On the Wall Jennifer Zurlini

As you’ll notice, the words “sisters” and “artists” have most of their letters in common.

When it comes to Spokane’s successful sister artists Kay O’Rourke and Gina Freuen, numerous aspects of their lives intersect.

“Intersect, interplay, interpose … interrupt! All those ‘inter’ words about where we interact together is what ‘Intersections’ is about,” Freuen said of their joint show at River Park Square’s Kress Gallery.

Peering into the creative world of these two sisters, who grew up in Walla Walla and developed their careers in Spokane, you find that their childhood experiences – and, quite convincingly, their genes – have greatly influenced their work.

“We were raised with art in our home. We all had artistic abilities. It went way back in our family,” said Freuen, who is eight years younger than O’Rourke. (There were seven siblings.)

Their mother, De De McKay, ran art galleries in Walla Walla and on the Oregon Coast, and taught art lessons in the family’s basement.

Growing up on a farm, the girls helped grow food and raise cattle and sheep. O’Rourke had a horse, showed cattle in 4-H, hunted blackbirds and pigeons (they were overabundant) for her “pigeon pies” and was fondly called “Annie Oakley” by her relatives.

The sisters have fostered a love of creativity, cooking and gardening. They each care for spacious, art-filled country gardens that produce much of their own food – chickens, eggs and all – overflowing with the flowers they use in their artwork.

Both hold annual garden art shows, hosting selected artists on their grounds. O’Rourke’s Art in the Garden is in the spring at her home near Finch Arboretum; Freuen’s Little Spokane River Artists Studio Tour was initiated this fall.

“Through nature and animals, our similarities can be seen,” said O’Rourke. “We have connections, but we approach our work very differently.”

O’Rourke is a painter and also works in mixed media, drawing, pastels and found-object sculpture. Her work is narrative, colorful and bursting with passion.

In vibrant, fresh hues, O’Rourke combines her story of food and nature with her tales of birds.

“Cardinal Cherry Jell-O” has a rich red cardinal fluttering his wings beside a plate of playfully decadent, molded cherry Jell-O. Expressive strokes create movement, while chalky blue lines on dark shadows create a stirring sense of story.

“I always try to do something unexpected,” O’Rourke said. “I hint at other things – the mystery. Not everything is as you see it. I will tend to do something about the dark side in my work. I always hint at both sides.”

As for the food choice, she said, “Jell-O represents happy times. If you’re sick they give you Jell-O to make you feel better. Jell-O was celebratory.”

On O’Rourke’s Web site, she writes, “…We long for an unfolding of the ordinary into the myth, helping us create an understanding of ourselves and others in this world we live in and our connection to the past.”

Freuen’s ceramic work has always had a playful edge to it, too. Her creativity as a ceramicist was cutting edge in the ’80s, incorporating funky, unusual objects – like cows and moons – which adorned the lids of her porcelain and stoneware teapots and vessels.

Her works sometimes nest teapots within teapots, one inserted into another for a lid.

“I repeat, repeat, repeat. If you repeat enough it becomes unified,” said Freuen, an instructor of introductory design, drawing and ceramics at Gonzaga University.

Her water vessels feature spouts within a spout. The curves repeat and become rhythms. The angles and gestures of her pots’ handles imply energy and movement.

The textures she layers and wraps around her pieces come from pressing her clay into molds and onto unusual surfaces.

At the Kress, Freuen is also exhibiting mixed media works on paper which stem from her digital camera work. The wall leading into the gallery displays a series which is Freuen’s self-portrait. Each piece features the artist’s hand, contorted, stretched and reaching between swirling movement and intersecting lines.

Another digital series is composed of 20, 6- by-8-inch boards under plexiglass, composed of five kaleidoscope-like, manipulated twig and tree images she shot while walking along Priest Lake. Adorned with feathers, gold leaf and twigs, it’s “a pure pleasure piece,” she said.

The sisters have three collaborative works in the show, including mixed media portraits of their mother and father and a large mixed media collage, “Escape.”

They passed the pieces back and forth between layers, and said that it was difficult to make marks on each other’s work, which is the reason there aren’t more joint creations on display.

“She’d give me something – she did this thing beautifully – and I didn’t want to touch it,” O’Rourke said.

From Freuen’s viewpoint: “We work so disparately that it didn’t work. She’s a colorist; I’m a minimalist.”

At one point O’Rourke had given her sister a drawing on black paper. Freuen refused it, said O’Rourke, because she wouldn’t work on black.

“She and I are very different as people,” said O’Rourke. “We’re sisters, but we have a generation gap.

“Gina’s eight years younger. That in itself creates a different way of responding. How we were raised, how we see things, what we experienced together as family; they show up in our art in different ways.

“The biggest connection we have is we’ve been extremely supportive of each other,” O’Rourke added. “I understand Gina and why she wants to create … why we want it to be so meaningful and how important it is to us as people and as women to be complete.”

Said Freuen: “Her strengths are my weaknesses and her weaknesses are my strengths. I don’t know where I’d be without her.”