Thursday, Oct. 9, Liz Nichols was pouring concrete for Raimore Construction near McDaniel High School. Saturday, she attended an art exhibit: her own. 

Building trades workers bring beauty into the world, but are seldom recognized for it, says Seyona Belai, proprietor of a new art gallery in Milwaukie that will showcase the creativity and skill of craft tradespeople.

Belai has straddled the divide of art and commerce for decades. After graduating with a degree in art history from Lewis and Clark College, she hoped for a career in the art world. But she also needed to pay the bills. Working as an art gallery assistant, she met an art collector who owned a construction company. She went to work for him, at first as an office worker and later as a non-union carpentry apprentice. It was the start of a career in construction. But she kept at her art, and eventually combined the two with paintings of construction workers on the job. Today, Belai is the owner of a successful union-signatory finish carpentry company, Zana Construction. When a storefront retail space opened up below her company office in Milwaukie, she saw it as an opportunity to open her own art gallery, but with a twist: She wants to promote the art of unsung building trades craftspeople whose artistry isn’t celebrated in the usual art spaces — including electricians, welders, plumbers, and cement masons. In September she registered the name Toolbox Gallery.

The first exhibit in the series opened this month featuring cement sculptural works by Nichols. Using concrete as the medium, she creates ornamental plates using imprints from flowers in her yard, or the actual flowers themselves preserved in epoxy resin. Nichols was working for Cement Masons Local 555 as dispatcher but, missing the physical nature of construction work, she recently returned to the tools. 

Her art will remain on display through Oct. 31 at the gallery, which is open to the public 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays.

The artist speaks

• WHAT  Liz Nichols talks about her art
• WHEN  6-7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 22 
• WHERE Toolbox Gallery, 2029 SE Jefferson St., Milwaukie, Oregon
• MORE INFO toolboxart.org

CALLING ALL TRADES ARTISTS

Ready to share the art or craft you’ve been cultivating on the side? Sign up at toolboxart.org/call-for-trades-professionals-info