Who's Who: City Cultural Programs Manager Gary LaTurner

When not working toward promoting the arts here in Enumclaw, Gary LaTurner still spends a good three to four hours a day honing his craft of painting. He takes a few minutes out of his day to chat with us here at Patch.

Where are you from? I grew up in Spokane and moved to the coast and started teaching in the late '60s.

What kind of teaching did you do? I taught art for the Bellevue School District for 29 years. Prior to that, I was at Sedro-Woolley for four years, where I started.

How old were you when you started your art career? I started drawing when I was 5. I entered a contest that was one of those "draw that rooster." I was in the Spokane paper.

What brought you to Enumclaw? When I retired from Bellevue schools, my wife had been teaching in Enumclaw so we moved here. That way, she didn’t have to commute. 

How did you get started working for the city? I wasn’t happy being retired. I offered to volunteer for the city. The person who held this job prior was going out on maternity leave and wanted to know if I would fill in for her while I was gone.

What exactly is a Cultural Programs Manager? King County distributes funds to Local Arts Agencies (LAA). Enumclaw has an LLA and every year, I apply for a grant from them. I apply for other grants from the county as well. We got one last year for $25,000 to help pay for a new roof on the Field House, another grant before that to put sound and lighting in the Field House. It’s that kind of thing that I do.

What I try to do is write grants for other types of programming. In the past, before the major budget cuts, we had Evenings on the Plateau (a performing arts series) and Base Camp (a regional juried art exhibit). And a re-granting program where we got money from King County and made that money available through application process to local artist and art groups.

Right now we’re working on developing on two programs. One is an – so we’ll start looking for Enumclaw artists who are interested in showing their studios and talking about their artwork.

We’re also working on an art and physical fitness walk that we’re hoping to tie into a program with St. Joseph (Medical Center) in Tacoma. People can walk different walks to get points and credit to go towards awards. We have at least 15 sculptures we plan for people to walk by. We’ll identify a 5K and a 10K walk. Our sculptures are pretty well spread out.

How much time in a day do you spend on your art? Well, pretty much all of it. When I’m at work, that has something to do with art. In terms of producing artwork, probably three or four hours a day. I paint mostly in the evenings. During the summer I might not do as much oil painting, but then I switch to watercolors. Every Sunday I go to drawing sessions in Seattle.

Which medium do you prefer? I like it all.

Many of LaTurner's drawings and paintings can be found on his website as well as for purchase at .