HAUSER LAKE - If you come to the front door of the home of Jaquith Travis and there's a picture of a snarling grizzly bear taped on it, don't knock.

It might even be best to walk, even run away.

There's meaning behind that growling griz.

"That's me when I'm not so happy. I put that up on the refrigerator or the front door when I'm feeling a little testy and I'm kind of warning people to stay away," Travis says with a laugh. "This is not the day to talk to me."

But such days are rare around this affable artist, who lives in an eccentric home on a bluff looking toward Hauser Lake.

For the most part, Travis is a smiler, a talkative sort who happily shares her thoughts about life, about art, about husband Patrick - literally amidst the trees that tower alongside her house of five years.

Jaquith and Patrick Travis bought the home because they loved it for its oddity inside, and the natural beauty and landscape outside.

She offers a quick tour, and slides open a downstairs door that leads to a cavern of sorts. There, plastic sheets stretch over plastic siding, a walkway bridge rests on wheels, and a wooden stairway and boulders lead down to a makeshift pool made by the previous owner.

"He filled it with a hose, but there was no hot water so his kids didn't really like it," Travis says.

A little farther down is what looks like a cave.

"He was creating a kind of a sculpture, I think, more than a house," she says.

It's this house, though, where Travis uses oils, watercolor and original digital imaging to create two-dimensional art. If she's not working in her studio downstairs, she's outside on the upper deck that sits 30 feet above the ground, and some 60 dizzying feet above the cul de sac far below.

"This is where I paint during the summer," she says as she looks out toward Hauser Lake. "It's absolutely fabulous. I couldn't ask for anything better."

Travis laughs when asked if she's a rich artist.

"LeRoy Neiman is rich, Picasso is rich. Not this one," she says with a grin.

Still, her artwork, which decorates many of the walls and hallways of her home, will be featured during a grand opening for a new gallery, "Giving Tree Fine Art Gallery," on Saturday at Pilgrim's Market, 1316 N. Fourth St. in Coeur d'Alene.

"We were just going to hang pictures. I said it might be more fun if we named it a gallery rather than just people coming in for salami and looking at the pictures," she jokes.

Travis views art as a form of communication. It's been that way since she was a girl cutting out paper dolls with scissors.

"Just as words and music are used to tell a story so is visual art. Painting is also a look into the mind and heart of the artist," she wrote. "Since each person has a unique view of our world, a painting shows us new and different ways of seeing and thinking."

Her training includes three years at San Francisco State University and a variety of courses and seminars at other colleges, including North Idaho College.

Her work has been in numerous regional galleries and in several one-woman shows. She paints murals for businesses, and her digital art has appeared on greeting cards and on the 2004 poster for Art on the Green. Her work is also in private collections through the country and in Mexico and England.

She admires the efforts of local artists and tends to downplay her own talents.

"There are so many great artists around," she says. "I'm thankful when people say they like mine."

She is comfortable with both modern technology and with old-fashioned brush, paint and canvas. On her computer, she quickly calls up numerous digital images she has created and stored.

"You can do all kinds of stuff. You're always working," Travis said. "You're always putting things together."

Travis is also quick to laugh at herself.

On one wall in her studio are black and white pictures, two of a striking younger woman posing amidst sunlight and trees.

"That's me when I was willing to take a picture," Travis says with a laugh.

But jokes aside, she loves being an artist.

She describes her art as colorful and bright, as being filled with movement and warmth. She has a "deep love of the environment she lives in" and speaks of birds and deer and flowers that deliver a daily dose of joy, as well as offering endless inspiration.

Travis is also one of those artists who works each day, who donates her work to nonprofits for fundraisers and auctions. She likes to read, travel, and attend workshops as part of her studies. There's no waiting around for the right moment to strike before turning colors into stunning scenes.

"If I did that, that would be a disaster," she said.

Information: 773-2456, 691-8447