Nationally recognized weaving artists will be featured at the Chase Gallery, April 28 through July 3, 2009. The Chase Gallery is located in City Hall at 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. in Spokane. The artist reception for the public is May 1 from 5 to 8 p.m. in conjunction with the downtown promotion, First Friday. Gallery hours are Monday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. This exhibit is being held in combination with the 2009 Association of Northwest Weavers’ Guilds Conference. For more information on the conference please visit www.anwg2009.org.

The artists participating in this exhibition will be Mary Burks, Lia Cook, James Koehler, Rebecca Laurence, Barbara Setsu-Pickett, and Sarah Swett.

• Mary Burks, from Coupeville, WA, is interested in stretching the normal use of fiber. She presents us with a series where she plays with the ideas of covering and uncovering of layers as we grow in the physical, mental, and natural world.
• Lia Cook, one of the leading innovators in the world of weaving, lives in Berkeley, CA. Her A-Maze Doll is part of a series of work exploring face maps and mazes. She uses a system of light and dark threads to break down images into continually changing patterns.
• James Koehler focuses on the creative and constructive process of tapestry. His woven images reflect the connection of this process with the rhythmic, repetitive and random processes in the natural world. Koehler, whose work can be found nationally, lives in Santa Fe, NM.
• Rebecca Laurence is a local artist who uses a variety of found object in her Purse Collection including piano keys and vintage beads. The idea behind her collection is to create objects that seem obvious, novel, and inevitable.
• Barbara Setsu-Pickett is the curricular coordinator for the Fibers Area at the University of Oregon. Velvet weaving has been the focus of her research and creative work for the past twenty years.
• Sarah Swett writes, knits, and weaves tapestries in Moscow, ID. She hand dyes all the fibers for her tapestries and is also the author of Kids Weaving.

The Spokane Arts Commission announces “Explorations XI,” a group student art exhibition from regional colleges and universities at the Chase Gallery, March 3 through April 24, 2009. The Chase Gallery is located in City Hall at 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. in Spokane. An artist reception will be held in conjunction with First Friday on Friday March 6, 5 to 8pm. Gallery hours are Monday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The artists in the exhibition are:

• Kimiko Ishii (Kettle Falls, WA) Yelena Syvaya (Russia), and Keshia Wright (Farmington, WA) from Eastern Washington University

• John deRoulet (Bothell, WA), Nathaniel Duncan (Spokane, WA), and Steven Prohira (Franktown, CO) from Gonzaga University

• Brittany Smith (Coeur d’Alene, ID) and Daniela Snow (Forchheim, Germany) from North Idaho College

• Anna Collins-Wakeman (Chiang Mai, Thailand), Nathan Ellefson (West Richland, WA), Graeme MacPherson (Bozeman, MT) and Bryan Putnam (Winthrop, WA) from Whitworth University

• Hanna Koeske (Spokane, WA), Sarah Rieper (Alamosa, CO), Randall Schleufer (Spokane, WA) from Spokane Falls Community College

The students work in a wide variety of media. This artwork represents some of the best work by younger artists from the region.

In conjunction with the Spokane Symphony’s “Lincoln Festival,” celebrating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the Chase Gallery presents "A House Divided: The Legacy of Lincoln," a group art exhibition featuring artwork by Greg DuMonthier, Rhea Giffin, Tobe Harvey, Scott Kolbo, Garric Simonsen, and Joe Tomlinson. The Chase Gallery is located in City Hall at 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. in Spokane. An artist reception will be held in conjunction with Visual Arts Tour on Friday, February 6, 5 to 9 p.m. Gallery hours are Monday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Tuesday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Greg DuMonthier’s work is idea-based rather than material specific, finding appropriate material to physically manifest conceptual decisions. For the Chase Gallery, he has created "To Build a Campfire," an exercise in drawing logs. “I loved the logs alone, but decided to build something with my drawn logs. I scanned them into the computer and began building. Using the advantages of the digital environment: no gravity and an unlimited number of perfect copies, I built an impossible portrait of Lincoln.” DuMonthier says a portrait of Lincoln was chosen because he “envisioned the civil war as a flood, a flooded river of the east west passage that was never found but became the dividing line of a war, and the logs as if floating debris.”

Rhea Giffin says as an artist she strives to balance her cynicism with hope—an increasingly difficult task. She says “While the irony of similar challenges, political, economical and matters of ignorance faced by Abraham Lincoln loom on our nation’s current horizon, I am also aware of an electrical current vibrating collective fears, frustrations, visions and possibilities with the distinct smell of inevitable change. For better or for worse, only time will tell. In the meantime, I’m craving cake and celebration of gifts and truths that are self-evident.”

Tobe Harvey work describes objects he associates with the time period of Lincoln. Harvey says “I have been researching, rendering, and painting objects associated with Abraham Lincoln. These objects are food, clothing, and vehicles from the 19th century. Harvey’s works include “Lincoln’s Favorite Meal,” visually describes the former president's favorite selection of food: chicken fricassee and seasonal fruit; “Top Hat With Hard Track” representing the President's final top hat and included depictions of hard tack, an available food for soldiers; and “Monitor” depicting the experimental Civil War ship.

Scott Kolbo was fascinated to research and interpret the life of our most idealized president. His work is designed to explore some of the big national problems he attempted to solve (slavery, war, governance) as well as the more personal and domestic aspects of his life. Kolbo says of Lincoln “He was a complex and difficult individual living through some of the most complex and difficult times in our nation’s history. I was both inspired and disappointed by Lincoln's life - and by the country he governed. I am awestruck by the power of the words he employed to describe that time in our national history and by the stunning humility and grace which he used to get through it all.”

On his work for the Chase Gallery, Garric Simonsen says the surface of the objects reference events of African American civil rights. The chosen material displays the tactility of a school desk as it would have been carved into between the years 1955–1968. The desktop is presented as an historical artifact authenticating a time of visionaries and prophetic thought. Simonsen says “The collection of artifacts foreshadows an American fate to our new President and offers a chance to look back at the powerful integrity of leaders who gave their lives in hopes that some day we shall overcome racial inferiority.”

Joe Tomlinson is known in Spokane for his figurative ceramics and sense of satire. For the Chase Gallery, he has created new ceramic works to honor Abraham Lincoln’s legacy. Tomlinson explains, "I am a common man who takes a common material and forms permanent images of an eternal man."