FEBRUARY 6-28, 2026:

"Mowing"

Paintings by

LILY KIP

This February at The Palace Gallery, Missoula painter Lily Kip presents a series of paintings that explore communication as the imperfect art of interpretation, and how "to live in community is to take up life simply with endless small tasks--to listen, to pay attention, to share." Lily created this series after opting to stay in Missoula MT following the completion of her MFA program, and it captures the melancholy awareness that home is more about people than place. 

Stop in during this week's First Friday Art Walk to check out this edgy and emotional body of work. 
We're open extended Art Walk hours, so come in any time from 4 to 8!
Have to miss the Art Walk? We're open every Saturday from 12-4p and by appointment. 
210 W 4th Ave, Suite X
Ellensburg WA 98926.
​Look for the signs and head up the stairs!

Lily Kip; Love Is Blue (1-3); Oil on Canvas

MOWING
​"There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound--
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make."
​-Robert Frost

Kip Artist's STATEMENT:
I have borrowed the title of this show—“MOWING”—from Robert Frost’s eponymous 1913 poem. (Left) This body of work lives in the same heavy late summer world as Frost’s poem: “gift of idle hours,” “heat of the sun,” “pale orchises,” the repetition of “whisper” in various tenses. But the central conceit of labor and cultivation also capture the primary doctrine of my figurative paintings—relationships are work. Frost’s own offered summary of “Mowing” is as follows: “He takes up life simply with the small tasks.” My paintings do not depict highs or lows, but the small, ongoing chore of communication. The cropped compositions position the viewer as an uninformed participant, tasked with reading my figures’ mixed and illegible emotions. So it is in real life. We may assume to understand each other, but communication depends on the imperfect art of interpretation. To live in community is to take up life simply with endless small tasks—to listen, to pay attention, to share. As much as this exhibition encounters “relationships” as a broad concept, these pieces are personal. Each figure is a real character in my social world, all of these paintings come from photos I took myself. With the support of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, I made these paintings in the six month grant period immediately following 1. The completion of my MFA at the University of Montana and 2. My decision to keep living in Missoula instead of moving back to the east coast. This body of work attempts to capture the melancholy awareness that, for me, home is more about people than place.

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The Palace Gallery is free and open to the public 12pm-4pm every Saturday and the First Friday of every month from 4-8pm. 
We're also open for special events throughout the month.
Come join us downtown at 210 W. 4th Ave, Suite X!

The Palace Gallery / Art Is Fine LLC / 2026