Lila Girvin (Shaw) was born in 1929, at the onset of the Great Depression. She grew up in Jefferson County, Colorado, near Denver, with vivid memories of the landscape: “Red Rocks, Aspen, big sky, sunshine, openness, flat plains and high mountains.”

Lila was interested in music, playing piano and working in a record store through high school. In college, however, Girvin pursued art history and painting at the University of Denver. “I was definitely a product of my generation… and art was one of the things that was possible for women.” It was here that she met her future husband, George Girvin.

After a short romance and marriage, Lila moved several times—Detroit, Michigan, San Antonio, Texas and Trenton, New Jersey—while her husband George trained for his medical career. Their last stop before Spokane was Seattle, where she recalled “spectacular beauty, mist and rain, mild temperature, trees, lushness and the sea,” significant change from Colorado. After this time, she and George moved to Spokane, WA, in 1958.

Lila was an enormous contributor—along with her husband, George Girvin—to the Spokane arts and cultural community in her work as a painter, pianist, as a mother to many—including her four boys, Tim, Robert, Jonathan and Matthew—in creativity, inspiration, spirituality, protection of natural environments and her worldwide itinerary of adventuresome travel during her long and amazing life of 95 years.

As a younger artist, she worked from an easel, with upright canvases; and later she was inspired to move her working method to flat canvases on the floor, so she could bathe her work in massive spreads of color in abstracted visions of light. She was honored in a 60 year career-spanning retrospective exhibition at the MAC, for her impassioned artistic legacy.

Ever active, she played tennis and skied through her 80s—she was playing piano in her 90s.

Lila Shaw Girvin passed away at home on Thursday afternoon, January 9th, 2025, surrounded by her loving family. She is survived by her sons Tim, Rob (Lori) and Jon, grandchildren Madeleine, Gabrielle, Kellen, Logan, and great grandchildren Isaiah and Ellis.

Memorial contributions can be made to the memorial fund, MatthewGirvin.org, any arts organization, or SravastiAbbey.org

You will find Lila’s Celebration of Life video on the Unitarian Universalist Church of Spokane webiste. Click here and you will be able to search for the video.