CAPITOL HILL
"Tubbs Hill: West Side," a watercolor painting created in 2011 by Coeur d'Alene artist Jessica Bryant, hangs in the office of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bruce Reed, just a few steps from the Oval Office. The painting was a gift from the Art Spirit Gallery in downtown Coeur d'Alene. Image courtesy of Jessica Bryant
Blair Williams, owner of the Art Spirit Gallery, received this card from White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bruce Reed, thanking her for the painting of Tubbs Hill by Coeur d'Alene artist Jessica Bryant. The card also recognizes a fox sculpture by local artists Allen and Mary Dee Dodge. Reed purchased the sculpture a few years ago and it sits in the backyard of his personal home in Washington, D.C. HANNAH NEFF/Press
Coeur d'Alene artist Jessica Bryant's 2011 watercolor painting, "Tubbs Hill: West Side," hangs just a few steps away from the Oval Office in Washington, D.C. Photo courtesy of Jessica Bryant
This photo shows artist Jessica Bryant at the same location on Tubbs Hill featured in her painting, "Tubbs Hill: West Side," which now hangs in the White House. Photo courtesy of Deborah A. Cole
"Tubbs Hill from Corbin Point,"one of Coeur d'Alene artist Jessica Bryant’s larger paintings of Tubbs Hill. This painting was exhibited in the 154th Annual Exhibition of the American Watercolor Society at the historic Salmagundi Art Club in New York City in April. Courtesy of Jessica Bryant
Scott Reed
Mary Lou Reed
Bruce Reed
A little bit of Coeur d’Alene has found its way into the White House.
A painting of Tubbs Hill hangs in the office of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Bruce Reed, just a few steps from the Oval Office.
“I always love seeing my work go to a good home,” said artist Jessica Bryant of Coeur d’Alene. “Having a piece go to the Reed family is just like there’s not a better fit.”
The painting was sent as a gift to Reed, a Coeur d’Alene High School graduate, from The Art Spirit Gallery in downtown Coeur d’Alene.
Blair Williams, owner of the gallery, received a card from Reed thanking her for helping decorate his White House office walls.
“The President often says Idaho is the most beautiful place on Earth, so he’s grateful too,” Bruce Reed said in a note to Williams.
“We're definitely honored on behalf of our community and gallery,” Williams said. “We’re just very proud that we get to have this broader reach.”
Williams said when they heard Reed had been named to his post at the White House, and knew he came from a longtime Coeur d’Alene family who played a role in saving Tubbs Hill, they thought there was no better way to say thank you.
The Tubbs Hill connection goes back a long way.
Reed’s late father, Scott Reed, a Coeur d’Alene lawyer, was instrumental in preserving the hill.
“Scott Reed spent hours and hours and days and days working on keeping Tubbs Hill public,” said Scott's wife, Mary Lou Reed, a former Idaho state senator.
“It’s a very special little bit of wilderness,” Mary Lou said. “I think a lot of other people in the community feel the same way.”
Mary Lou said her son, who was inducted into the Idaho Hall of Fame in 2020, is always happy to come back and enjoy his hometown.
She said he told her he had a chance to play ice hockey on the canal which is parallel to the Potomac River last weekend. Back in Idaho, Mary Lou said Bruce enjoyed ice skating with his dad on Fernan Lake and different places around the county.
“Bruce feels it’s always important to keep his Idaho roots,” Mary Lou said.
In addition to the painting, Bruce hangs posters of various places in Idaho in his office.
“I feel that it’s important in Washington, D.C., for states like Idaho to be remembered,” Mary Lou said. “Tubbs Hill certainly is a fine representation of the outdoors of Northern Idaho.”
Bryant said she completed the painting, “Tubbs Hill: West Side,” in 2011 to prepare herself for teaching a class to elementary students at Sorensen Magnet School of the Arts and Humanities through the school's Artists-in-Residence program.
It would usually take her 15 hours to do a painting of that size, she said, but because she had only a few hours with the students, she only gave herself about an hour to complete each painting of the three-piece series.
“My usual approach to painting is highly detailed and time consuming,” Bryant said. “I decided to complete a small series of paintings using a quick style, more of an impression of the landscape.”
Bryant said the paintings ended up being quite popular and she's sold a lot of the prints. Reed got an original.
“That fact that I paint so much of Tubbs Hill was kind of to me like the extra special neat component of this whole thing,” said Bryant, who sits on the board of directors for the Tubbs Hill Foundation. “Anything Tubbs Hill is important to me.”
Bryant has been creating art her whole life, but started doing art professionally in 2010. Her primary medium is watercolor, which she picked up in 2008.
One of Bryant’s larger paintings of Tubbs Hill was exhibited in the 154th Annual Exhibition of the American Watercolor Society at the historic Salmagundi Art Club in New York City in April. Bryant described it as the be-all, end-all of watercolor.
“I think any opportunity to get the amazing landscapes of North Idaho shared with the rest of the world is pretty cool,” Bryant said.
The organization is one of the oldest painting societies in the country and Bryant is a signature member.
The painting, “Tubbs Hill from Corbin Point,” is on display in Florida as part of the yearlong Traveling Exhibition of the American Watercolor Society.
“Tubbs Hill has been traveling around the country this year,” Bryant said.
And it's found a home next door to Joe Biden.
