Small Town News

Local artists work on display in library

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Robin Tess has learned that there's an artist inside of her that's anxious to get out.

As an artist, Tess is a late bloomer, discovering a talent that was dormant for many years before it was recognized and exercised.

A 1979 graduate of Lake Roosevelt High School, Tess has returned home after many years away to find the community "more open and warm" than when she left it shortly after graduation.

She currently is displaying an unusual assortment of paintings at Grand Coulee's public library There are monsters, dragons and dinosaurs, to name a few. The assortment of animals is right out of a Harry Potter-type story line and must feel right at home in the library, because most are reading books.

They are three to four feet high, and occupy a top-shelf setting to the left of the main library desk.

Tess is the firsl to admit that as an artist she got a late start. Somewhere along the line she started drawing figures of a magical nature and it appears she is off and running. .

Currently, Tess assists in the SHARP Kids after-school program at the Grand Coulee Dam Middle School, where she shares her talent with a bunch of boys and girls.

After Lake Roosevelt High School, Tess spent a couple of years at Wenatchee Valley Community College, then continued her education at Chapman College in California.

She now is working on her master's degree in counseling.

She says she is now ready to "encourage kids to read," and this is why she chose the library to show her work.

While the characters she paints come out of her mind, it doesn't take too much imagination to see them coming out of the bowels of the earth from some unknown but magical kingdom far beneath where we live.

Tess probably got her final boost to continue her art from her brother in Canada, who makes his living professionally with art.

She tried her hand at writing children stories and then doing her own illustrating. "The stories got too long," she noted.

Everything she has done since leaving the Grand Coulee area some 30 years ago has been people-centered. That's why counseling is her choice for an advanced degree.

However, it's her magical characters that she creates that sets her apart.

Monsters, dragons and dinosaurs ... !



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© 2010 The Star Grand Coulee, Washington. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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