COOS BAY - “Did everyone have a mother who smoked cigarettes in the pool?” Gini Lawson wonders.

The Seattle artist was commenting on how viewers have responded to a series of paintings involving memories of her mother, who died when Lawson was 15.

“When viewers recognize their own memories represented in my work, I smile,” Lawson, 53, wrote in an e-mail. “It's the greatest gift.”

Lawson won first place in the Coos Art Museum's Expressions West 2007 exhibit, a $5,000 purchase award, for “Waterline.”

The painting, made from a family photo taken in the 1960s, shows Lawson's older sister and her boyfriend standing outside a pool where her mother is smoking. It's a diptych (a painting done in two pieces) in oil on canvas.

There are 71 paintings by 57 artists from six states in the exhibit, which is sponsored by the Southwestern Oregon Community College Foundation. The exhibit, which opened last week, continues through June 30.

The included works and the awards were chosen by juror Amy Pence-Brown, associate curator at the Boise Art Museum, from 569 submissions by 195 artists.

Though Oregon has the most artists in the exhibit, the Seattle area dominated the awards. Also winning purchase awards were “Buffalo and Raven” by Craig Kosak of Seattle; and “A Bit of Rain” by Dion Pickering Zwirner of Bainbridge Island, Wash. Kosak received $3,000 for second place and Zwirner, $2,000 for third.

Five other paintings received honorable mentions, including works by Mike Ferguson, Kathleen Youngquist, Jaime Gustavson, D. Halverson Frazier and Kelvin Ming Young.

Kosak described his painting as inspired by encounters with wildlife while hiking in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks in Wyoming. He saw the buffalo right outside Old Faithful Inn and said he ran into the characters several times on the trip. Pence-Brown noted the superstitious and religious nature of the painting's symbolism.

Zwirner said her work, which Pence-Brown called atmospheric, is a montage of observations and about her relationship to a universal landscape. Divided into three sections - reflecting raindrops on water, air after a rain and the earth - the work asks viewers to look at the beauty in small things, Zwirner said.

Pence-Brown said she was drawn immediately to Lawson's painting, which she called intriguing and interesting for the story it tells. Lawson cited her luminous color palette and brushwork as other elements that might have factored in her win.

Lawson said that when she was growing up, her mother would keep a cup of coffee, an ashtray, cigarettes and a martini by the pool on a car-tray that she had taken from a drive-in restaurant.

“She would lie on a raft in the pool and, using her hands, guide herself around the perimeter of the pool until she reached the tray,” Lawson said. “There she would pause, take a drink of coffee or gin and a puff on her cigarette, then off she'd go, around the pool again and again.”

In the painting, the mother is on the smaller right panel, which Lawson said gives the impression of removing her slightly from the scene and adds an emotional charge.

Another work from Lawson's series about her mother, “Never the Bridesmaid,” also is included in the exhibit.

Two other solo exhibits by Oregon artists run concurrently with Expressions West:

n The work of John Van Dreal is on display in the Uno E. Richter Atruim. Van Dreal paints in the style of Dutch Renaissance artists in his still lifes and figure drawings. In a presentation during the opening reception, Van Dreal said he paints only for aesthetics and not to express himself. He also noted the human presence in his works, explaining that still lifes don't arrange themselves.

n A retrospective of Nancy Douglas, a Southwestern student who died last year, is on display in the Mabel Hansen Gallery. The exhibit includes several unusual sculptures, as well as collages, drawings and paintings.

At the opening, Victoria Tierney of Bandon noted the contrast between the two exhibits: “He's so Old World and realistic, and she's so wild and modern.”

Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday. Admission is $5 and $2 for students and seniors.