Tom O’day has been doing art since 1972 and teaching as an art instructor now for his 35th year. 

One of Tom’s pieces was in a case, it was a piece from a performance and installation that he did at Whitworth college where he buried thirty pieces of artwork that he had. 

“The idea was to see what would happen after 20 years, the performance was sort of a funeral,” he said. “The people that attended were requested to wear black and I had an accordion play.” 

All the work that he had put in the hole had changed drastically after the twenty years, most of the work almost disintegrated. The way he formatted this piece is in a case and if you look down at it you’ll see exactly how it was preserved after twenty years.  

O’day uses lots of wood in his art pieces. Another piece he did was with this long tree branch that he had observed sliding down a hill for an entire year.

“Eventually I dragged the tree to my house which was nearby, with some of the surface I applied copper embellishments,” O’Day said.

He decided to cut it to make it longer, afterwards he was trying to figure out how to show it. He drilled holes into sections and added dowels which looks almost as if the dowels went all the way through it. He also did drawings that go along with this piece. 

The exhibition’s name, “Exit-X-it” has two meanings, one for him, as he retires from a long career as an art instructor from Spokane falls community college and the second for that X in the walls, is from a piece of art will “exit.”