Mill Creek visual-art show brightens its new venue

MILL CREEK — Pam Hohner found something happening to her painting after her son Gabriel started going to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.

"I started painting flags," she said.

The red, white and blue motif surfaced in her pictures of sunflowers, in still lifes, in pen-and-ink drawings and in oil paintings — even in her photography and graphics.

Then came Sept. 11, 2001.

"That was Gabriel's senior year, and we had just returned from parent weekend," Hohner remembered. "We flew back from the East Coast the day before September 11."

Hohner is one of the featured painters at Arts Alive! It's the eighth year for the annual Mill Creek visual-art show and sale. Having outgrown its previous home at City Hall, the art show for the first time will be held in the Cedar Room of Mill Creek Country Club.

During the show, 28 artists will be on hand with their jewelry, painting, photography, wood carving, ceramics, glass, porcelain and pastels. Hohner will introduce 10 sepia-ink drawings and seven oil paintings. Others include ceramic artist Marilyn Egerdahl; painter Kathy Meyers; Sharon Tietjen-Pratt, a watercolorist, colored-pencil artist and teacher; and photographer Jon Schmidt.

Emily Ogura, a student at Central Washington University, has work in the show and received a scholarship from its sponsor.

"This young lady, at 18, it's phenomenal," said Marlene King, president of the Foundation for the Arts in Mill Creek, the show's sponsor.

"She's a photographer, musician who plays five instruments, and she does charcoal, watercolor and pencil drawings."

The nonprofit foundation benefits arts and gives scholarships to students in the Mill Creek area. It awarded Ogura a $750 scholarship.

Hohner is an intuitive painter. "I have these dreams, and I paint from my dreams all the time," she said.

A graduate of Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Hohner has captured starbursts and spiral galaxies, and done a more down-to-earth series of rooftop paintings.

For her, the flag pictures capture a particular time and place in her life.

"Often in my pictures, there'll be things that represent my family," she said. "The flag, to me, really represents Gabriel, and his lifelong goal to be an astronaut. Right now he's training to be a Navy pilot, training in Texas to fly off aircraft carriers. And that's a steppingstone to him. It comes home that one of our sons has chosen that path."

Diane Wright: 425-745-7815 or dwright@seattletimes.com