The Times - Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley

As time goes by, we forget, as a people, how to do many things we once knew how to do: cobbling shoes, for instance, or dipping candles. And while we become experts at attacking cell phone keypads wit...

Talk about Art By Carolyn Henderson When life handed Barbara Coppock a bushel of lemons, she didn't stop with just making lemonade. The Clarkston artist, who creates intaglio print etchings of...

By Carolyn Henderson If you walk around town or country, you may have found a piece of artwork in the form of a painted rock. Sometimes they have an encouraging statement on them, other times a colorf...

Blah. That's how some people, in one word, encapsulate the month of January – it's cold and bleak, the holidays are over, and spring is maddeningly distant. "What on earth could possibly be exciting a...

All day, every day, we use things. While this sounds ridiculously simple, think about it: when you make a tuna fish sandwich, you grab the can opener, scoop tuna into a bowl with a spoon, stir in...

When you really love what you do, you tend to 1) do it a lot, and 2) teach others how to do it. And that's exactly what Patricia Bennett, a textile artist who creates quilted home décor items and...

We hear a lot about the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, to the point that someone created a clever acronym – STEM – for verbal emphasis. Lately, STEM has changed to...

Inspiration strikes at the oddest times, often when we're doing something supremely ordinary. For artist Sheryl Parsons, who creates holiday sculptures from gourds, driftwood, clay and repurposed obje...

Some people have very few nice things to say about broccoli. Culinary preferences aside, it's worth looking at broccoli closely to marvel at its makeup: each head consists of many little heads – f...

Sometimes, when we're nervous about how a particular endeavor will turn out, we close our eyes and hope for the best. And while this technique does work now and then, it's not the best plan when...

Dreams and goals, by their nature, contain an element of the impossible. If they didn't, they'd be just be ordinary activities we take for granted (although, interestingly, one person's ordinary...

Long before there were machines, there was – and still is – the human hand. And as miraculous and wonderful machinery is, it does not begin to compare with the creativity of the hand, impelled by the...

Things have changed a bit in the Old West over the last two centuries. While we don't ride horses as much as we did then, we still admire the life of the cowboy, the vast expanse of mountains and...

A mile north of Venice, Italy, is a series of islands called Murano. Linked by bridges within the Venetian Lagoon, Murano is renowned for its glassmaking, a process its artisans have perfected over ce...

Before the TV reality show that had little to do with its title, the simple life was one wise people have lived for thousands of years. It involves a lot of thinking, a sense of gratitude, and an...

Glass art is one of those things that are difficult to accept as being created. I mean, isn't glass like eggs or milk – it just sort of appears all neatly packaged and ready for sale? Before I p...

Art and history are not neutral subjects. Because they both deal with humanity, with all its messiness of politics, differing opinions, varied cultures, and good and bad behavior, both disciplines for...

In addition to being a proficient artist who paints with pastels, scratchboard, and acrylic, Debbie Hughbanks knows a LOT about boxes, because she's always sending her artwork somewhere. "A good box...

January may be the time to make – and break – New Year's Resolutions, but it's also a grand opportunity to pamper oneself. Especially if one actually goes through with the resolution to exercise more....

Christmas may be the season for giving, but it's not the only one. And while January seems an unlikely candidate for altruism, at Wenaha Gallery, it's the perfect time for the community to give back...

As a person who likes to sew, it always disturbed me that such aficionados are called "sewers," a term that, pronounced a different way, is something no respectable person wants to be called. So when...

Technology is great, but if we don't watch ourselves, it has a tendency to dehumanize. Art – which has a history as long or longer than technology – counteracts that. "In the age of machines, rob...

You don't need a washing machine to create felted wool, which is a good thing, because the art of creating dense, waterproof fabric from natural fibers goes back to 6,500 B.C. For Walla Walla fiber ar...