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 20th, 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.

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

After the event, the artists' paintings were auctioned off online. We also held a gallery viewing at M.A.D. Co Lab Studios. 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 next years event?

Artists

Ideal candidates will be comfortable interacting with attendees, working outdoors, and have prior professional experience.

Artists Apply Here

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.

Sponsors Inquire Here

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.

Vendors Apply Here

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.

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.

Community Art Project by the Botanical Alchemists

Our co-hosts, The Botanical Alchemists, will be hosting a large community art project near Polly Judd Park that all attendees are encouraged to contribute to as well as a kid's nature bracelet craft.

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. These activities will include painting rocks, a floral bookmark craft, making flags, sidewalk chalk, nature bracelets, and more.

Nature Journaling Workshop

Join therapist and artist, Marit Fischer, for a no-rules exploration of nature-inspired expression. This 90-minute workshop begins at 1pm in Polly Judd Park and includes a guided discussion, quiet time on the Bluff to journal, and a sharing-optional circle. Everyone is welcome. Recommended minimum age is 12. Bring your own journal or paper, a pen and/or art supplies, and a camp chair or blanket.

Food Trucks

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.

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2023 Event Details

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. The remaining proceeds are split between the event organizers, Friends of the Bluff and The Botanical Alchemists. You can learn more about how the money will be used below.

Friends of the Bluff's Projects

Goat Grazing Events
200 goats visit the bluff to eat the dry brush and invasive species that help wildfires spread quickly.

Lop and Scatter Events
Trained volunteers remove low-hanging limbs and thin out densely forested areas.

Heavy Machinery Rentals
For some work, a chipper or other heavy-duty equipment must be rented.

The Botanical Alchemist's Projects

Sarah Edwards and Ava Barany of the Botanical Alchemists will be offering a three-part, seasonal, free-to-the-public Community Nature Art Workshop Series, seeking to engage people of all ages in Spokane. This workshop series will give participants the opportunity to explore the amazing botanical variety of beautiful Spokane and use it to create ephemeral art.

There is also something magical for the broader community in finding one of these artworks unexpectedly. It brings about a sense of awe and wonder—something so many people long for. Prior to each of the three outdoor events, Ava and Sarah will visit the park location with a team of volunteers to clean up any trash and non-nature items.

At each session, participants will create a personal artwork and then join in the creation of a large community collaborative project. Individual artworks will range in size from a few inches to a few feet, while the collaborative projects will reach 7-10 feet across. The works will then be left for the public to discover in their wanderings. A gallery show documenting the workshops, artwork, and the public’s role in creating the pieces will culminate the series.

Learn more and donate directly to their project by clicking the button below.

Visit GoFundMe

This Year's Artists

Melissa Isaacson

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.

Andrea Parrish

For as long as I remember, I haven’t had a “mind’s eye.” Called aphantasia, it means I am unable to visualize anything in my mind. Instead, I take pictures of everything. However, when hand surgery meant that holding my beloved SLR camera for long periods of time wasn’t a possibility, a friend challenged me to pick up a paintbrush instead. What has emerged - planets, space, and and alien landscapes - has become an adventure into what my mind’s eye might have created for me, if it could.

Instagram @tinytall

Star Ryan

Originally from Canada, Star is a multimedia artist that specializes in portraits. She loves incorporating nature and surrealism into her work.

Stephanie Bogue

Stephanie Sauvé Bogue is the owner of MOON WILD STUDIO - a heart-centered business that calls her diverse passions into congruency. She is an Artist, Dj, Reiki Energy Practitioner, Meditation Guide, and a Certified Trauma-Informed Empowerment Coach. Stephanie is devoted to the pursuit of feeling alive and inspired in an authentic soul led life, while supporting others who desire the same. Her work in the realm of personal and spiritual development greatly informs her art, which is created intuitively with feeling, in layers of meaning, and intentional energy.

Beth Robinson

Beth Robinson is a Spokane based artist working primarily in oils. Her focus is on figurative artworks with an emphasis on representational naturalism. She enjoys plein air painting in the warmer months, especially amongst friends.

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.

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.

Roy Robinson

Roy Robinson creates artworks for the joy it brings him.

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.

Gwyn Pevonka

Gwyn Pevonka moved to Medical Lake, WA from Knoxville, TN in July 2021. She is a former artist-in-resident of the Hive® and founder of the 33 Artists Market. Since 2009, Pevonka has been creating her paintings one-layer-a-day for 20-30 consecutive days. Once the paintings have cured she carves into the surface revealing the layers beneath. In 2016 she started experimenting with the carved paint pieces, arranging them into collages to create a new medium called Acrylic Assemblages. Pevonka’s favorite subjects are Abstracts, Girls with Flowers and Animals.

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.

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.

Cinda Rodgers

Cinda Rodgers has called Spokane her home for over 28 years but was born and raised on a ranch in Southern Oregon. She works fulltime but in her free time Cinda is creating a new life with her art. Watercolors have been a favorite since she was 16, but during the pandemic she discovered a new medium by incorporating ink illustrations into her artwork. Cinda took the challenge to broaden her artistic approach to relieve the stress of 2020 and has been working with the medium ever since. She tries to look at nature and the world around her and bring her own unique style to each piece and share her positivity with others.

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.

Jimmie Allen

I fell in love with painting 4 years ago and consider myself an amateur enthusiast. Painting began at a time in my life when I realized the need to heal from some traumatic events in my past. Art has been an avenue for self healing. I utilize acrylics mostly with mixed media, watercolor, pen, and pencil. Creating each paintings unique color pallet is my favorite aspect of painting.

Brandy Seistrup

The work of Spokane-based artist, Brandy Seistrup of Opal Fox Fine Art, is known for its bold yet calming use of color. It's her connection to the natural world that inspires the work. Movement that mimics the unpredictable lines found in nature; lines that are never straightforward; movement that can't be controlled. Reminding us to let go, trust how we feel, and see the beauty in the abstract.

Katherine Mandley

I love painting and the magical experience of making art. I often feel like I am in the eye of a hurricane while creating. As someone who has enjoyed trail running on the Bluff, I hope that my painting will be an iconic image to enjoy.

Nikki Gamon

Nikki Gamon is a self-taught mixed media artist and eastern Washington native. She delights in color and loves to paint whimsical adventures. Nikki works primarily in acrylics and watercolors, mixing in many different mark-making tools. Previously a quilt artist, Nikki played with mixed media painting for years before committing to developing her skills and style during the pandemic. She now has a daily painting practice (assisted by her studio cats, Bobby and Sark) and sells her work on Etsy.

Summer Milson

Born and raised in the Spokane area, I have been influenced by nature my entire life! Being a local means loving the land and all that comes with it. Fluidly moving my paint on canvas, just like nature is ever moving, allows me to show the different abilities that acrylics can take on. Painting nature is my true passion!

Natalie Utley

I grew up around artists, craftsmen, and adventurers. My parents instilled a love of outdoorsy wonder and curiosity. I have a mother whose whole life has been about art. Paintings, sketches, and projects were always present, mixed into our daily dwellings. I had a father who encouraged us to venture outdoors and love the world we lived in. They taught me patience and curiosity. I believe this was the foundation to my artistic mind. With patience comes observation, and curiosity spurs on imagination and vice versa.

Jaisy Hanson

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.

2023 Sponsors