"It’s my season," confides Karen Luke Fildes. "When the gray days come, I come alive."



Despite recent trips around Hawaii and other sunny, color-saturated spots, Luke Fildes speaks about the Northwest sky with reverence, using adjectives reserved for people. She explains how the cloud’s personality will take on whatever the wind is doing to it, as if the cloud were a bit like a passive partner in a relationship.



She talks about the immediate clouds outside Gallery Madera as though they were dancers, or actors, creating drama and tension in a day-long show.



Along with Carlos Taylor-Swanson, proprietor of Gallery Madera, Luke Fildes hopes to "create a movement to warm up moody, Washington days," utilizing Taylor-Swanson’s space to run palette workshops for artists.



The first , , runs Saturday from 11 to 2 p.m. at Gallery Madera, where Luke Fildes currently has work hanging along with artists Rae Belkin, as well as Milo and Christy Mirabelli.

The show, titled "Change," fits well with the color workshop that Luke Fildes will run, where participants will learn to paint Northwest color.



But Luke Fildes, whose canvasses show unrelenting optimism that verges on the spiritual, says, "It’s not only educational but inspirational."



In her own artistic world of pursuing nature, she invariably casts a positive light on the darkest situations. She says she’s looking to create a sort of Vespers for people, only not in a church, adding, "It’s not a secret that that’s what it’s all about ... it’s hope."



More technically, Luke Fildes says, "It’s about color awareness, the temperature of light; becoming aware of the beauty rather than being trapped under the veil."

The implication is that what you’re looking at as gray and depressing may actually be shades of purple, blue, gold, and silver; her workshop will demystify the actual colors and add some ideas to get participants outside looking up on days when they’d ordinarily closet themselves indoors with a blanket.



In past workshops, Luke Fildes has noted, "It seems to be a comfort to people. Fun, too."



And along with Taylor-Swanson she’s hoping that Gallery Madera can be ground zero for that inspirational movement toward the appreciation of beauty in new ways.



"He’s doing really great things with this space and the community," Luke Fildes enthuses about Taylor-Swanson, adding, "It’s just the best space."



[Gallery Madera, Saturday, Oct. 13, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., free, 2210 Court A Tacoma, 253.572.1218 www.gallerymadera.com]