At a downtown cafe, an art wall for all ages

Since December, thanks to barista Mica Foster, the section of the cafe has taken on an artistic side.

Parent and child are often seen sharing the big yellow lounge chair against the back wall. Next to it, art happens.

Foster, an artist who also operates a chiropractic practice on the Heights, started placing large-scale black-and-white line drawings on the walls and a bucket of colored pens on a nearby table, with the blessing of owner Nate DeVol.

“Let us see your true colors and expressions on this community coloring project,” Foster says in a small sign on the wall.

Anyone may color in a small, medium or large part of an image. Others add their ideas, and quickly a “collaborative” work of art emerges.

Foster said she has seen the “calming and meditative” impact of art in her work as a chiropractor, and views the art wall at Dog River as a happy extension of that.

“I draw as a tool for meditation to focus on the present moment and to reawaken my creative side,” she said. “I decided to share some of my artwork, not because I thought my drawings were all that great, but to share a piece of my passion. For me, seeing someone be expressive about their own passion evokes a passionate spirit within myself.”

While done sans color, the images are by no means plain or simple: Intricate birds, elephants, bears and other animals, along with Foster’s trademark mandalas, have graced the walls for weeks, with great response from kids and people of all ages.

“They fill them up every week,” Foster said. “It’s such a great way to bring people together, I love interactive spaces, and I started this during Christmas vacation when a lot of college kids were home, and other friends who hadn’t seen each other in awhile, and for many people it was a great way to get re-acquainted, to sit and do art together.”

Foster draws all the images freehand, except for the mandalas, for which she employs a compass “to set parameters.”

She said, “The art display is dedicated to one of my most favorite artists,” Ellen Dittebrandt. “The use of colors in her paintings I find so enchanting. She used to sit for hours in this big yellow chair and doodle, almost every day for years.” (Dittebrandt, who lived in Mosier, died in 2014.)

Foster can be reached at mica.snapdragon@gmail.com.