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 cherished buildings, landscapes, and landmarks of country scenes, set up a (figurative) lemonade stand and started a profitable business in the midst of personal tragedy.

It started after Coppock's children graduated from high school and flew the nest, leaving her time to pursue her printmaking interests with the new press she had just purchased.

"At that time, however, my husband Bill was in an auto accident that left him paraplegic," Coppock remembers. "Medically, he required full-time care, which meant I would be home, giving it. I needed to come up with a job that allowed me to be home.

"But fate intervened, because there was the little press."

While Coppock learned the many elements required to making plates and pulling prints, Bill worked to regain the use of his right hand, and soon they were an efficient team: she created the art, and he built frames to house it. They outfitted an RV so Bill could travel and wandered through the western states, where Barbara "pursued subjects," as she puts it: identifying the meaningful places and spaces of the area, drawing them in fine detail, then transferring them to prints. At the same time she picked up galleries and outlets for her art.

"Art was good to us, and we were able to follow a dream," Coppock says, describing an "amazing lifestyle" in which she and Bill sold more than 1,000 prints a year.

"This was in play until Bill's kidneys failed, the market crashed, and thankfully, I qualified for social security: all this happened in 2008."

More lemons. More lemonade.

For the Teacher

Coppock turned to making jewelry (less time intensive than printmaking), until Bill died in 2015, and from there reconfigured her lifestyle yet again. She is back to printmaking, excited about the many subjects in Southeastern Washington, calling her name. There's a lot of work to do.

"Retire? No need. Most folks retire to do what I do every day."

Coppock is exhibiting a selection of her prints at Wenaha Gallery (219 East Main, Dayton) through March 9, 2019. The gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday.