Queen Anne artist Gretchen Bat-cheller likes the way light plays over Seattle, and her popular, luminous oil paintings of cityscapes show it. "The quality of light here is so blue," she said. Batcheller also finds the contrast attractive when blue shifts to orange and red at the end of the day in the Emerald City, she added.
An instructional assistant who works with autistic children at John Hay Elementary School, Batcheller received a Bachelor's of fine arts and painting at the University of Washington.
She also got a degree in German and German literature, which came in handy after she graduated from the UW and moved to Dresden, where Batcheller studied in an art academy, she said.
But Batcheller stopped painting when she got back to Seattle because of a lack of studio space. Finally, someone offered her some free studio space, and she mounted her first show on Capitol Hill around two years after she returned from Europe. These days, Batcheller uses a second bedroom as studio space in the Queen Anne home where she lives with her husband, Gus Peterson.
Several families from John Hay went to that first show on Capitol Hill, she said. "Actually, the John Hay community has been a big part of my [painting] life," she said, adding that one of the students once said, "Miss B, you should be a real artist."
Batcheller smiled at the memory and went on to say later that she's had eight shows since she resumed painting. Several have been at Caffè Ladro, where her husband works as a barista, but Batcheller has also mounted shows at the Seattle Pacific University art gallery and a handful of small art spaces, she said. The latest show is in Caffè Fiorè at 224 W. Galer St., just down the block from Trader Joe's; it runs through April 30.
Batcheller has been able to avoid art-world politics by not dealing with art galleries because there's already a buzz about her work, she said. That means the artist doesn't have to kick back any of the art-show sales money in commissions.
"The artwork is pretty affordable," Batcheller said of prices that have ranged from $750 up to $2,600 for a 4-foot-by-5-foot painting at SPU. "There's been a real interest in my work," she said. "I pretty much sell out all my shows."
All but one of the seven paintings on display at Caffè Fiorè had sold by the day after the opening when Batcheller was interviewed for this story. "I'm lucky like that," she said at the opening.
Batcheller said she does all her painting on weekends and during the evenings, describing the process as fairly quick. "I go out with my sketch book and my [digital] camera," she said of initial work on a painting.
But Batcheller improvises on the light a bit and rearranges some of the elements in a cityscape to "kind of make it my own," she said. Batcheller has a theory about why her work is so popular. "I like to think the things I choose to paint are accessible. The viewer doesn't have to guess what they're supposed to think or feel," she said.
Batcheller said she and her husband will be leaving Seattle at the end of the summer so she can work on a master's degree at the Tyler School of Art at Temple University in Philadelphia. The two-year degree program might include a year studying art in Rome, as well, Batcheller added.
Asked whether she will return to Seattle after school, Batcheller said, "I believe so, but who knows what will happen?" Her husband is working on a divinity degree, and that might take the couple to a mission somewhere else, Batcheller added. "We're really open to wherever life takes us."
Batcheller puts her heart and soul into her paintings, she said. "Sometimes it clicks with the public; sometimes it doesn't." However, it's mostly the former if sales are any indication, and Batcheller describes Queen Anne as a community that really loves art.
"I think I'm really fortunate," she added. "I paint what I want to paint."
Staff reporter Russ Zabel can be reached at rzabel@nwlink.com or 461-1309.
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