New Art Gallery Near Bend, Oregon

Rimrock Gallery (rimrockgallery.com) is a new gallery in Prineville, Oregon, that features 21 established artists from the Western states and beyond. The gallery exhibits original paintings featuring landscapes, wildlife, farm scenes, equestrian and rodeo subjects, and florals. The bronze works feature sports, wildlife, equestrian, water birds, birds of prey, and figurative sculpture from professionally recognized artists. The gallery is managed by owner Pamela Claflin, who has been prominent in the Oregon and Washington arts communities for over 30 years, and Craig Harvey, who recently moved to Prineville after a career in government defense contracting.

“At 30 years old, I was able to pursue a fine art career and studied with a Russian-trained master, Delbert Gish,” Claflin says. “Life’s journey led me from a stay-at-home mom to a working single parent. I established the graphics department for Vancouver, Washington, and after five years, missed my art world terribly. I gave notice, left the city, and moved to Bend, Oregon, close to my childhood area. There I was able to work for a magazine and then manage a gallery for three years. Three years later, I purchased a small gallery in Sisters, Oregon, renamed it Mockingbird, after a song my mother and I sang while cleaning house, and grew it to a fine art level after moving it to Bend.

“I ran the gallery and painted from 1989 to 2007. Upon selling it, I thought I wanted to paint full-time. Twelve years later, I find myself living in Prineville, my childhood home, and wanting to have ‘more reason for being’ in my life. In April of this year, I looked at a building for lease in downtown Prineville, and the minute I walked in, I knew it would make a fine gallery space. Prineville had no gallery, all the more reason to establish a fine level gallery, 40 minutes from Bend, in a town full of really nice folks. We opened with a celebration on August 3 and have had wonderful visitation since.

“The gallery features artists such as Robert Moore, Jim McVicker, Stefan Savides, George and Cammie Lundeen, and Rett Ashby — artists from the Northwest and beyond, including Ralph James from North Carolina.

“I am excited to be able to represent and sell artists’ works that I love and to also be able to represent my own work as well. You don’t meet nicer clients than those who come to view the gallery. Trust levels are built as we deliver and take art on approval. The joy of a customer finding the right painting for a space or finding a space for just the right painting is wonderful and rewarding to me. Nothing beats the phone call to the artist when we sell a painting. I know what that does for an artist. Selling art is a necessary ingredient for career artists, but the pleasure of having your work approved to the point of purchase can’t be beat.”

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