Kiki Metzler

Growing up in Baltimore as the daughter of two artists in the 1950s, Kiki Metzler got an early start on her own career. "I saved my money for chalk pastels," she recalls. "I drew murals in the alley." She took classes at the Maryland Institute of Art, where her father taught painting, and, with a friend, she opened a gallery in an abandoned hotel. "Where Eraserhead was filmed," she notes. At age 19, Metzler followed her brother west to Oregon, where she has pursued her art ever since, along with raising her six children. For years, she sold her distinctive painted-frame mirrors at the Saturday Market. "They were sent world-wide as gifts," she says. Metzler quit making mirrors four years ago, when she was diagnosed with melanoma, but she has responded to treatment, and she continues to paint in oil and acrylic. She's pictured here at this year's Holiday Market. "I don't like to overwork a painting," she says, "I do three or four in a day." Metzler regularly donates work for sale in local benefit auctions. She has provided illustrations for the Eugene-based publication Midwifery Today since its birth. See a portfolio at <midwiferytoday.com/friends/kiki>

happening people photograph and story by Paul Neevel Eugene Weekly / 30 December 2004