The artist, as observed by an honest critic: his mother.

Byline: Bob Keefer The Register-Guard

This has been a very good year for Eugene artist Adam Grosowsky.

In addition to being one of the hottest selling painters in town - his big, dark, moody oil paintings also sell well in galleries in Portland and Aspen, Colo. - Grosowsky, a rock climber and all around daredevil outside the studio, was featured prominently in a New York Times story this fall about the sport of slacklining. That is a variant of highwire walking that Grosowsky is credited with inventing while in college. The Times story led to an appearance on the "Today" show.

In December he'll be sharing space at the Karin Clarke Gallery in a two-person show with his mother, Vera Grosowsky, a watercolorist.

Vera Grosowsky is 75 years old and had a career as a graphic designer, textile artist and art teacher in Illinois and California before moving to Eugene two years ago. She's a former Fulbright scholar who has shown her work around the country.

Here she talks about her son's art and her own.

Question: How long have you been doing watercolors?

Answer: About 10 years. I took a class at the community college and renewed my interest in graphics and drawing - and so I decided I would focus on that and give up my big loom.

I like watercolor. It's something you can do in your house without having a great space. It's a difficult medium, but I keep plugging away.

Question: How would you compare your work with Adam's?

Answer: It's totally different. I have a much more abstract focus. I am more interested in the design aspects and less interested in the resemblance to reality. So I think they are quite different. He is a very good artist, I think. He was good right from kindergarten. I taught at the school, and he was in my class from kindergarten through junior high school. He was an excellent draftsman even at 6 or 7.

Question: What did he like to draw when he was 6?

Answer: Magic machines. Different kinds of imaginary animals. And then he got into drawing from nature. There was always a narrative with his drawing. He was very skilled and had a lot of control right from the very beginning. I have drawings of his from first grade.

Question: What's the oldest drawing you have of his?

Answer: I have a portrait of a young man, not necessarily himself, holding a pigeon. And another one that is a self-portrait of himself with a hawk on his head and a hawk on his arm. And a large painting of his of Susie (Adam's girlfriend) looking out the window. And two small oil paintings that I have in the bedroom, one of my granddaughter and me on the beach, and the other is Susie with the dogs. I have a good collection.

Question: Why is Adam such a commercial success?

Answer: He is very romantic in his choice of mood and ambiance. And he's technically very skilled. And you get the initial message very readily, whether you can transcend that to a more significant level is on you.

Question: What is your sharpest criticism of his paint- ing?

Answer: That's a hard one without looking at a particular painting. He needs to work on his color, to broaden the range. The very dark paintings he has made in the last five years or so are very romantic and very visually charged but they are not as innovative as they could be in the use of color.

Question: You aren't as much of a realist painter as he is.

Answer: No, I am not. I didn't start out as a figurative artist. I was a Bauhaus student myself at school in Chicago. And I was very interested in the abstract world. So that probably remains the strongest thing in my own work, and less focus on figurative imagery.

People have preferences. People have strength in different directions. He is very figurative and very narrative in his work and I am tied much more to an abstract focus.

Question: Did you see Adam on the "Today" show?

Answer: Yes! I had to laugh. As you can well imagine, I am not too enchanted with his walking across canyons hanging on a wire.

EXHIBIT PREVIEW What: Recent paintings by Eugene artist Adam Grosowsky and his mother, Vera Grosowsky Where: Karin Clarke Gallery, 760 Willamette St. When: Tuesday through Dec. 30 Reception: 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Dec. 1 Gallery hours: 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday