Students of three local art teachers will display their works in Kalispell starting Friday.

The Student/Teacher Art Show, featuring artwork by students of Nicholas Oberling, Mark Ogle and Jennifer Li, opens Friday at Glacier Art Academy, located in the KM Building in downtown Kalispell. The show, which will also feature work by the teachers, kicks off with a reception from 5 to 8 p.m. Beverages and light refreshments will be served.

The show will be up for at least a month, and the pieces will be for sale.

Ogle said he hopes the show will become an annual event. He also stressed that show is for and about the students.

“We want to get the word out about our students. It’s not about us,” Ogle said.

Artists in the show are of all ages and experience, he said.

“They run the gamut from just starting painting to people in their 70s to active painting professionals,” Ogle said. “It’s an across-the-spectrum show.”

Some students with work in the show will also be part of the Hockaday Museum of Art’s Local Color Studio Tour, which takes place Saturday and Sunday at artists’ and artisans’ studios throughout the Flathead Valley. Other students are art novices.

All are part of a common goal, Ogle said.

“We want to keep art viable in this valley,” he said.

Ogle first tasted that dream in the 1970s, when he began working with sculptor and painter Ace Powell.

“One of his major desires was to make the Flathead Valley a great art community,” Ogle said of Powell.

That desire is coming true, he added; Ogle said he has seen a “huge resurgence” in professional artists in the valley. He has also seen an uptick in the number of people wanting to learn to paint — and those people are more serious than the novices Ogle used to teach.

He used to teach an annual workshop in Glacier National Park with anywhere from 12 to 25 students. Many of those students came every year, but few practiced painting between workshops, Ogle said.

“They never improved,” he said.

After a brief hiatus, Ogle resumed teaching a few years ago, this time with a new method. He now offers a workshop about every two months out of his studio, and people who take one workshop have the first chance to sign up for the next workshop. That way, Ogle explained, they can keep building their skills.

“The improvement I saw was remarkable,” Ogle said.

Ogle said his commitment to teaching is in part driven by the support he received as a young artist. In the 1970s, he started spending time with local professional artists, including Joe Abbrescia, Fred Fellows and Bob Cavanaugh. A group of about 20 would meet weekly to discuss art at a bed and breakfast that used to sit where Smith’s is now, Ogle said.

‘I was the young kid on the block,” he said. “Every one of them took me under their wing.”

Nothing was secret, Ogle added; all of those artists wanted to share their information and help others improve their skills and the Flathead’s art world. Powell was especially passionate about building the local art scene.

“I’m carrying on what Ace wanted, building the art community,” Ogle said.

For more information about the show, call Ogle at 752-4217.