Well, I've always wanted to be an artist.

I get told the story that I was trying to sell my finger paintings at four years old, apparently, for a quarter apiece.

[Open Music] Mallory Battista, and I'm a visual artist.

[Music] It is kind of difficult to figure out how all of the things that I do sort of connect with each other.

I've had a hard time sort of pinpoint like, what is my style?

I have a lot of different interests, and they think that that variety has sort of kept everything interesting.

I don't like making the same thing over and over again.

So, um, every, every project I take on, I try to kind of push myself a little further, you know, experiment with new materials and kind of keep it interesting.

Like most folks, I do some painting.

Um, I like to work in acrylics.

Um, I like to paint murals.

Both interior with regular house paint and exterior with, uh, with spray cans.

Ah, I like working with metal, so I have been blacksmithing for the last ten years.

Uh, one of my great loves is stained glass.

Um, so I've, I've started trying to incorporate that.

The most recent was the “Sun Shine Through” sculpture that I made with Lisa Soranaka.

Which was really fun.

Um, so I try to work in a lot of different things.

[Music] So, I heard someone say one time that the, the medium isn't the message.

And at first I was kind of, like, resistant to that because I get really excited about different materials.

But it's really true.

You know, the medium isn't the message.

Like you have to have like a concept that you're trying to get across, or at least I do to for my work to feel meaningful.

And so for me, like at this point, I really pick the materials that I feel like are going to portray whatever it is that I'm trying to accomplish in the best way possible.

[Music] So I feel like, with my progression as an artist, I feel like I sort of, like, snuck in through the back door.

[laughs] Um, I sort of started out doing these, like, really niche things like, like blacksmithing and and drawing comics, but like, those were probably the two things that really, plugged me into the, the local art community.

And making friends with blacksmiths that actually, you know, had shops and would let me come out and dink around in their shops and make stuff and one of my favorite things that we do as a club, is we do this blacksmithing at the library event with the Spokane County Library.

And it's, it's so cool because, I mean, while we try to keep our classes really affordable through the club at the library, you get to come for free with your library card, and walk away with, you know, a hook or a pin or, you know, whatever project you choose.

And I think it's so wonderful to be able to have it be so accessible to the community.

And I so enjoy introducing people to forging for the first time.

Getting to work with hot metal is just, it's just exhilarating.

It's just such an interesting material and and it's just really fun to get to, to share that with other people.

[Music fades] [Music builds] Public art is it's such an important part of a city's personality, right?

I think that it's our responsibility, as a city, as, you know, citizens here to consciously create the place that we want to live and so I think that's one of the things that it's so exciting about creating public art, because I get to kind of help, you know, determine what is that esthetic, what is the personality of the space that we as a community share?

Like I feel like there's a, there's a little bit of a responsibility when you're making art that's going to be in the public that you're thinking of the audience that will be interacting with it the most.

What's special about this particular space?

What's, what's something that would mean something to the people that are here most often, you know, theres something just really exciting about going out into the world and helping, kind of, elevate, you know, how do we enjoy these spaces that we share?

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