Brush on the Bluff | Friends of the Bluff

What is Brush on the Bluff?

Brush on the Bluff is a free, family-friendly event that celebrates art's deep roots in nature. On May 17th, dozens of professional local artists will set up their easels on the bluff and draw inspiration from the natural beauty around them. The public is encouraged to walk the trail, meet the artists, and observe their work.

RSVP TO FACEBOOK EVENT HERE

Greenplay Northwest will host several art workshops for kids at Polly Judd Park throughout the day. There will also be food vendors and non-profit info booths set up throughout the park.

After the event, the artists' completed paintings will be displayed in a gallery and auctioned off online. The proceeds of the auction support art-related community projects, Friends of the Bluff's wildfire reduction efforts, and the artists themselves.

Check out the video recap from 2023's event!

Want to Be a Part of This Year's Event?

Artists

Any artists interested in participating in this year's event can apply by clicking the button below and filling out our intake form.

Sponsors

If your business would like to learn more about the benefits of sponsoring this highly-popular community event on the lower South Hill, you can do so by clicking the button below.

Volunteers

The event completely relies on dedicated volunteers! If you'd like to spend a portion of the event helping us out behind the scenes, please fill out the volunteer form below.

Vendors

If you run a non-profit organization, food truck, or local business and want to set up a booth at the event, please fill out the application below.

Artists Apply Here

Learn More Here

Vendors Apply Here

Event Details

Watch Artists Paint the Bluff's Scenery

Dozens of professional local artists will be spaced out along the bluff (all within half a mile of Polly Judd Park) to paint the scenery around them. Friends of the Bluff will provide maps to their locations so visitors can take a short stroll and observe the artists in action.

Art Workshops for Kids at Polly Judd

Greenplay Northwest (an outdoor early education center located at the base of the bluff) will be on hand to lead nature-themed art activities for kids of all ages all day. In the past these activities have included painting rocks, a floral bookmark craft, making flags, sidewalk chalk, nature bracelets, and more.

Craft and Non-Profit Education Booths

Over a dozen local non-profits will be scattered along the route, hosting craft workshops and educating attendees about their work in the community.

Food & Drinks

Feast World Kitchen brings delicious global cuisine to Spokane while supporting and empowering our former refugees and immigrants, helping to weave them into the fabric of our civic life. We will also have a snack booth for those looking for something on the lighter side.

What does this event support?

Brush on the Bluff is completely free to the public, but donations are greatly appreciated and help ensure that we're able to continue the event in the future. The proceeds of this event are split between three groups. The artists receive 50% of whatever their artwork earns during the auction, then the remaining proceeds are split between event expenses, Friends of the Bluff, and The Botanical Alchemists.

Partners and Sponsors

Thank you to Spokane Arts for Awarding Brush on the Bluff with a 2025 SAGA Grant

This event wouldn't be the same without the support of the local businesses below

This Year's Artists

LR Montgomery

LR Montgomery creates original oil, impressionistic landscapes paintings of places people love in the Northwest. His paintings bring the ambiance and memories of your outdoor experiences into homes, work places and recreational abodes. LR Montgomery’s works are found in the collections of corporations, private individuals, environmental groups, medical centers, museums, and educational institutions throughout the USA, Europe, Russia, China, Mexico, Canada, Africa and Japan. He is a bit of a rascal.

PXL_20230510_185747103.PORTRAIT~4 - Melissa Isaacson.jpg

Melissa Dingfield

From the time I learned they existed, I wanted to be a professional artist. I graduated with a BA in Studio Art in 2000, but life had other plans for me, including a wonderful family life. Nearly 20 years later I began painting again, first in gouache and then more recently in oil. As a rather new transplant to Spokane I am actively finding ways to build connections in the local art community. My art focuses on storytelling, with a painting style that is more structured than impressionist art but more painterly than realism. To me, success in a painting happens when others share their own stories of a place after viewing the piece. The artwork then transcends my own experience and is something we experience together.

Oriana Sage

Oriana Sage is a visual artist who specializes in ink drawings and vibrant oil paintings that celebrate the intricacies and wildness of nature while simultaneously seeking to illuminate the deep and unseen treasures of the soul. She is fascinated by the interactions of light bursting through shadow, the two-dimensional emerging into animated form, and color conveying feeling and vitality. Some of Oriana's favorite conceptual themes are resistance and surrender, death as an avenue to life, and the small and mundane being a metaphor for the transcendent.

Wakan Zion Burrows

Wakan is a self employed arborist who up-cycles pieces of wood into chainsaw carved mushrooms for gardens, yards and homes.

Abbie Oscarson

"I am a fiber artist who specializes in wool felting. Felting is an ancient form of turning raw wool into unique one of a kind pieces through agitation and soap with no knitting or sewing. I have had the privilege of learning and studying under several international artists . I have merged all of the wonderful techniques into my own unique style.I love the diversity of pieces I can create with wool; landscapes, wall hangings, pillows, purses, wool sculptures and scarves. I have an interest in all forms of felting, whether it be wet felting, needle felting or Nuno felting.
I continue to find new and exciting artistic twists to felting.

Jorden Heidal

I am a self taught visual artist currently based in Spokane, WA. My work primarily focuses on bold abstract designs using bright colors with acrylic paint, pastels, spray paint, and paint pens. I’m here to tell a story. Each color, each design, and each brush stroke are an expression of my emotion and feeling. Often depicting my personal journey, I aim to make each piece its own experience for both myself and my audience. My work is heavily inspired by the world and nature I surround myself with.

Aimee Croteau

Aimee Croteau is a colored pencil artist and graduate from the Studio Art program at Eastern Washington University. She derives much of her inspiration from nature and loves to draw animals. She often uses an airbrush to paint her backgrounds, giving her drawings a softer feel.

Melissa Scott Lewis

Melissa Scott Lewis grew up in Spirit Lake, Idaho and now resides in Greenacres, Washington with her husband and 2 year old son. Since she could hold a crayon, Melissa has been creating her masterpieces. The passion for art and creating something with her own mind and hands never diminished. Today she creates beautiful watercolor landscapes and paintings of nature. Inspired by the beautiful Pacific Northeast and her travels. Her work brings on a sense of calm and tranquility that she feels when exploring or simply existing in her surroundings.

Stacie Boyer

Stacie Boyer is a mixed media and mural artist with a focus on public art installations. She also creates sculptures in various mediums and has her own traveling paint party business called Perennial Thrift.

Kelley Hudson

Kelley “Kel” Hudson is an artist and photographer living and working in Spokane, Washington and Copenhagen, Denmark. Kel began life as a painter and evolved into a world-renowned artist with her photos and paintings being published and shown in the Netherlands, India, Poland, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Sweden and Norway. A citizen of the world, Kel has made her home in many places but none so far like Spokane, the community that granted her substantial funding to create “The Spokane Coloring Book.” This locally produced, self-published coloring book is filled with 30 hand drawn images and is completely funded by the citizens of Spokane.

Jaisy Hanlon

A native of the Pacific Northwest, I am inspired by all things animal and botanical. I like to create romanticized environments that showcase nature’s creatures. My work includes mixed media and installation works for museums in Hawaii, New York, California, Colorado and Washington.

Nicole Potter

I am a stained glass artist, using the traditional Tiffany methods to create glass art with a funky, modern twist. I work heavily with salvaged, scrap, and reclaimed glass to turn what is broken into something beautiful. I am a trash artist: a lover of broken things, someone who cherishes the discarded, the forgotten, the irregular, and the imperfect. I am here to gather up the broken bits, clean them off, and piece them into beauty. Each piece of art that I make is about moving from brokenness into wholeness.

My work is light and often whimsical, and it doesn’t hesitate to poke fun at itself. I’m inspired by the patterns found in nature (like Fibonacci spirals, honeycombs, and morel mushrooms), and enjoy making representations of them in glass. While much of my inspiration is from the loveliness of the natural world around us, I also delve into pop culture themes, exploring the dichotomy of representing silly objects (like dumpster fires and pizza slices) in such a rigid and traditionally serious media of stained glass.