Changes, additions to Slightly West tour

The Slightly West of Spokane Artists Studio Tour is entering its sixth year with a couple of changes and additions - most of which are in one location.

The roughly 30-mile auto loop tour through Medical Lake and Cheney has added a new location, Fresh Design Retail & Rental Gallery in Medical Lake.

Owners Holly Dalke and Todd Hoffman opened the shop at 116 N. Lefevre St. that specializes in vintage goods from antiques to garage accoutrements and jewelry last January-February. Dalke said after taking part in the West Plains Vintage Tour in October, she was encouraged to join the Slightly West tour as well by local artist Dennis Smith.

"He suggested I might like it," Dalke said. Besides the store's regular goods, Dalke said they would also assemble floral displays and holiday candy baskets.

Three artists will have works at Fresh Design, two new to the tour and one in her second year.

Ellen Blaschke is on the tour for the first time, specializing in acrylic angel art. The fifth-generation Spokane-area native, who attended Cheney High School for two years when it was located in the Fisher Building, got into her specialty 10 years ago when she was commissioned for an auction benefiting the Spokane charity Christ's Kitchen. Thirty artists contributed works, and she decided to do more in the field after her angel piece sold for a sizeable amount.

Blaschke said she keeps her works simple, allowing the viewer to create their own interpretation of the piece's shapes and colors. While she said she's more of a realist, she prefers keeping her angels somewhat intangible.

"They're abstract angels," Blaschke said. "They're not the ones you will see in church."

One of the aspects of this she enjoys the most is that people who view her pieces will, either boldly or shyly, come up to her and tell her of their own experiences with angels. One young woman who viewed a piece saw an angel cat, telling Blaschke of her experience in losing a favorite cat when she was 10 years old.

"She said the cat walked thru the door a couple days later," Blaschke said, pausing for effect. "Thru, the door."

Rosemarie Graulich is also on the tour for the first time. Graulich, whose family came to the U.S. from Switzerland by way of Canada, normally uses oils and acrylics, although she said she's begun dabbling in watercolors.

"It's not my expertise but I do love watercolor paintings," she said.

Graulich said artistic expression, if not formal training, runs in the family. Her father took up painting while in Switzerland and she said she has a sister who works in charcoals and water pencils while a brother specializes in acrylics.

Graulich took up painting years ago to occupy herself between jobs and having children. She began by doing oil paintings of palm trees and birds while living in Florida, but has since gravitated towards scenery, something she finds a lot of not only around her home in Medical Lake but through trips to places like the Spokane River and even into Montana and Canada.

"It's like a whole new world opened up," Graulich said.

The third artist on display at Fresh Design is in her second year on the tour. Janet Denison has been working with stained glass for over 30 years, ever since she set out to do a 1930s vintage glass window for the front door of the house she and her husband were remodeling in Longview, Wash.

Denison, who began her art career in oils, took a class on stained glass work at Lower Columbia Community College in Longview and has "Been doing it ever since." She also took up something 10 years ago while living in Folsom, Arizona that she hadn't done since high school - pottery, learning the craft from Canadian artist Ann Krohen.

And as if that wasn't enough, Denison has a third media she works in that while not in the Slightly West tour brochure will be on display at Fresh Design. About eight years ago a woman asked if she would cut some clear glass for her, but instead of payment, Denison bargained with the woman to learn how to do something new.

"She did pine-needle weaving, so I said 'instead of paying me, teach me how to do the weaving,'" Denison said.

The Slightly West of Spokane Artists Studio Tour takes place Saturday, Nov. 28, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and features the works of 19 artists, which will be available for purchasing, in seven studio locations.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].