Through the painter's eyes

Local artist draws inspiration from history, scenery

COULEE CITY - When you walk into Don Nutt's gallery, there is a painting of trees backlit by a setting sun.

Tucked in a corner to the right is a sepia-tone painting that will be one of the posters for the Grant County Centennial.

These are a couple of the paintings Nutt, 46, has done about Grant and Okanogan counties.

"My focus keeps changing," he says. "I did a series of landscapes. I'm still doing a few landscapes. I did a series of kind of fishing paintings. I'm hoping to do more of those coming up. I try to work in blocks. Well, I'll tell you, it's like a shotgun pattern. I do all kinds of stuff."

Nutt has sold his artwork for 20 years and has been painting since he was 5. About four years ago, he left his contracting job painting to sell artwork fulltime. Between running his gallery and working on commissions, he says he's learned to paint quickly.

"We just opened this gallery in May," Nutt says. "I'm finding out just how difficult it is to find uninterrupted time to paint. I guess I was kind of spoiled before because I had my little studio at home and I just kind of hid in there and painted like crazy."

From a financial standpoint, he is doing as well as he was before he started painting full time. Nutt says he is fine with the situation because the more inspired he is the more he can paint. He gets inspired by "goofing off."

"I had hundreds of people tell me, 'You should be doing this for a living,'" Nutt says. "At one point I realized my kids are getting older. They're pretty much grown up. If I failed miserably and ended up on the street, it wouldn't affect them that much."

He says his business is doing well. As long as Nutt can buy a new tube of paint or new paint brushes every once in a while, he says he is happy with that.

"Most artists I think are poor salespeople," he says. "I definitely qualify. I just have to keep creating artwork and hope that it sells itself."

He finished 95 paintings last year. He says he was on pace to do more than 100 this year, but he's not sure whether he will get there. He paints for about 12 to 15 hours a week.

"That all may be one night," Nutt says. "The rest of the time I'm going to meetings and talking to people and stuff like that."

Not much of his personal artwork is planned ahead of time. He says he always finds interesting subjects to paint.

"There are times when I've had certain images," he says. "I talk to the artist group in Grand Coulee from time to time. So maybe on the way up there I'll see a specific image along the coulee and I'll note the time of day it is. I try to get back that same time of day. So I can hopefully get the same kind of image."

Nutt goes to Rendezvous, historical reenactments focusing on the pre-1840 fur trade. Two outfits hang on his wall.

"You don't get in the gate unless you're wearing period clothing," he says. "The primitive ones that I go to. You don't take matches and you don't walk around with a flashlight … It's very neat."

He does research into the fur trade in the area for the events.

That interest in history is reflected in some of his paintings. But he says he's not a historian.

"I'm interested in history and I rely on other historians' research," Nutt says. "As far as getting in and digging up new information, I can't do that."

Finding the research materials takes some work, he says. Many of the books written about the area aren't in circulation anymore.

Along with his personal paintings, he also does commissioned artwork. One of those paintings is the sepia-toned poster for the Grant County Centennial.

"I wanted to show them the technique I was going to use," he says. "I'm a little bit partial to the bronco guy. Just because it has dynamic qualities."