Oregon Public Broadcasting

The hilly region where southeast Washington meets north central Idaho isn't exactly the center of art in the Northwest.

The area known as the Palouse is made up of small towns and wheat fields. But there are creative people there who would like to make a living from their art.

Now, a non-profit group in Moscow is teaching them how to market their work and, in the process, trying to add a new dimension to the region's resource-based economy. Inland Northwest Correspondent Doug Nadvornick reports.

When we arrive at Russ Wheelhouse's antiques shop in Uniontown, Washington, he's putting out merchandise on the sidewalk that he hopes will catch passing drivers' attention. His business is on the town's main drag, about halfway between Pullman and Lewiston, Idaho.

Russ Wheelhouse: "Now for the piece d'resistance, we put out the fantastic Navajo rug."

For years, Wheelhouse has exercised his artistic whims in the otherwise dead time between customers.

Russ Wheelhouse: "I've taken little tin cans and turned them into lampshades. I've taken mannequins and turned them into standing lamps. You know, played around with everything in the shop for a long time. And also, I've studied the history of art because you need to know that to be antique dealer and I am an appraiser."

One day,  he started cutting pictures of old cars out of magazines.

Russ Wheelhouse: "Those cars had such beautiful designs. I mean, what's not to like about a vintage 40s, 50s Hudson, any car."

And he glued them onto all kinds of pictures, turning classic paintings like Leonardo da Vinci's "The Last Supper" into kitschy collages.

Wheelhouse makes postcards and placemat-sized pictures. He sells them at the shop and on his website.

You can see larger versions of Russ Wheelhouse's collages in a new art gallery in downtown Moscow. This is where the non-profit group Two Degrees Northwest has set up shop. Also on display here are samples from other artists who live in the two degrees of latitude between the 45th and the 47th parallels.

In the front window is a three-foot-long fish carved in stone by the German born Mathias Rudiger.

Mathias Rudiger: "During the winter and early spring I do art pieces for customers in Seattle and so they commission me. In summer I lay stone or make fireplaces, things like that."

Ultimately, Rudiger would like to focus exclusively on his stone sculptures. That's why he's here today. He's meeting with Elizabeth Carney and Lorie Higgins, the  directors of Two Degrees Northwest. Carney says the organization has two missions. The first one is to help artists like Rudiger develop their business skills.

Elizabeth Carney: "We're just happy to try to sell the piece and to talk to you more about how we can help you with the rest of your work and talk about what other kinds of pieces you might want to bring in and how we can effectively market your sculpture."

The second mission is bigger, one that many areas in rural America have undertaken: to redevelop depressed economies. The timber industry here and across the Northwest is struggling. Agriculture's up and down.

Lorie Higgins says the strategy is to help regions such as the Palouse diversify by developing their local arts and crafts. She says her organization also helps local food producers.

Lorie Higgins: "The land is really important to the artists that live here and there are so many people that still make their living off the land or they're very connected to the landscape here."

Higgins doubles as a community development specialist at the University of Idaho. She hopes a stronger arts infrastructure will lure more people to this part of the Northwest. And she has a very clear goal in mind.

Lorie Higgins: "Do we have people who are making a living at what they were doing, where before they had to do it at night or on the weekends when they weren't working their day job?"

But that will take a lot of work. Communities like Joseph, Oregon and Sandpoint, Idaho have spent years making the arts integral to their economies. Following their lead, rural towns across the Northwest are looking for any way to develop their job bases, including the arts.

Online:

2 Degrees Northwest

Russ Wheelhouse's online site