Bachelors of Fine Arts candidates showing their work are: Genevieve Arnold (sculpture), Virginia Baxter (printmaking), Sierra Furtwangler (sculpture, painting), Saul Martinez (drawing) and Alexis Thomas (drawing, painting).

Meet the artists Friday at the opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m. in the gallery.

The exhibition will be up through June 9 in the Art Building at Seventh and I streets in Cheney. The free gallery is open to the public weekdays between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

William Grant group show

The William Grant Gallery in North Spokane is opening a group show Friday featuring the work of photographers Vivian Mayo and Rick Johnson, jewelry maker Darla Morris, potter Amy Wharf, and painter and weaver Dian Zahner.

The inspirations for Zahner’s watercolors and weavings evolved out of two lengthy trips to Mexico where she toured ancient ruins, colonial cities and the mystical Copper Canyon.

Photographer Mayo prefers getting close to her subjects – very close. Images in this show feature extreme close-up portraits of insects including ladybugs, grasshoppers and dragonflies.

Johnson’s grandfather sparked his interest in photography and his grandmother, a painter, taught him how lighting determines the “mood” or “feeling” of the piece.

Jeweler Morris was long fascinated with her mother’s button jar and jewelry box. She began collecting semi-precious and glass beads about 15 years ago and today creates designs using wire, seed beads and cabochons.

Wharf, owner of Peone Creek Pottery in Mead, works in stoneware clay. She makes functional pieces on her potter’s wheel and by hand, using a slab roller and extruder.

Meet the artists during a reception Friday between 5 and 8 p.m. at the gallery, 820 W. Francis Ave.

‘Tea Potty’

The Spokane Potter’s Guild is hosting an open house and informal “high tea” on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The “Tea Potty” takes place at the guild studio, 1404 S. Fiske St. near Mission Avenue and Greene Street.

Guild members are showing a variety of teapots, from “fancy to funny and funky to functional,” says member Mary Cordes of Coeur d’Alene.

Walla Walla Foundry

The Walla Walla Foundry Gallery is having a group show through June 30.

There are pieces by David Bates, Frank Boyden, Ian Boyden, Squire Broel, Leslie Cain, Jim Dine, Chuck Ginnever, Marilyn Lysohir, Ann Morris, Brad Rude, Peter Shelton and Marie Watt.

The gallery, 405 Woodland Ave. in Walla Walla, is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. For directions call (509) 529-0736 or go online to www.wallawallafoundry.com.

Other galleries

“Carolyn’s on 5th Avenue opens its season with photography by Elizabeth May of Republic, Wash. The gallery, 222 Fifth Ave. in Metaline Falls, Wash., is open Wednesday through Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

“Photographer Robert Lloyd is showing a series of digital images, “Beyond African Walls 2005,” in the Second Floor Gallery of Spokane CenterStage, 1017 W. First Ave., during May.

“Just a few steps away, four paintings by Jamie Nicole Nadherny are hanging at Far West Billiards, 1001 W. First Ave., through May 31.

“ Painter Janene Grende of Sandpoint will be showing her works at the “Ride the West Horse and Ranch Expo” opening Friday for three days at the Spokane County Fair and Expo Center, Havana and Broadway.