Lovers of Lewis-Clark Valley scenery and skies will hit a jackpot at the Lewis-Clark State College Center for Arts and History when local watercolorist Jill Hosmer exhibits her paintings of the LC Valley.
“I grew up in Mill Valley as a child, so it was in my nature,” said Hosmer, who is partial to painting long distance vistas, having grown up less than 15 miles north of San Francisco in an area surrounded by hills.
Hosmer paints landscapes, but mostly skies.
“It’s got an abstract element,” Hosmer said. “With skies you can just play and let go. They’re so varied by weather, light and time of day.”
In 2008, the skies and land called Hosmer to live in the LC Valley.
“I was taken by the landscape here and I was able to do long distance (paintings),” she said.
Primarily an oil painter, Hosmer has shown art at the LCSC Center for Arts and History twice already, as well as at Palouse’s Bank Left Gallery and the Carnegie Art Center in Walla Walla.
“I work from photographs, but am conscious of using them as a reference, not as a copy,” Hosmer said. “It’s not abstract and yet it’s not necessarily something you look around and see, but it’s landscape and realism basically.”
One Fourth of July, Hosmer set up her camera halfway up a hill during a thunderstorm, and said she photographed some of the most insane lighting and thunder for about two hours.
Hosmer has had her fair share of plein air work, but said she prefers to evolve her work from photographs.
“There’s something particularly with oils, if you work it more and more, it just gets richer and richer.”
Plus, Hosmer’s a homebody.
“I like to work alone in my studio with my cats and a cup of coffee,” she said. “... And I’m a gardener. My art slows in the summer, because my garden becomes my canvas.”
Hosmer expects to exhibit 20 to 30 watercolor paintings in the LCSC show and said the pieces for sale are affordable, because the thin frames are from local antique stores. Normally, her oil paintings are set in her own, handmade gold leaf frames, but her watercolors are framed from her various findings.
The opening reception for the exhibition will take place 6-7 p.m. Thursday. Hosmer will lead tours starting at 6 p.m. in the upstairs galleries. The exhibition runs July 25 through Aug. 10. Hosmer’s work is the first in LCSC’s Local Artist Spotlight series.
Treffry can be contacted at (208) 883-4640 or ltreffry@inland360.com. Follow her on Twitter at: @LindseyTreffry.
->if you go: WHAT: Jill Hosmer: Local Artist Spotlight WHEN: 6 p.m. Thursday reception; exhibit runs through Aug. 10 WHERE: LCSC Center for Arts and History, 415 Main St., Lewiston COST: Free. Donations are accepted.
