As a newly arrived, 18-year-old aspiring artist in Spokane more than a decade ago, Audreana Camm quickly realized a path to success in the regional arts scene wasn't going to magically appear in front of her.
So she carved one out for herself, bit by bit.
Camm is now rooted in the community she once so eagerly sought. Even so, her tenacious hustle hasn't waned. If anything, it's only been spurred on by seemingly endless possibilities.
"It's really hard being an artist in a midsized city like Spokane," Camm says on a sunny, winter afternoon as she sits in the large, back room of Shotgun Studios. She's about halfway through a six-month artist residency at the gallery in the eclectic Peaceful Valley neighborhood, nestled in the heart of the Spokane River gorge.
"I do think you kind of have to make your own way," she continues. "There weren't really people that helped me, like, 'Here, we'll put your work up.' I definitely had to just drive around in my car and ask people to put my work up, and had to find room for myself in the world, you know?"
Camm's scrappy approach isn't just about getting people to pay more attention to her art, but the whole of our region's richly diverse artistic community.
Around her, Shotgun Studio's long, narrow space (the front half was built in 1901 as itinerant labor lodging, while the back was added in 2018) is in transition from February's psychedelic-themed collection to a portrait-centric showcase for March, both group shows.
Stacks of canvases lean against the wall. There's still art to be dropped off, picked up, hung or finished — including Camm's own massive portrait of a beaming Dolly Parton — and jokes to be written.
Yes, jokes.
It's part of Camm's latest plan to get more people out to Shotgun Studio's First Friday gallery receptions.
"The first show I did in December, nobody showed up, which is how a lot of the shows were here," she says. "And then I just thought, 'I've got to do something! I can't have no one show up.'"
When she's not painting, running a gallery, curating art for other venues or working her main job teaching classes at Pinot's Palette (the downtown paint-and-drink-wine studio), Camm also dabbles in stand-up comedy. It's a scene she got into during the slow season at Pinot's one summer. She decided it could be a hook to get people in the door at Shotgun.
"To my stand-up, open-mic friends, I was like, 'I have this weird idea, I think I want to do an art comedy show,'" she says. "And they were all immediately like, 'Yes! Let's find people right now!'"
Starting with January's reception, those friends riffed on the art hanging around the studio in an unlikely mashup meant to entice guests with a more approachable, interactive vibe.
It worked.
While some of the artists whose work was featured in that first show were understandably a bit wary of essentially having their art roasted, Camm set some boundaries with the comics that the jokes should be lighthearted and fun versus mean-spirited.
That show's focus on surrealist art left it wide open for creative and silly interpretation. At the end of each comic's turn on the mic, Camm shared artists' statements about their work to reveal which comics were close and which got things wildly, hilariously wrong.
"They're not making fun of the painting, just trying to figure out what the painting means," she says. "Even though the gallery owners [John and Kathy Thamm] were like, 'Do whatever you want,' I had to talk a lot of people into this. I really believe that if comedians were writing jokes about paintings, it would cause someone to look at it for a second and think about what it meant."
The idea was challenging in other ways. Suddenly thrown into event planning, Camm had to tap friends to lend a sound system and chairs. She even used her own funds to buy a projector so each painting being riffed on could be seen by the seated audience.
But to Camm, it was all worth it. More people showed up to that first Jan. 6 combo event than she'd ever expected. And for February's version, it was standing-room only when the show began, with probably more than 100 people in attendance.
"Even though people were like, 'I don't know if this is a good idea,' now of course everyone's like, 'We want to be in this!'" she says. "It was really me going out on a limb at the beginning."
She wonders if March's event can continue to surpass the turnout.
The comedians have plenty of material to work with, as paintings already hung in the gallery including a massive portrait of Ron Paul by lifelong painter and gallery owner John Thamm, as well as other political figures he's painted, from Bill Clinton to Joseph Stalin. Spokane artist Travis Chapman, known for his satirical pop-culture art, contributed a few pieces, too: Van Gogh selling Vans shoes, Bob Ross posing a la Bruce Lee, and tatted musician Post Malone working as a postal carrier. Since Camm showed many of her own pieces — surrealism is one of her creative touchstones — in last month's show, she's pulled back for this one and plans to just debut her Parton portrait. Other featured March painters include Daniel Lopez and Tom Quinn.
Camm's residency at Shotgun Studios came about, like most of her art career thus far, as a serendipitous opportunity. She'd displayed some art at the gallery back in 2021, and her tenacity caught the attention of its owners, the Thamms. As snowbirds who spend winter down in Bisbee, Arizona, where they own another fine art gallery, the couple invited Camm to live in the gallery's attached apartment while they were gone. In exchange for running the gallery, she'd also have a place to paint.
"It's not like an official program or anything," she says. "They were like 'Do whatever you want' — they're really kind. Kathy [said] I was doing them a big favor, but they're the ones really doing it for me. I don't think they expected me to throw these giant, crazy art shows, but they've been very pleasantly surprised about how many people have shown up."
When her residency at Shotgun wraps up in late April as the Thamms return to Spokane, Camm hopes to stay actively involved and envisions continuing the art-driven comedy shows. When it warms up, the event could spill outside into the gallery's adjacent sculpture garden.
"I have this weird way I think about art, where I think inspiration is like a butterfly that gently lands on your shoulder and you can decide to take it and make something out of it, or you can ignore it, and it's going to float on to somebody else," Camm says. "The idea is just coming from somewhere, you know, like the ether or whatever, and it's just my responsibility to do the best I can with my ideas. So that's what I do." ♦
Art Meets Comedy • Fri, March 3 from 7-9 pm • $10 • Shotgun Studios • 1625 W. Water Ave. • facebook.com/ShotgunStudiosSpokane
