One month, 30 artists, 900 total original art pieces.
The City of Moscow’s second 30-30-30 exhibit featured 900 art pieces from 30 regional artists on display and for sale Dec. 6. Approximately 430 paintings were sold for $30 each, bringing in a total of $12,900.
The concept of the exhibit was to have 30 artists from the region produce 30 original works of art in 30 days. The exhibit featured works on 6 inch by 6 inch canvas panels. There were many different mediums in the exhibit ranging from photography to painting to drawing and even beadwork.
Lewiston artist and teacher Dana Aldis, who brought the idea of the exhibition to City Art Director Kathleen Burns more than a year ago, said the concept behind 30-30-30 is interesting .
“It forces the artist to think of what they can do in … a very limited range of time,” Aldis said. “They don’t have a year. They have literally 30 days, from start to finish.”
Aldis said this isn’t the first time she has done this type of exhibit, but it still helps her as an artist in technique and skill. Aldis has done a 30-30-30-style show for almost five years and specifically with the Third Street Gallery for two years, she said.
“This type of show I’ve done because it helps me kind of – it helps me technically, with a lot of my painting skills because I don’t fiddle with it as much and I learn how to really streamline my process,” Aldis said. “That helps tremendously as an artist — is learning, is knowing your tools so well that you don’t have to think so much about what you’re doing and you just focus on the subject, you focus on the process.”
Aldis said this type of exhibition assists other artists who are trying to mature in their field.
“As a visual artist — or even as a contemporary artist — a body of work is kind of like your signature and it’s kind of like, some of it shows people your maturity as an artist,” Aldis said. “No matter if it takes 30 days to do it or if it takes three years or a year to do it, seeing that body of work displayed is really a big accomplishment and I think it’s important for the artists to get their work out there and it’s a great venue.”
Local painter Aaron Johnson said the work involved in creating the pieces over a month’s time can be stressful and difficult, but the exhibition is a fantastic event, especially considering the price of the artwork.
“I think what’s really fantastic about it is that it allows the public to purchase paintings or artwork … of practicing artists that may, at any other point, be out of their price range,” Johnson said. ” There were a lot of artists who were participating who sell their work for quite a bigger sum than $30.”
Johnson said the exhibit brings out artists normally not seen into the public sphere.
“You get to see work by artists that you don’t normally see participate and purchase their work for, really, a reasonable price,” Johnson said.
Andrew Jenson can be reached at