Freed up to paint at last

Retirement let Kathy Williams finally make her move from science to art.

She graduated with a bachelor’s of science in bacteriology from the University of Idaho in 1968 and worked as a medical technologist. She then married David, and raised two children. “During all of this,” she said, “art was still my fun, fill in and occasional escape.”

Williams, 60, retired five years ago, and decided to make painting her top priority.

“Isn’t it foolish that one waits to pursue something that gives so much pleasure until the last third of your life?” she said.

Shortly before her retirement, she began taking art classes in watercolor at Spokane Art Supply and then at the senior program at Spokane Community College.

Her subjects have ranged from scenery and flowers to animals and people. Her own watercolors of lemons, pears and onions decorate the kitchen in her Liberty Lake home, and her animal portraits capture the personalities of a yawning cat, a curious bird, or dogs treading water.

Currently she is working on a portrait of her mother-in-law, Ethel Williams, who lives in England. While Williams and her husband were visiting Ethel and Ethel’s sister Nancy Booth, they snapped photos of the siblings talking, laughing and sharing a pot of tea. The photos helped Williams depict simple pleasures that include a nice cup of tea.

Williams often looks at the world as a picture, seeing the colors found in nature or a human face.

“I stare sometimes,” she said, but she tries not to make others uncomfortable. Taking pictures helps.

“I tend to combine parts of pictures to compose the painting in my mind. Often I have a name for the painting before I start and that helps set the direction the picture goes,” she said, “Other times I just like the way something looks or its color and the name comes as I work on it. My husband and I are heading to a Katrina work site in a couple of weeks. That should provide me with plenty of material to paint.”

She also likes to tell stories with her paintings. One piece shows an African girl with a bicycle. It perhaps represents change.

“A friend helped start a school in Africa. Kids helped build the bricks … Boys rode bicycles but for some reason the girls didn’t.” Williams often sends money to the school and she hopes to sell the painting and send the proceeds to the school.

Williams has given away much of her work and made greeting cards out of the originals. She has also made prints of many of them. Not long ago, Williams joined the Spokane Watercolor Society. Her goal is to show her work in juried shows and possibly in art galleries.

Williams sees original art as a way of connecting to others, both for the artist and the viewer. She enjoys art that tells a story, evokes a feeling, or makes her smile. To Williams, art is fun.

“I would prefer to think that, as I age, painting will keep my mind nimble, but it is really just a heck of a lot of fun.”