A mission of art

Lind resident opens gallery

LIND — Even before the new Lind art gallery opened, people were pressing against the windows, peering through the glass to see what was happening inside.

Owner Linda Pond opens Lind'as Art Gallery at 106 E. Second St. beginning Sunday.

"I have been interacting with more people than you can believe," Pond said of community interest.

Regular gallery hours are Sunday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and appointments any time but Saturday. Opening hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday through June 10.

The gallery is closed Saturday because Pond and her husband Bill are Seventh Day Adventists.

The gallery offers more than 50 offerings by Pond herself, and includes handmade hats and scarves and lavender health products by other Lind residents.

Other residents have expressed interest in bringing in art and photography. Pond hopes to find offerings which will go with her modern art decoration and her own artwork.

She has lived in Lind for a little more than nine years, but her husband has been a resident since he was 5 years old.

"I like a small town, I'm from a small town," said Pond, a former Cashmere resident. "I just like it — I like the serenity, I like the quietness."

The decision to open came about because of Pond's keeping her artwork in a gallery down in her basement, work she began in 1998 and worked on over a course of five and a half years.

A friend from her church came to a garage sale during the Lind demolition derby weekend last year.

Pond showed the friend the property where the gallery now sits, a former automobile dealership owned by the Ponds. The gallery is in the former parts area of the 11,000 square-foot dealership. That portion of the business closed about three years ago, Pond said, and the couple hopes to sell off the remaining inventory. Bill purchased the business from his mother and stepfather.

The friend suggested the location would make a nice gallery.

"I looked at her, totally bemused," Pond remembered. "I thought, 'Why hadn't I thought of that?' But I didn't think my artwork was really anything to show."

Pond long wanted to be an artist, but she wanted her own style, so she never took any lessons, classes or instruction.

"I would just go to the library, grab lots of books and look through them," she said. "Each one I do, I think, well, that will be the end of it."

Pond hopes those who look at her work come away feeling healed. Faith plays an important part in her creations.

"I want my artwork to reach out to people, I want it to be healing or I want them to get something from it they might feel better about themselves," she said. "Some of this artwork I did was really kind of self-healing for me, and at first I wouldn't have been able to let any of them go, because they were like bits and pieces of me. But now I can."

Pond began thinking about her friend's comments, and she and Bill began working on the location last fall and earlier this spring.

Each piece of artwork is one-of-a-kind, Pond said, and impossible to duplicate.

She uses pastels, blacks and whites and prefers simplicity, electing to work without shadow. Pond also uses her love of music in her artwork. She likes to be meticulous with her work, she said.

"Each one of these I'm surprised is complete when I get to the end of them," she said. "They come out and surprise me as well as anybody else."

Pond also mats and frames her artwork.

Pond plans to offer classes in art and vegetarian cooking at the gallery as well. She sees a need for arts education, and wants to reach out into the Lind community for other ideas and artwork.

Pond plans to keep the gallery open through November, and then re-open in four months.

Pond views her work as being a missionary through her gallery, reaching out to help the kids and the community.

"I love the fact I can share my art with someone, it makes me feel special inside," she said.

For more information, call 509-677-3397.