Leigh Knowles Metteer says that most of the 100 small landscapes she painted for her show remind people of places they have been. "I painted places I wanted to visit," she says, "wide open spaces for walking and feeling the light; I painted poems of gratitude." There's an interesting story behind the show:

I began these paintings last January. I was cold, light-starved, and hemmed in by a large workload. As often as possible, I retreated to a drafting table under a single lamp with two brushes and a small heater tucked under the chair—a bit Dickensian, I agree, but it’s true.

I created these for sanity. They became miniature vacations patterned after memories I had of how it felt to be driving through the back roads of Kentucky or walking on the beaches of Hawaii or being in New Mexico; surrounded and infused by heat and the pungent smell of xerophytic growth before a high desert storm.

Leigh, who earned an MFA from Arizona State University, teaches art at Olympic College and at West Sound Academy.

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