"Super 8 on Seattle Ferry" by Jerry McCollum. McCollum's work will go on display in the Above the Rim Gallery today along with the work of Anna Brewer and Skip Phillips and the show will continue through November 1. Courtesy Photo

Hidden downtown above Paradise Creek Bicycles on Main Street, the Above the Rim Gallery is a space where local artists from around the Palouse can show their creative sides for art enthusiasts to enjoy.
The gallery’s newest exhibit, which opens tonight, will feature a mix of cartoons, photographs, drawings, paintings and prints.
Jerry McCollum specializes in fine art photography, and his series of photos titled “A Few Moments” will be on display at the gallery.
McCollum has won numerous awards for his photos featuring Palouse landscapes, but this series has nothing in common with his previous works.

“There are moments in time that I’ve shot over the past several years that I felt connected with what was going on as a person as well as a photographer,” McCollum said. “Photography was second to what I was seeing, feeling and experiencing and I could have put the camera down and been at one with the moment, but instead I held on and shot.”
McCollum said the photos are a departure from his normal work, and they are slow and accurate — more like photojournalism than fine art photography.

“There are pictures that are like what my state of mind was like at the time,” he said. “Each picture has its own story.”
He said it’s the first time he’s ever reviewed the series of “moments” as a group of pictures, and they’re something he could have thrown away but didn’t because they meant something to him.
“I pulled the most interesting photos. They have no meaning to anyone except me and I just made this show,” McCollum said. “They’re a real look inside my head.”

Anna Brewer will be featuring her cartoons and oil paintings which consist of Palouse landscapes as well as an autobiography of sorts.
“The cartoons are kind of like a diary. It started from writing a diary or journal, but cartoons are a much more natural medium for me,” Brewer said.
She said drawing cartoons is therapeutic, and it helps her appreciate things more.
“It’s normally so easy to race through life and miss the details,” she said.
Brewer said she is smitten by the Palouse landscape and is fascinated by the farming lifestyle.

“One cartoon is all about going for a ride on a tractor with a farmer here and what I learned about farming that day,” Brewer said. “I was very inspired, my cartoons can be about anything.”
Brewer said she loves the rhythms and patterns in the fields, and when she first moved to the region, she found people either loved or hardly noticed the landscape
around them.
“The more I see and understand the more it speaks to me,” she said. “The rolling hills, the curves and repeat of the curves, it’s a very sensual and soothing landscape.”

Aside from her cartoons, she also has a few oil paintings on display. She said oil painting is extremely challenging.
“You learn so much when you oil paint. It makes you look so much closer and deeper, your eyes will see colors you never noticed before,” she said.
Skip Phillips said his graphite drawings and lino block prints that will be on display are all very abstract.
“I try to draw very rapidly so that it has that spontaneity that you lose when you’re going for anatomical accuracy,” Phillips said.
He said he tries to make them reminiscent of a figure but also tries not to follow any particular pattern. He said he likes to start out with an idea and then if it’s one he likes he will follow it.

His graphite drawings mostly consist of human figures, but the prints are completely abstract.
“The prints came in sort of a flurry of energy,” he said. “The print itself evokes inspiration. You get more into it the further you go along with it.”
The exhibit will open with a reception from 5-7 p.m. tonight. The Above the Rim Gallery is located downtown just above Paradise Creek Bicycles at 513 S. Main St.

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