About Gay Waldman Originals
About me
Gay Waldman- statement 2025
I have been an art maker since 1980. My B.A. in art with an emphasis in design resulted in painting canvas until 1985. Eventually my jobs didn't leave much time for painting, so I pursued photography. I built a portfolio and successfully applied and participate in juried shows, galleries, and art festival events.
​
Wherever I have lived, I assembled a bathroom-darkroom and unintentionally became a photographer. A clarification I use is “faux-tographer” because my photographs are the launch of most imagery in my artwork. Exhibit commitments sparked my development of photo-collage and color-pencil enhancements. In 1986 I gained employment as a professional picture framer, which led to managing a custom framing retail gallery and supported my art career for sixteen years. I have been a small business owner since 1991 and my art studio-frame shop has been self-supporting since 2001. I raised a wonderful daughter with my husband and we live an artful life as active gardeners, travelers, and PNW hiking, biking, skiing, and kayaking explorers.​
I have actively sold my artwork since 1988 and developed a supportive clientele with permanent collections and I have accomplished several permanent public art installations. My darkroom is retired and I exclusively manipulate digitally. My photo-art is not finished when the shutter is pressed; it is accomplished after hours of exploration. I use Canon cameras, built a PC, and use Adobe Photoshop & Painter tools with a stylus on a Wacom Cintiq monitor. I rely on a multitude of my photographs rich with color, translucent qualities, layering, and overlapping to make original digital art. This combination of photos pushes my distinctive images to appear dimensional and then I occasionally enhance the prints with pencil, pastel and acrylic paint, generating mixed media.​
I exhibit my finished, enhanced and composite photographs as collectible art cards, prints on traditional photo papers, as well as prints on hand-curved satin aluminum and designer fabric scarves. My photo-art reaches beyond the impact of traditional photography and expands how the viewer perceives, considers, and interprets photographic media as art.
​​
My art studio business provides artwork from miniature to large scale installation. I offer art commissions, graphic illustration, photo-editing-restoration, and art consultation. I built and maintain my e-commerce web site and I have completed twenty-six years of volunteer work, as a board member with Inland Crafts and First Night, Spokane. I’ve taught at Spokane Art School and the Corbin Art Center, and have fulfilled speaking invitations at Spokane Falls Community College, North Idaho College Photo Department and Gonzaga Art Department. My artwork has won numerous awards, is innovative, enlightening, and expresses a colorful interpretation of my world. Enjoy!
​
​
VIEW "What I Do" HERE!


