Story and photos by Mary Sheely
Reporting for West Seattle Blog

You wouldn’t know unless you were told that the art on the walls of Shoofly Pie Co. (4444 California SW) are by an eight-year-old. The linoleum block prints by Schmitz Park Elementary third-grader Romy Ehrsam are surprisingly accomplished. But once you meet Romy, you’re not as surprised — the artist is quite self-possessed.

“I’m being interviewed!” she says proudly to a friend walking by, and then strikes a perfect pose for a photo with her work.

The truth is, Romy’s already an old hand at this.

She was a paid artist by age six, when her work was made into a stamp by the company Rubbermoon. But that doesn’t mean she’s jaded.

Romy clearly loves making art, and excitedly explains the story behind her favorite piece, the wonderfully titled “Ravioli Chinese Café,” which she says was inspired by an art project she made from paper in kindergarten. The print shows a man and a woman at a table with a bowl of “Ravioli Chinese” between them. Romy says the couple is her friend Maki (“I think that’s how it’s spelled.”) with her fiancé Jim. “It’s just my imagination of them meeting,” she says.

“Romy, I really admire the dark and the light here,” says her art teacher, Beverly Harding Buehler, of a print of an old woman and her cat. “The contrast — it’s very dramatic.”

Romy herself is more interested in talking about the print’s subject matter. “That’s Mrs. Cole. She’s my neighbor down the street and around the corner. She is 101 years old and she has a cat named Babe.”

Did Mrs. Cole sit for the portrait?

“Part of it is from my memory and the other part just came from looking at her,” Romy answers.

Gretchen loves the fact that her daughter is taking after her as an artist. “She still wants to be like me — can you believe it?” she laughs. “That’s the coolest thing on the planet.”

Less than an hour into the Art Walk, Romy had made a sale. What will she do with the money?

“Probably buy American Girl dolls,” Gretchen says.

Unmoored Objects

ArtsWest Gallery Director Nichole DeMent chooses artwork that complements what’s being performed onstage. So it’s no surprise that both the play “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” and the show “Altered Associations” include strong surreal elements. Both are currently showing at ArtsWest (4711 California SW).

No doubt the most strikingly so is the work of Jeff Mihalyo.

His paintings feature giant floating heads suspended like balloons, an Eiffel Tower that has ripped free from its moorings and is gently floating away, and a congregation not of churchgoers but of church buildings—that just happen to be meeting in the sky.

Mihalyo says the floating objects came from a darker stage of his life; his newer paintings feature more connection with solid ground.

“I guess I’m feeling more grounded these days,” he says.

Therese Buchmiller takes mundane objects and elevates them in a different way.

Her “Queen Cake” installation is like the ghostly remains of a cluttered house—detritus like a plastic tree that might be a game piece, a translucent cloth glove, and a piece of molded plastic that once housed snack cakes come together to form a large white oval on a gallery wall.

“I’m kind of a hunter and gatherer by nature,” Buchmiller says. “I do a lot of thrifting and antique store-hopping.”

Buchmiller remakes her installations slightly differently each time they’re shown. In fact, she was forced to rearrange “Dis-Ease,” a panel filled with straight pins holding paper rings, while the opening was still in progress. Though “Dis-Ease” includes a small shelf to catch errant rings, a few too many had been blown off the pins by overzealous art patrons.

Meanwhile, one of Lucy Carpenter’s “Plastic Organs,” a giant, anatomical heart constructed from plastic grocery bags and chicken wire, was also moving about. DeMent encourages gallery patrons to blow lightly on the hanging sculpture to get it to move.

“You don’t have to blow on it,” pipes up one woman wryly. “You just have to breathe!’

Trips Back in Time

Lina Raymond is a painter who normally creates work that is perfectly rendered—landscapes and interiors that are nearly photorealistic. It’s no wonder she was so frustrated when her son encouraged her to try her hand with computer “painting” software. The result of her first attempt was incredibly primitive—especially in light of her signature style — yet Raymond found herself moved by the simplicity and plaintive narrative of what she’d manage to create, which read, “When I Grow Up, I will be Happy.”

The piece inspired “When I Grow Up…” a series of paintings that explore the wishes and dreams of childhood, which are now on display at Cupcake Royale in The Junction (4556 California SW). Among them is a hand-painted version of the original computer art. “It was very hard to recreate this — this is way different than what I usually do,” Raymond says.

Raymond doesn’t mine her past for subject matter for the series, but says she’s “channeling other people’s childhoods.” The exception is “I Will Have Flowers,” not coincidentally the darkest in the series.

“‘Flowers’ is the only one I truly did from a personal point of view,” Raymond says. “It’s a self-portrait from a pretty tough time.”

Her largest of the series, “I will Eat Pizza on my Jet,” looks and reads convincingly like a collection of child’s drawings, right down to the goal of someday having “A fast car and a dog and superpowers.”

“I love when little kids say they’re going to do different things all at the same time,” Raymond says.

Because through the right eyes, even the most unexpected can make perfect sense.