Central Washington on display
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 3 years, 7 months AGO
Dollie Boyd, director of the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center, points out the feather subtly incorporated in “Spotting a Lake Trout,” one of the pieces currently on display at the museum.
Joel Martin/Columbia Basin Herald
This piece by Ana Li Gresham, showing the life cycle of a sandhill crane, was done by combining wood burning with acrylic paint for vivid color.
“Rabbitbrush Refuge,” by Joan Eckman, shows a plant that’s often dismissed as a weed but which represents Central Washington, according to Moses Lake Museum & Art Center Director Dollie Boyd. The painting is one of many on display at the museum through March 17.
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | February 28, 2023 1:30 AM
MOSES LAKE — Central Washington, in all its beauty, is on display at the Moses Lake Museum & Art Center.
The exhibition titled simply “Life in Central Washington” features the work of Yakima Valley Arts Association members. The show opened on Feb. 3 and runs until March 17.
“All the pieces in the show are pretty much inspired by our landscape,” said Museum Superintendent Dollie Boyd. “The work that we do here, the agriculture, the plants, the flora, the fauna.”
The artworks are in a variety of media; oils, watercolors and acrylics dominate, but there are a few notable exceptions. One artist, Ana Li Gresham of Naches, works in wood burning with vivid colors added. Subjects of Gresham’s pieces on display include apples and cherries – a vital part of the Central Washington scene – as well as a praying mantis and a canyon landscape. One of Gresham’s pieces, a 10-by-10-inch wood burn entitled “Life Cycle of a Sandhill Crane,” depicts the magnificent bird as eggs, a chick and a full-grown crane in flight.
“I'm familiar with wood burning, but she does stuff unlike any other wood-burning I've ever seen,” Boyd said. “It's really detailed and she adds color into it, which you don't get with a lot of wood burning.”
Gresham has had a show of her own at the museum in the past, Boyd said.
Not far away are a couple of mixed-media pieces by Tami Grant, who incorporates a feather into each of her depictions of not just birds but fish, frogs and even mammoths.
“Rabbitbrush Refuge,” a 12-16 acrylic painting by Joan Eckman, is a particular favorite of Boyd’s.
“I'm a big fan of rabbitbrush, which is weird to say because it grows everywhere around here,” she said. “You see it bloom in September and October. It's a really interesting plant, one of our native plants. People consider it a weed, I guess, but it's really beautiful when it blooms and it has this great sage aroma to it.”
“Where will the rabbit find refuge from the hawk, from the coyote?” Eckman wrote on her website about the painting. “Will this land thrive to sustain them? All interlocked. All one, combining with the other. The sage and flowering plants. The butterfly and bird; bee and beetle. All one; intertwined with each other. Will one thrive without the other?”
As usual, much of the art on display is for sale; some of it has sold already.
“So if you want to own some art that's unique to Eastern Washington, here it is,” Boyd said.
Joel Martin may be reached at [email protected].
Correction: Dollie Boyd's title has been corrected in the story above.
ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Endless battle
Noxious Weed Control Board works to keep invasive plants under control
MOSES LAKE — Some of the nastiest plants in Grant County were the topic of a class led by Jay Johnson, a consultant with the Grant County Noxious Weed Control Board, Tuesday. The Noxious Weed Control Board, as its name would suggest, is tasked with keeping weeds under control in Grant County. That’s not a small job; the board’s website lists 129 species of noxious weeds that are found around Grant County. A noxious weed is defined as an invasive, non-native plant that threatens agricultural crops, local ecosystems or fish and wildlife habitat, according to the Noxious Weed Control Board. Washington state law requires that these weeds be identified and their spread kept to a minimum, if not completely eradicated. “We’re one of those agencies a lot of people don’t really understand,” Johnson said. “We’re a county office and … our funding is tax-based assessment. When you get your tax bill and you look down at all the expenses that you pay for, there we are.”
BASIN EVENTS: Oct. 16-24
COLUMBIA BASIN — Whether you feel like shopping, crafting, learning or seeing a show, there’s something happening for you this week in the Basin. Oct. 16 ‘My Family (Mi Familia)’ screening Spanning three generations, “My Family (Mi Familia)” is a heartfelt drama that follows the Sánchez family as they build their lives in East Los Angeles. Through love, hardship, triumph, and sacrifice, the film explores the immigrant experience, the strength of family bonds, and the traditions that connect one generation to the next. Lowrider show and taco truck before the screening. Sponsored by Columbia Basin Allied Arts, EDUBS C/S and the Moses Lake Creative District. $12 per person. Doors open at 6 p.m., film begins at 7 p.m. at the Moses Lake Civic Center Auditorium, 401 S. Balsam St. Tickets and info: www.cba-arts.org.
Moses Lake author encourages women to look beyond church culture norms
MOSES LAKE — A Moses Lake author’s book, “A Christian Woman Striving to Live Her Faith in a Man-Controlled World,” takes aim at the role to which many churches relegate the female half of their congregations. “It’s to encourage women in the faith,” Linda Curran said. “A lot of churches say, ‘Teach Sunday school, do this, do that, but don’t (evangelize.)’" In her book, Curran recounts a time when she moved to a new community and joined a church there. She was surprised to learn that, as a new female member, she had been automatically assigned church cleaning duties. When she questioned it, she wrote, she was met with condescension and her objections were brushed aside. In other churches, she said, women who were capable of teaching were relegated to “women’s ministry.”