Denise Fairweather, owner of Fairweather House & Gallery, displays some artwork from Katherine Taylor, an artist who will serve as instructor for Vino Van Gogh, the gallery's debut wine and paint night.

Can you tell me a little bit about the upcoming instructional painting event?

This was created by an artist here, Katherine Taylor. She has a gallery in Bend and we display her oceanscapes here. She went through the summer — which would be their off-season — and came up with this idea of offering adults a painting experience. You bring your wine and she gives you all the products to do a painting and then we provide a snack. So we’re hosting it. She did that in Sisters and had a great response. She contacted me and said, “Do you have a space available?” I said, “How many do you think?” and she said, “Up to 14.” I asked “How much room do you need?” She said “I need white walls.” I said, “Let me think.” I didn’t want to rent a room, because it loses the experience of being out on the street or receiving the vibes of everyone. Then my landlord offered me an open space and it’s all white. It’s right around the corner next to the North Coast Distilling tasting room.

Have you been to one of these types of these events?

No. But we started with the Seaside First Saturday Art Walk. The art walk has been around 11 years. I’ve been involved with it for 10 years. In 2008 we started events called “Seaside Painting Live,” where you come into the art walk experience and instead of being overwhelmed with the art, you’re actually seeing an artist paint. Generally it is a demonstration; sometimes it’s a quick finish; sometimes we have had a duel where one artist was painting with a palette knife and another artist was painting with a toothpick. Whenever an artist is painting, quite a lot of the activity is over in that area. Many of our artists our educators who actually have taught painting and art. Katherine is an educator; she’s a retired teacher, so she’s versed in teaching. She was the one I selected to do this. It’s a debut. We’ve never done it before, but we’ve heard about these events where people come in and paint. And I thought it was clever for her to name it “Vino Van Gogh.”

People have to bring their own wine, correct?

Yes. And they don’t have to drink. We’re just trying to get them loose, so they feel comfortable. Most of us remember painting or drawing when we were in second grade, you know, stick people. So we hope the spirits will loosen up the artistic abilities, or just being with friends will loosen up the painters. It’s a two-hour event. At the end of the two hours, they will have a painting to take home. It will be a complete painting. We’ll hopefully do a show and tell.

How many people can participate?

We hope to keep it under 10. In the event that we have a waiting list, we are able to move it into another weekend. In our gallery we have 14 educators that are ready to do this. Our thought is to continue it through spring break, so every month we’ll do another event. It might be a collage artist, it might be fiber artist. Who knows? We want to just open the doors without someone having to take a class and being tied to six weeks of commuting in the off-season weather. This is a one-night event. A party with art.

This was planned specifically for the offseason?

Yes. I don’t think we could handle it during the high season, and that was Katherine’s statement; because it’s a wild card, what’s going on. She said this gives her one-on-one time with each guest.

Tell me a little bit Katherine Taylor.

This is her portfolio, and she does anything from nudes to still life painting, old world and landscapes. And some pretty unusual pieces. We elect to bring in artists that do destination work.Her choice was, “Do we do a still life or something else?” And I said, “You know, in November. It’s our Pacific fly-away time, when all the birds are finishing their migrations. And there’s such a huge event for birding here.” I said, “Perhaps, we can do a shorebird.” So she’s giving people the choice of doing a still life, which would be a bottle of wine and a rose and some cherries, or a shorebird.

How does the instruction work?

To me, it’s going to be similar to Bob Ross. She’s going to have a finished oil painting so people can see what they’re leaning towards, but we want it to be improvised. So people say, “I want a seashell,” or, “I want a butterfly on my wine bottle,” and we’ll be open to that. Because we’re going to have fun with it, too.

As a business owner, is your purpose in bringing these types of experiences to promote Seaside, the Gilbert District or art?

I think it’s all of them. Mostly it’s art. I think we live in a “coast land.” As one artist says, we live in paradise. So many of the artists paint that and the patrons purchase that art. This brings it closer, that they can create it themselves.