Painter Sybil Hill is trying to move the American flags from
front porches to family rooms. The American Legion donated more
than 100 feathered and worn flags to her, which she uses to make
her artwork.

“I'm preserving them in my own way, by incorporating them into
my pieces,” Hill said.

She handles each flag with infinite care, covering it with rice
paper before she begins to paint on top of it.

The resulting pieces are very textured and layered.

“People are curious about her pieces because of the texture,”
said Rayla Kundolf of Masters Gallery.

The flags, and horses, are both reoccurring themes in Hill's
work.

“The horse is a metaphor for beauty, freedom, mystical
thoughts, and also a timeless force of our own spirit,” Hill
writes on her artist bio.

While the unique texture initially draws gallery visitors to
Hill's work, they often find a deeper meaning within.

“They love the patriotism and power that the flags represent
and then with the image of the horse, that adds to the
strength; (it) just resonates with people, not just Americans
but people all over the world,” Kundolf said.

“I like the emotional connection that people have with her
pieces, the rustic elements and raw honesty in the simple
images,” she continued.

Hill will be at Masters Gallery Friday and Saturday for an
exhibit of her work. Masters Gallery has carried her work since
July; she also has work in galleries in Dallas, Park City,
Utah and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Old wood, from fences and churches, is often the base of Hill's
paintings. She finishes most of her pieces with surfboard
resin, giving it a high gloss, chic look. On the back of each
piece, she puts a star, a dollar sign and a heart.

“The star is for spirit, the dollar sign is for prosperity and
the heart is for love,” Hill said. “They're simple symbols, but
they mean something. I like to put that out there. If you draw
a picture of a skull and dark things, you feel darkness coming
from it. I really believe that.”

Hill grew up in Dallas and now lives in Carbondale with her
10-year-old daughter.

“We get to see lots of wild life. I saw a golden eagle in my
back yard and now I'm painting a bald eagle for the show,” she
said.

In her former life, she managed high end retail stores, like
Ralph Lauren, in both Aspen and New York City, and was an art
dealer.

When her daughter was born, she wanted to be home with her and
she soon started painting.

“My work has a lot of Ralph Lauren influence in it,” Hill said.
“Watching horses running free, or a flag blowing in the wind,
those images moved me throughout my entire life.”

In the last eight years, she's sold more than 400 paintings,
she said.

“They started selling right from the start,” she said. “It was
meant to be.”

Recently Hill got a letter from a woman who had bought a
painting called “Unconditional Love,” of a mother horse and her
mare.

“She bought if for her son who was diagnosed with a rare blood
disease. She told me ‘this painting has hung outside of my
son's hospital room and has meant so much to us.' Her husband
was off in the military. Those are the things that make me
grateful. I'm able to support myself and I have this amazing
freedom to give back. Hopefully everyone one day will find
their gift.”

High Life Editor Caramie Schnell can be reached at 970-748-2984
or cschnell@vaildaily.com.
^[1]

References

1. ^{^} cschnell@vaildaily.com
   (www.vaildaily.com)

As the number of town houses in Seattle-area neighborhoods has
mushroomed in recent years, one particular design feature has
caught the eye of many a homebuyer and neighbor; the
"auto-court" parking area around which some town houses are
clustered.

With a central, cavelike driveway, often shaded by the town
houses' upper floors extending overhead, auto courts typically
consist of two rows of Smart Car-sized garages.

Rishad Quazi lives in a town-house complex with auto-court
parking in the Broadview neighborhood of Seattle.

He is happy with his home, particularly the relatively large
back yard, which he estimated at about 20-by-30 feet, the
newness of the home when he moved in, and the fact that his is
an end unit, with only one wall adjoining another home.

Quazi parks his car in his garage, though he said that it was
tricky at first to maneuver his vehicle — at the time a Hyundai
hatchback — into the small space.

"I scratched it on both sides before I figured out my correct
angle of approach and my proper visual markers to get the car
in correctly," he said.

Some of his neighbors choose to park on the street, he said,
due to the tight configuration of their auto court.

The high cost of land, the push toward density, and earlier
building code requiring off-street parking have all contributed
to the proliferation of auto-court town-house development.

Town houses are meant to squeeze more dwellings into tight
places. Taking up less space means that town houses are more
attractively priced compared with free-standing homes.

For example, an upscale three-bedroom, three-bath,
1,730-square-foot town house built in 2006 in Fremont was
recently listed for $479,000.

It's on a block where the land alone under a single-family
house was assessed for a higher amount, according to county
property-tax records.

Though popular for their affordability and relatively new
construction, town-house design sometimes has appeared more
awkward than functional.

A recent building code update in Seattle intends to change
this, by favoring features such as front porches and common
outdoor space instead of auto courts.

The Seattle City Council last year updated its
multifamily-building code with new rules and incentives that
steer development away from the auto-court style of town house
and toward row houses, cottages, and apartments.

In place of car-oriented auto courts, the code update
encourages visible pedestrian entry doors and more windows
facing the street. These features aim to connect homes and
their residents with neighbors and communities.

In addition, a system of "floor-area ratio" incentives allows
the building of slightly larger units on the same size lot if
developers choose dwelling types other than auto-court town
houses.

The code update also allows common outdoor space in town-house
complexes, rather than requiring individual, enclosed yards.
And in certain areas with frequent transit service, multifamily
complexes do not have to include parking for each unit.

To arrive at its final update, the council took feedback from
the public. Councilmember Sally Clark hosted a neighborhood
forum in 2008 titled "Townhomes — Can the Patient be Saved?"
and drew on input from neighborhood groups and developers.

Among citizens speaking up was Bill Zosel, a resident of
central Seattle's Squire Park neighborhood. He felt too many
formulaic, auto-court style town houses were popping up in his
community. He brought to Clark at another meeting a photo of an
auto-court development with a red circle around it and diagonal
line striking through it; the graphic symbol for "No."

Interviewed recently, Zosel said he objected to what he called
the auto-court town houses' "diminished relationship to the
street."

Most of the existing single-family homes in his neighborhood,
he said, have "useful front doors and ground-level living space
facing the street." By contrast, the only visible entrance to
many auto-court complexes is the driveway.

Some areas outside Seattle have stricter rules regarding town
house developments. Snohomish County updated its multifamily
code in 2009 with new design standards that aim to foster
attractive streetscapes and architectural design that blends
into existing neighborhoods.

The code update was written "with Seattle's auto-court issue in
mind," said Clay White, director of Snohomish County Planning
and Development Services.

Under the new standards, "auto-court style town houses cannot
be developed" he said.

Auto courts have been much less of an issue in Bellevue. The
city has not experienced the same proliferation of auto-court
town-house projects as Seattle has, according to Carol Helland,
Bellevue's land-use director, who said: "We've had relatively
robust design expectations in place for some time."

Such design concerns, however, aren't necessarily a priority
for many people who buy town houses. Price, location and newer
construction are what count.

Meredith Spacie and her husband, Tom, bought their auto-court
town house in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood in 2008, though
they did not set out looking for a town house in particular.

"Our most important element was neighborhood and location and
not having to do any work on the house before it was
satisfactorily livable," Spacie said. "There were really no
single-family homes in our price range that fit those
characteristics."

Based on what she recalled seeing at the time, Spacie estimated
they paid at least $100,000 less for their town house compared
with a similarly-sized single-family house in move-in
condition.

Most of the neighbors in their complex of eight town houses do
park their cars in their auto-court garages, but the Spacies do
not.

"Our garage is no tougher to get into than anyone else's,"
Spacie said. "We basically just have too much stuff and are
using it for storage."