(jazzy music) - Hello again and a very warm welcome to another episode of "Everyday Northwest."

I'm your host, Staci Nelson.

We have an exciting and diverse lineup today.

Our first feature is filled with sparkle, color and bling, the Spokane Jewelers Guild making fashion fun.

- [Holly] I think jewelry is a very inspiring way to self adorn which gives personality, and I think jewelry is a way that is acceptable worldwide to show parts of yourself.

- [Amber] The neat thing about what we do is we get to create beautiful adornments for people and that makes people feel good.

(gentle music) - I'm Holly Swanson and I own Spokane Gallery, which is where we are here today, and I do display the guild work here all the time.

I am the president of the guild.

My favorite thing about being part of the Spokane Jewelers Guild is the camaraderie.

It's always a wonderful collection of people.

We have a good time.

Everybody's always willing to give their input and help out and support.

(gentle music) - I'm a full-time metalsmith, and working home in my, at home in my studio, a lot of times, it's just lonely, so it's nice to, like, meet other people that are super enthusiastic about the same thing that you're excited about.

So, when you're around other people that love what you do, love the same thing, you get super excited and it, that energy together is super cool, and the excitement for learning, I love learning, I love continuing learning and I love teaching somebody else something I've learned.

I get super giddy about, you know, when somebody wants to learn something.

I'm like, let me show you or somebody else that does that to me.

So, the learning opportunity is probably my favorite part.

- The Spokane Jewelers Guild is community based, and I love the fact that it's a varied group of not just the age of the people that are in it, but what they do 'cause jewelry varies a lot from metalwork to beading to clay work, lots of different things that people can do.

And we share.

We share it all.

People are willing to support other people.

If somebody has a show, we try and go.

If we do a show together, we all try and get together and have lunch and do the show and keep everybody's spirits up.

And then, if you're venturing into something new, hey, I've never tried this, the guild is really good about having someone else there that can say, oh, I've done that before.

Here, let me show you my hints.

And so, it's, community-wise, it's a great resource for us to be able to give back.

We do have a nonprofit group that we use through the guild called the Women's Project, where we have people donate jewelry they don't use, things that are broken.

The guild goes through, cleans them, repurposes them, and then we donate them to other groups to be given to women through, that have been through shelters or kids who are going to prom who are homeless and things like that.

So, we're able to use our talents in a whole different way.

But also, you know, we have fun.

We have several challenges we do a year.

We, the Jewelers Guild originally came from the Spokane Rock Rollers, which is a group of people who do lapidary arts, so, any kind of rock hunting, cutting cabochons, polishing rocks, that kind of thing.

It is a skill and a craft all on its own.

And from that, many of the people wanted to go on and do jewelry, and there was a need for a whole different group to be able to meet and say, but this is about jewelry and not just about rocks.

- As a guild member, I, we are challenged or I'm personally challenged every year by the different projects within the group.

A lot of different things are brought up like, oh, have you tried this method or have you tried this or have you looked at this video?

And that challenges me to then extend my knowledge.

And again, that goes back to the learning, which is one of my favorite things about the guild.

(gentle music) Within making jewelry, there's lots of different elements of making jewelry.

There's beading.

There's string work.

There's metalsmithing.

There's, so, jewelry, there's so many different types of different techniques with doing within the jewelry.

And I'm a metalsmith, so a lot of the things that I do within metalsmith work is I use tools like a brass mallet and I will use a disc cutter to, you know, cut out, you know, shapes that I'm using for a different project.

I will use a torch.

I use a Little Smiths Torch for heating my materials, which is called annealing that you then soften your metal and then you can then cut that out.

We use different tools like different hammers for texturing our metals and forming our metals with different pliers.

Some of the beading, some of the different beading projects you use different pliers for that and different needles depending on how small the beading project you're doing.

And so, there's a lot of different tools within the jewelry world that we use.

(gentle music) - The guild has made a collection of different resources we have for people to use, including we have a wonderful library.

Every year the president gets to choose a book that we purchase and put in our library.

And anybody that's in the guild can rent them.

Well, they don't rent them, borrow them, and use them as a resource.

We were given a nice collection of books from a store that went out of business so we have a beautiful library.

We also have a lot of equipment.

Some has come from past guild members that have retired, moved out of the area and gave us equipment.

Some equipment has come from need.

We needed to teach a class or someone wanted to have a workshop, and so, we've purchased equipment to go with it.

We have not been able to put all of that equipment together in one place for a long time.

Years and years ago, the guild was at the Spokane Art School.

That changed when the Spokane Art School changed how it was run and where it was.

We needed to move, and things were moved and some was put in storage.

And we are just getting excited about getting it all back out again.

That way we can have workshops within the guild.

(gentle music) - When people put on a necklace, they get to, you know, feel good about themselves because the necklace speaks to them, when they put on a pair of earrings.

So, adornment is something that's been around forever, and it's a neat thing to be a part of that we get to make this adornment that people want to wear and they wear it to their special occasions or their everyday wear.

And that's a really neat thing to be a part of.

(gentle music) - The guild is a great benefit if you like to make jewelry.

There is a few requirements for being in the guild, and you can reach out to anyone who's in the guild and come to a meeting, meet the hive mind and talk to people and see if it works for you, and then, you're invited to join the guild.

The thing I appreciate most about the guild is the support of all the members are supportive of you and whatever you're doing, even if they don't have any idea what you're doing.

(gentle music) - I love being a part of the Spokane Jewelers Guild because not only do you, being a part of the guild, you come and meet these different people.

These people become your friends and you get to find out about their lives and you get to be a part of their lives, making beautiful adornments and working with our hands.

(gentle music) (upbeat music) - Next, we journey east to Montana and introduced artist Steve Wilson.

Steve had an experience with an early motorcycle accident that left him with challenges to overcome, and boy did he ever.

(peaceful music) - How do you paint the peace of God?

So that's my goal is how to represent God in a peaceful way.

To me, art is kind of like what my mom says.

Flowers are nutrition to the soul.

So to me, art is like nourishment for my soul.

Painting was a, it gave me a hope or something to strive for.

I mean, I, my world had changed completely.

And so, painting was a way of being able to still participate in life, be able to do something and not feel like you're just sucking air.

As an artist, to actually sit down and think about short-term goals, mid-term goals, long-term goals.

What do you perceive yourself to be in five year, 10 years?

Is it just gonna be a hobby?

What has transpired through the years, I've been able to do a lot of banquets.

So, there's always these fundraisers at these banquets, and I've been doing it for 20 years, maybe.

Ducks Unlimited, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Teen Challenge, there's a lot of great organizations.

And so, what I've been able to do is start a painting at home and then finish it there at the banquet.

If you're doing plein air painting, you have a small window with a light, especially morning and evening.

And to capture that, you gotta paint fast, and because the light is always changing and you have to, you can't get all the information in there, and, but you're studying the colors and the lighting, how does that tree glow if it's in front of the sun and what's the shadows come across?

So, looking at nature, it's inspiring.

I love morning and evenings more than I do the middays, but you get so much color, and in the mornings here, when the sun's just coming up, you get a nice pink cast on the snow, and then watch the pink turn into more orange and watch it turn to yellow then white and it, and then it's daytime.

So, what I've done in the past when I'm doing plein air is I'll have everything in my car, and then I just find a place where I can park and get out and then I just paint from the backside of my van.

I'll have it set so when the tailgate comes up, it provides shade so I don't have direct sunlight on it and close enough where I can reach everything and be able to paint and just put everything away and able to still see the colors of nature.

You just have to do things differently, but you can still do it.

You just don't, you don't never say you can't.

You just have to do it differently.

One of the things about Bob Ross that I enjoyed, learning the technique of wet on wet technique.

So where you had, cover your canvas complete with a liquid white, and then you kind of mix your paints on there and you could make, oh, the wonderful skies and the reflections and water.

And I just thought that was, it made it so easy, and it just flowed.

And the color schemes that he would use and the boldness and, I mean, he would just go for it.

So, like, oh, the painting looks great.

And then he'd go and stick a big old tree right there and he goes, oh, you ruined it.

And then, he makes it even better.

It was so amazing to see the progression of in such a short amount of time, and it made it look so easy and there was just a flow and having a good time.

And I think all those things just makes a person want to try.

What's the worst thing he can do is not like it, but I just thought that was what he brought out in people, and he was such a good encourager.

So, I started trying to do more detail things and then after that, I love things that had more mood to it.

So, switching from detail to more loose in my studio.

It's a nice, it's was a, it could be a bedroom or a, but I made it a studio, and I have my easel mounted on the wall.

I have a sink in there.

I have lots of art on the wall and lots of canvases stacked, and it's a lot of paint everywhere.

I painted, one thing about my studio, I painted the back wall black.

And that has also been helpful, as in when you're painting, you can just concentrate on that and you're not, the light or the color doesn't reflect back and just, I don't know, it just makes it, can concentrate more.

I don't know, just more soothing on your eyes because of our galleries downstairs and my studios upstairs.

We also live up here.

It's our home.

But have a great view of the Bitterroot Mountains.

Man, do we have a good view.

And also, I have a little shop where I make all the frames, and that definitely makes it a lot more affordable if you want to buy some nice art.

In the Bitterroot Valley, we've, they have a once a year the Bitterroot's Best, and it ranges from doctors, best doctor, best restaurant, best hairstylist.

And one of the things is artist, and I have won that quite a few years, and it's an an honor and I, it's hard to talk about yourself, and all I can say is I'm very thankful.

It's very rewarding.

It's exciting inside, but yet, it's also humbling, and I kept going, what?

There's so many other people that are so, to me, better than me, but yet I don't know what to say.

It's an honor.

(peaceful music) (upbeat music) - Our third feature spotlights celebrated fantasy fiction writer Katie Cross.

Katie takes us through the process and lifestyle of what it takes to be a fantasy writer.

(medieval music) - The reason I write is because it's how I bring light into the world.

I like to create places for people to escape to when they need to get away from their life because that's what I do with books, and so, I wanna do it for other people.

I write because I have to.

It's, the ideas are just in me.

Even if I didn't publish my books and sell them, I would still be writing stories.

I started writing when I was in first grade.

I had a journal, and I would just write stories that came into my head.

So, I think it's always just been a part of me.

It's not something that I can really separate out.

And I, so I think, really, the reason why I write is because it makes me happy.

I wake up excited every day because my books are in the world and because I get to do this and run my own life.

So, I get to live in the mountains of Montana, raise my kids and also write books for a living.

So, it's exciting.

It's thrilling.

It's a fascinating process.

It's always surprising me, and I love every single time I hold one of my books in my hands after I launch it, when I get the paperback and I can hold it.

It's, the thrill never fades, even after over 50 novels.

I go from writing my books to producing my books in paperback ebook, and then I also produce my books in audio.

And I do it with a very carefully informed process of project management.

So, I know how long it takes me to write a first draft.

I usually know how long my first drafts are.

I know how long to edit, how many days of a break I need in between editing sessions, and then how long it takes me to record audio books.

I also have a team of almost 13 people that help me do this.

So, I have audiobook proofreaders.

I have ebook proofers.

I have title managers, graphic designers, audio specialists.

I have everyone that I need so I can focus on writing the books and talking to my readers.

My process to write a book is actually really simple.

So, I write the first draft of the book, and I usually write anywhere from 10 to 12,000 words a day, which is a lot.

So a lot of authors are typically writing two to 4,000 words a day.

But I like the ability to sink into the story for four to five hours a day.

So, usually, in about seven to eight days, I have the first draft of the novel.

I take a little break.

I do a lot of business stuff like emails, team coordination, that kind of stuff.

And then, I go into the second draft and I edit at about 15 to 20,000 words a day.

So, it takes me about a week, and then I take a couple days off to give myself a break.

I do a quick third draft, which only takes me a couple days.

I send it to my beta readers, my sensitivity readers, my proofreaders, and then they tear it up.

So, for three to four weeks, I don't see that manuscript, because they're telling me how to make it better.

They're proofreading it.

They're fixing my grammar.

And while they're doing that, I am recording the next audio book that will launch and I'm catching up on business stuff.

And then I'm at, I'm plotting, there we go.

I'm plotting and getting ready for the book that will come next.

So, usually I can go into any given month knowing exactly what I'm doing on a given week so that I can anticipate any problems that might come up so I can take family vacation, so I can kind of have the freedom and flexibility to do what I need to do, like go to conventions and talk to readers and that kind of thing.

And then the connection I get with my readers is unreal.

I can chat with them on video calls.

I can email them.

Some of them message me, and I can hear what they want to read next, what they love and what they're struggling with.

And that informs all of the decisions I make in my company.

I have a lot of stories and a lot of characters, which does require a little bit of inspiration to kind of draw them.

Normally, I just do it from daily life, but I think there's a belief out there that writers have a muse or something that's informing their genius or their inspiration, and I kind of think that's garbage.

I think most of us are just like everyone else.

We have a job and we just do the job.

So, there are times where I come to crossroads in my work and I think, well, I have to make a decision, and so, I just make something up, right?

My fantasy world is the world of Alkarra, and it is the home for all of my fantasy books.

Everything that takes place happens there.

And it started with Bianca and "Miss Mabel's School for Girls," through her book series.

Then, I expanded backwards.

So, instead of writing the next series that happens, I went back in time because readers were requesting these different characters in the Network series.

So I went back a hundred years and wrote their story.

They're Sanna and Isadora.

And then ever since then, I've just been taking reader requests.

So, readers will say, I want this story that happened in Alkarra.

I want this story that happened to this character in Alkarra.

And so, I'll write it.

So, that's led to six different series now within the world of Alkarra.

So, it's basically this big fantasy world that has similar esque places to our world, but it's a little more medieval.

So, I say it's Harry Potter meets medieval.

My stories bring light and goodness into the world because they give people a place to go, and my readers love Alkarra.

To them, it's home.

The characters have become like family to them.

They'll argue in our Facebook group over certain things or people or what's happening or what's gonna happen and they love to go there and find their courage again.

Part of the way we do that in the novels is we have our heroes be really normal, right?

Like, there are normal people conquering normal challenges and sometimes really not normal challenges because they're magical and there's fantastical creatures and other things that come into it.

But I think, in the end, they're just humans having a human experience.

And I try to make my characters really connectable on several levels so that my readers can put themselves into the world.

And then creating a sense of wonder in Alkarra so that they feel like this is a place they wanna go.

This is a place they wanna be, and then they put the book down and they're ready for their day again.

They're ready for their own adventure.

They're ready to have courage.

They're ready to be brave in whatever that looks like for them.

My readers are constantly emailing me about their experience reading my books, and it usually comes down to something around the form of, thank you so much, I'm struggling right now.

It amazes me how many people are always struggling, even though it's been years that I've been getting these emails, whether their husband just died.

I get a lot of people saying, my husband just died.

My wife was just diagnosed with cancer.

I was just diagnosed with cancer, and your books have given me a place to escape to or the world isn't so scary, or I've been reading them with my grandchildren or different experiences that kind of bring them into this place where they can experience the world in a different way and get away.

I hear pretty often the phrase, "Your books have changed my life," because either it brought people back to reading or it reminded them what it feels like to be happy again or to use their imagination or connected them with a family member.

And that's a very humbling experience for me every time.

So, I actually keep those emails, and I file them away in a folder for, like, those difficult days when my mom world is crashing down and things are just really hard.

And I read through those emails to find that motivation to just keep it up because those people need it.

I am so blessed to do this for a living because I get to choose what I do with my books, what I do with my family, and what I do with my life.

I can't wait to see what the next year or two brings.

If anything that I can absolutely promise, it's that there will be more books, more escape and a lot more fun.

You can find me at katiecrossbooks.com.

All of my books are available there, ebook, paperback, and audio.

We're also available on all the online retailers like Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Kobo, iBooks, Nook and anywhere else you can find audiobooks or eBooks or paperbacks.

(medieval music) (epic music) (upbeat music) - And that's our show.

Until next time, we're happy as always that you could join us and we look forward to sharing more of the sights, sounds, beats, treats and flavors of what makes "Everyday Northwest" the very best place to be.

- [Announcer] Learn more about the sights, sounds, beats and treats of life in the Pacific Northwest through "Art Chowder" magazine.

Subscriptions and more information are available at www.artchowder.com.

Funding for "Everyday Northwest" provided in part by BECU, people helping people, www.becu.org.

The Liberty Building in the heart of downtown Spokane, retail convenience for your next office address, www.spokanelibertybuilding.com.

Also, Historic Flight Foundation at Felts Field in Spokane.

Experience history in motion, www.historicflight.org.

And Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, the MAC, www.northwestmuseum.org.

(jazzy music)