1/7/2009 11:01:00 AM A picture worth $8,000? Art from local teacher selected in large contest
FROG, by Steve Reddy, a teacher at Lawton Elementary School, was selected in the 2009 Collective Visions Gallery in Bremerton.
Myke Folger
Local artist and Lawton Elementary School teacher, Steve Reddy, was accepted into the 2009 Collective Visions Gallery in Bremerton. His painting, FROG, is one of 130 artworks chosen by exhibition juror Gary Faigin, artistic director of the Gage Academy in Seattle, from more than 800 works submitted by artists throughout Washington. Accepted artists will be competing for $8,000 in prizes and awards and will be on display at CVG during the month of February.
Reddy has been teaching at Lawton for 11 years. He teaches all subjects to fifth graders and tries to incorporate art into every one.
"We have a full-size human skeleton for art, science and health," he said. "And all the book reports have an artistic element. It's fun."
His students just finished a nine-week papier mache after-school program and the school lobby is now festooned with paper monsters.
Reddy earned his teaching certificate from Seattle Pacific University but graduated with a bachelor's in fine arts from the University of Oregon. People who have seen his art sometimes describe him as a surrealist. But he said his pictures, which of late capture similar shapes and colors within the canvas, are anything but surreal.
"I paint each individual object as faithfully as I can," he said. One work done in oils, entitled, "Day in the Life," is a collection of everyday images he saw during an actual day of his life: A baseball, a letter from his son, a hot cup of coffee in his tiki mug, the bicycle he pedals to work and a smoldering candle.
He's been selling his work at coffee shops in Ballard and next year will have a one-man show at a church in the Ravenna neighborhood of Seattle. To see some of Reddy's art, visit www.stevenreddy.com.
