Artist Kay West grew up all over the country as the child of a serviceman. In high school, art was her salvation.

Multidisciplinary artist Chrissa Walker Chorvat creates in a no-holds-barred fashion with a proclivity for commentaries on sex and war – things that, to her, are closely related.

On May 6, “Utilitarian Incorporeal Countereffort” opens at Kolva-Sullivan Gallery. During the reception, visitors can ask artist Paul Andrew Gregg the reasoning for the title, though he might just leave you guessing.

Carol Schmauder drew and painted in oil in her youth. She gave it up while raising nine children because it was hard to “find a place to put oil paintings to dry without little fingers smearing them around.”

Last Friday, dozens of children and their families attended an art show called “A is for Art” in the Seehorn Building of the Steam Plant. The exhibition included more than 400 works of art created by elementary students from East Farms STEAM Magnet School in the East Valley School District. Along with a handful of volunteers, teacher and resident artist Sami Perry hung the work in one day, anticipating an excited crowd. They weren’t disappointed.

Using Sharpies, pencils, watercolors, oil paint and pastels on cereal boxes, glass, wood, paper and canvas, Hannah Koeske creates works thick with layers, often combining drawing, painting and words.

“Fare Thee Well” is Bernadette Vielbig's last exhibition in Spokane. It includes work from her associations with Lorinda Knight Gallery, Chase Gallery, Tinman Art Works, and Saranac Art Projects.

On Saturday and Sunday at Stage Left Theater, the audience is advised not to blink during the theater’s third annual staged readings of 1- to 3-minute-long plays. “Fast and Furious” includes more than 35 plays written by local and national playwrights.

Livingston’s Spokane exhibit opens Thursday at the Richmond Art Collective’s new gallery space in the historic Richmond Building, 228 W. Sprague Ave.

“I live out my dreams, my fears, and my experiences through my art. It is a lifelong study of the human condition and of my own condition,” Melanie Lieb Taylor said. “My art is my travels, my childhood, my family and friends, enemies and heroes. It is the product of my hopes and an outlet for intense emotions and moments that have no words.”

“We Are Still Here” will highlight works of Native American artists, representing more than a dozen tribes.

Aryn Lindsey Fields likes running through fields of clay. Though she paints, sketches and makes lithographs, clay is her medium of choice. Working in a studio on the South Hill that was designed to be a garage, she hand-forms 3-D portraits. “I enjoy creating personalities,” she said. “I want the viewer to look at one of my faces and wonder what they are thinking, what their history is.”

“Art is my therapy,” says Sierra Dawson. “With each brush stroke, I leave behind a piece of me. When I reach for my paintbrush, music speaking to me in the background, all of my thoughts are put on mute. Whether I’m feeling happy or sad, I deal with it though painting or a different artistic medium.”

Dozens of artists, working in many mediums, are exhibiting in the Compassion for Animals show, including students, an inmate from the prison in Walla Walla, and Kit Jagoda, a Spokane Public Schools art teacher and animal rescuer at River’s Wish Animal Sanctuary.

The Spokane Watercolor Society’s annual juried show has a new home at the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture. Starting Sept. 30, paintings will be on display in the Helen South Alexander Gallery in the Cheney Cowles Center.

Moksha’s instrumental tones, sounds and beats leave a listener with room for thought. The music is like a painting of sound. The group’s name means “freedom from the differentiated, temporal and mortal world of ordinary experience,” and its sound is anything but ordinary.

Max Marlett, 23, is an emerging artist who will most likely be emerging for quite some time. “It is once the artist has experimented enough to become comfortable with their style and skill that they can begin on the quest of their artistic endeavor,” he said. “You have to embrace who and what you are as a painter and a person. There is a lot to say, and that changes as you journey through your career.”

Some people might describe singer/songwriter Matthew Joseph Hughes as shy. Soft-spoken, he often looks like a deer in the headlights when you’re speaking to him, almost as if conversation pains him. That all changes when he picks up one of his guitars, first hopping onto his kitchen counter to strum a few chords, then moving into the living room where he sits cross-legged on the floor with his guitar in his arms and begins to sing. This is the kind of conversation he’s good at – heartfelt experiences set to melodies.

At Object Space, 1818 1/2 E. Sprague Ave., the work of more than a dozen Eastern Washington University art students occupies the space. The artists are all students of the Studio Art Program who took the Senior Capstone course that focuses on the professional practice of a fine artist.