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Artist teaches a generation Photo by Jim Craven Dodie Hamilton, one of Medford's best-known artists, also travels and teaches, as she does here with students at her Medford studio. A retrospective of the 80-year-old's watercolors now hangs at Art and Soul Gallery in Ashland. Watercolorist Dodie Hamilton celebrates her 80th birthday By BILL VARBLE Dodie Hamilton dabs brown madder alizarin on a gate in a watercolor landscape. A dull red color despite its colorful name, it echoes the red on a farmhouse roof in the background, just so. In the studio behind Hamilton's East Medford home on a rainy spring morning, half a dozen pairs of eyes alternate between assessing the progress of half a dozen student artworks and watching the deft strokes of Hamilton, an energetic woman in a brightly checkered blouse and dangling earrings. Celebration WHAT: 80th birthday for artist Dodie Hamilton. WHEN: 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday. WHERE: Art and Soul Gallery, Ashland. Hamilton has taught a generation of Rogue Valley watercolorists. Now some of them plan to celebrate her 80th birthday Saturday at Art and Soul Gallery in Ashland, where an exhibit of her work is hanging. The studio walls are lined with Hamilton watercolors: roses, an old barn, a pair of Western tanagers. And irises, lots of irises. "Iris is kind of my thing," she says. For today's session on landscapes, Hamilton focuses on the view behind her home, the rolling hills east of North Phoenix Road. It's pastoral now but will soon be a subdivision; the survey stakes out past the blackberries testify to that. Two nearby orchards have fallen to progress, and Hamilton is worried about the raccoons and the birds. "I have the red-winged blackbirds, quail, pheasant," she says. A male blackbird perched on a cattail cries, "kouk-la-ree." Hamilton's tiger-striped cat, Mr. Paws, walks in and accepts strokes. There are no strangers here. Some of these women have been coming since the 1980s. Joan Roth, of Medford, has been coming here so long her husband knows without asking to schedule things around the class. Working on a painting of a church in an alpine setting, she says Hamilton's classes, above all, are fun. Carol Lynch is painting a stone arch beside which grows an oleander. "She has a great sense of humor," she says. "It's loose," Roth responds as the two exchange familiar banter. "Not structured." "It's good therapy." "And she puts up with us!" Originally from Missouri, Hamilton moved to the valley in 1981 after teaching junior high school art in Richmond, Calif., for many years. With the move came a new passion: watercolors. A former president of the Watercolor Society of Oregon, she teaches at The Rogue Gallery in Medford and donates paintings to non-profit fund-raising events. Before going to Mexico on a painting jaunt last year, she took a Spanish class. Next month she travels with a painting class to Portugal. Pointing to a spot on Lynch's watercolor, she says, "This is going to be your focal point." Pointing to another: "You might need to darken this." She thinks the enduring appeal of watercolor, which is known as an unforgiving medium, has to do with the spontaneity of the water and the paint. "The white of the paper showing through can give you some wonderful effects," she says. "It's lively. And it's easy to travel with. With oils you have to wait a year before you can varnish it." In Hamilton's hands, there's a thing about the colors that's hard to put into words, something with the interplay of shadow and light. She laughs off comments about her energy. "She has an incredible zest for life," Roth says. "Good genes," Hamilton says. "I feel good. Besides, I get bored if I don't have a project." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA