Artist’s creativity flows through stages of drawing

Jamey Cunningham is rarely bored. Even as a kid, he abated his ennui by doodling in the margins of his schoolwork, keeping his creative mind entertained. Now he entertains others as a musician and a visual artist.

Cunningham grew up in Otis Orchards where, in the fourth grade, he won a “best float” contest with a float he made from egg cartons. He went on to graduate from Eastern Washington University with a degree in fine art, and, coming full circle, he designed the 2006 float for the Spokane Lilac Association.

His doodles have also expanded into computer-enhanced and manipulated photography and drawings. One piece titled “Terror” shows a photo of two adults and a young boy mugging for the camera. The photo has been altered giving it a “Warholish” appearance.

Besides his creatively expressed renditions of photographs, his hand-drawn pieces are also full of expression and curious meaning; metaphors for this and that. The thought behind his work is apparent and provoking. They are called “process drawings” that include an initial drawing, a scan into the computer, and then more drawing.

He does many portraits, embellishing them with his imagination. He then prints the images onto canvas that he stretches onto handmade frames.

Cunningham, 37, has worked by day in graphic design since 1997. Currently he works at Cassel Promotions in downtown Spokane. He has installed signs and graphics at the Spokane Arena, Avista Stadium, the INB Performing Arts Center, and more. He displays his personal artwork at his place of work and has shown in Raw Space, Victoria’s Coffee House, the Gellhorn Gallery at Interplayers, and the Eastern Washington University Gallery. Through the month of February, his work can be seen at The Shop on South Perry.

Unwilling to be idle, Cunningham fills what’s left of his spare time playing drums in the band Big Dirty Guns. He has been in bands since 1991, including Civilized Animal. He has written songs, many of which are kept in dozens of binders that include drawings. The binders are full of passion and emotion and illustrate his creative nature. One song that he wrote in 1998 reveals his desire to escape: “… come with me, take all those other thoughts, toss them away, we’ll go somewhere hidden, a lonely cottage in the woods where we can live and play, be free and see. …”

A self-proclaimed surrealist and expressionist, Cunningham’s work, including his music, enables a listener or a viewer to escape into an altered world of sight and sound. “Everyone is creative,” Cunningham said. Even his three teenaged sons have tapped into their creativity as musicians and artists.

Cunningham, in a sense, is a reinventor of environments. At present, he is renovating his Otis Orchards home with plans to move on. “I’m going to keep on going,” he said.