Middle school teacher named Artist of the Month

McFarland Middle School art instructor Gretchen Durepo is the Old Hotel Art Galley Artist of the Month for October.

Originally from Cape Cod, Mass., Durepo has been teaching her craft to sixth- through eighth-grade students for the past 12 years.

“I never really envisioned myself becoming an art teacher,” Durepo said. “I was a figure skater who ended up going to art school for interior design. But I never found a job in that field, so I ended up working for a structural engineer for a while. One day my boss called me in and asked me where I wanted to be in five years and I told him I didn’t want to be here. So I moved up to northern Maine and started teaching ice skating.”

Trouble was, her ideal job didn’t pay enough money to support her, so Durepo, realizing she needed full-time employment, went to work for the local school district as a teacher’s aide.

“That didn’t work out either as I quickly learned I needed to make more than $9,000 a year, so I went back to school to earn my K-8 certification at the University of Maine,” Durepo said. “My first job was teaching art at Washburn Elementary, even though during the interview process I actually told them I didn’t want to teach art — wanted to teach regular stuff — but they hired me anyway. I didn’t have any student teaching experience and had to write an entire art curriculum for K-8.”

Durepo said she liked the fine art aspect of interior design — the drawing and painting — and has always been into nature and hiking and loved taking pictures of the many moose she came across while living in Northern Maine. All of this helped her develop the passion and focus to teach art.

She and her husband Jason moved to Othello in 2006. Jason came here to farm and Gretchen was able to continue to teach art, albeit not at the level she desired.

“I hadn’t planned to teach at the middle school, and it originally turned out to not be much fun because at that age they all want their art to look the same, to look perfect,” Durepo said. “So I tried to teach them that art is not meant to be perfect; in fact I pride myself on not making art look perfect. Otherwise you could just take a picture. But over the past few years middle school students have grown on me. I am finding it really fun now because they are finding art interesting and enjoyable.”

Durepo incorporates all media of art – drawing, water color, oil, acrylic, woodcut printing and mosaic – into her teaching and the works she produces.

She has more than 30 works of landscapes, portraits and animals on display at the Old Hotel Art Gallery, drawing her inspiration from outings to the San Juan Islands, Leavenworth and the Methow Valley. Durepo also has a painting of her daughter Emma at Plymouth Beach in Massachusetts hanging on the entry wall.

Her work is on display in galleries stretching from Washington to Florida. She’s shown her art at the 1650 Gallery in Los Angeles, Calif., and has a painting in the 29th Grand National Exhibition at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson. Roughly 5 percent of the proceeds from every item she sells is donated to the World Wildlife Federation.

Her works of art, Durepo said, are inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe who is said to be one of the most significant and intriguing artists of the 20th century, best known for her canvases depicting flowers, skyscrapers, animal skulls and southeastern landscapes.

“I have liked her all long. When I moved here, I used her images on my PowerPoint presentations because she makes places like this (the high desert) look beautiful,” Durepo said. “It’s not that it isn’t beautiful here, but it’s rather brown, dirty and tumbleweedy at times.”

Not quite as picturesque as, say, the San Juan Islands, Leavenworth or the Methow Valley, where she and her family are heading this weekend.

“We are going up to the Winthrop area. I told my girls we’ll go horseback riding on Sun Mountain. There are lots of trees up there and beautiful landscape with all the fall colors. It’s like you’re in heaven,” Durepo said. “You can hear the angels up there.”