Shillam helping create more interest in area art scene

Downtown Spokane has quite an art scene. There are art events on the first Friday of almost every month. The events are well attended and are an opportunity for artists whose works are on display at downtown galleries to mingle with art appreciators and snack on refreshments.

Spokane Valley is only beginning to dip its toe into the waters of an “art scene.” Artist Craig Shillam is hoping to give the effort a little push. On Friday, from 5 to 9 p.m. and next Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Shillam show his prints and original work at the Print House Gallery, 409 S. Dishman-Mica Road.

His showing will be in conjunction with the downtown artwalk, in hopes that more Valley venues will follow suit and that area residents will show an interest in local artists.

“We’re hoping to get a good turnout,” said Marvin Kotland, Print House Gallery owner. “Craig is very good at what he does. It’s what he should be doing.”

Shillam, 46, said art gives him a sense of “self-worth, and it’s a great stress reliever.”

“I draw, paint, color, whatever, because I love to do it, and I am not happy when I don’t,” he said. “It’s one of the things that makes me feel alive.”

Shillam’s collection of colored-pencil drawings are highly detailed and might fool one into initially believing they are looking at a photograph. Drawn in bright colors, the subject matter includes marketplaces, people and rural scenes. Shillam’s work captures moments in time that may or may not remain in the future of an ever-changing and dynamic society.

“I am interested in more of a rural, country, farming genre and in portraying these with respect,” he said. “I love looking for market scenes to paint, and I do seem to have a fondness for dignified, imperfect buildings and the people that interact with these buildings… . The world is changing and getting more and more crowded every day, and I want to paint a lot of these things before they are replaced by more apartments.”

Shillam enjoyed and excelled in art from elementary school through high school. In 1982, he graduated from Spokane Falls Community College with an associate of arts degree and a professional certificate in advertising art. He has worked with advertising agencies and design studios, and done illustrations and murals.

For the last 20 years, Shillam has been painting signs and big trucks at Signman on East Mallon while continuing to draw and paint with oils in the basement studio of his Valley home that is decorated with his murals, paintings and drawings as well as framed cross-stitchings by his wife, Sophia .

Shillam’s works are on display at the Print House Gallery, the Angel Gallery in Coeur d’Alene, and at the Artisans Barn in Uniontown, Wash. He wants to continue to paint and challenge himself artistically, have more showings of his work around the Northwest, and travel to discover new subject matter.

“Success as an artist should be what the artist himself says it is, not what others think it should be,” Shillam said, “Failure as an artist, for me, is in not doing, not learning and not striving to do my best.”