Finding the Flame through Art with Gretchen Weitemier

Some callings don’t arrive with thunder. They rise like morning light through trees. For Boise artist Gretchen Weitemier, the call to art was quiet, steady, and sacred.

“I had to go back to my roots,” she says. “My art was calling me.”

It wasn’t just a call to create. It was a call of the soul. Art lives in her blood; her great aunt, grandmother, and late Aunt Beth were all artists. But Gretchen doesn’t see that legacy as pressure. It’s a frame to build within, not a box to stay in.

Her most interesting medium is wood. Her method: torch paste and a heat gun. Her art is tactile and alive, textured by fire and spirit.

In her Boise church, where she serves as artist-in-residence, Gretchen treats her role with reverence. “It’s a gift,” she says. “A political privilege, really.”

Each summer she begins preparing for Advent, months ahead of winter. The themes of hope, peace, joy, and love guide her. “Those are the lights,” she says.

Wood became her chosen form almost by accident, when she was asked to teach printmaking. That moment became spiritual.

“Wood has rings and memory,” she says. “It became a language. A way to reach for God.”

That reaching shows in works like Hope When You’re Afraid, born in a season of tension. “My church was on edge,” she recalls. “I wanted to bring something real, something calm.”

Her titles feel like prayers: Love Melts Fear speaks gently but firmly. Gretchen doesn’t deny darkness. She carves space for it, and then moves toward light.

“Not everyone is joyful during the holidays,” she says. “But the sunshine is coming up on the edge.”

Her work lives in that space, in between the sacred and the everyday. One person once said her art feels like “Matisse and Kandinsky had a child.”

She especially admires Matisse’s resilience. “He was bedridden and still creating,” she says. “That’s what I want, to keep making art no matter what.”

Gretchen’s curiosity is constant. “I don’t just paint one thing,” she says. “I’d get too bored.”

She teaches, curates, and opens the process. Her church art shows welcome all media, even cookies. “Last year, someone submitted oatmeal cookies. Some had chocolate chips, some had raisins. The artist said, ‘People have strong feelings, but they

can be together on one plate.’”

It was funny, but also a message: art makes space.

“Kids on the edges can blossom through art,” Gretchen says. “When expression brings something deep, it’s therapeutic. It’s delicious.”

In Gretchen’s hands, flame becomes brushstroke and wood becomes prayer. Every carved line invites us to look closer.

The public can view Idaho born and raised artist Gretchen Weitemier’s work this July at Catalyst Arts Collaborative in Boise, where she also teaches and creates with a thriving community of artists.