Articles

Located in the idyllic Skagit Valley, the Bitters Co.’s Barn is the site of both a selection of houseware goods and occasional events throughout the year. Founded by sisters Amy & Katie Carson, Bitters Co. highlights makers from around the world specializing in housewares, glassware, cork, and more. In addition to their wholesale business, the Carson sisters often welcome chefs, makers, and artists to their space. The upper level of the barn creates a beautiful venue for all types of objects, and from September 14 to October 13 visitors can enjoy drawings by a somewhat surprising artistic trio: Amy Carson, Susan Bennerstrom, and Whiting Tennis.

On Paper an exhibit of drawings by Susan Bennerstrom, Amy Carson, and Whiting Tennis is a delight because it brings together three artists who do not solely create drawings on paper. Though their styles range greatly, the show highlights their more abstract and non-representational work. Readers are likely familiar of drawings by Whiting Tennis with their fluid and wandering nature. Whiting once remarked that he attends life drawing classes but chooses to make automatic drawings even when his fellow classmates are observing and drawing the model. The resulting work creates a confluence of technology, nature, and art historical references. Has technology taken over and formed an alliance with nature? Perhaps. What forms and shapes emerge from the human mind as a part of automatic exercise? Many, it appears. Tennis’ drawings in the show vary in color, which is consistent with his drawings exhibited elsewhere.

“Untitled Stage Study”evokes a sketch of a structured physical environment with shading and texture, whereas “Fridge” references Tennis’ attraction to automatic drawing. The artist, is represented by Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle and Derek Eller Gallery in New York, so eager viewers have another Northwest venue to see Tennis’ larger paintings and sculptures. However, a selection of the artist’s drawings is truly a treat, especially in this artistic pairing.

Drawing unifies this exhibition, but the process of each artist and resulting style makes each unique. It is also worth noting that both Tennis and Susan Bennerstrom create work at a larger scale and different medium besides drawing. Bennerstrom’s paintings are observations of the world retold by the artist. Bennerstrom clarifies that she does not define her style as that of a realist, but her precision does reference realism with an unexpected edge. The scene is familiar to the viewer but something about the composition and flat colors feel manufactured or imagined by the artist. In comparison, it is Bennerstrom’s drawings that are brought to the forefront in this exhibition. During the COVID-19 pandemic the artist poured time into her drawing practice and the result is multiple series of abstract works. “Lisbon” and “Nether Land” are included in this show, and both exhibit an extraordinary amount of tension. The shapes appear to push and pull each other within the picture plane, while the evidence of the artist’s hand give the drawings a sense of immediacy.

Bitters Co. co-founder Amy Carson also has drawings included in the show. Carson’s entire body of work brings attention to the artist’s interest in the physicality of materials and a study of color combinations. The essential shape of an object is considered and the artist brings that shape in to comparison to others through the use of color play. The black-and-white work in this show even more so heighten an interest in following the artist’s hand and gesture across the paper or board to guide the eye across the surface. The physical surface does not limit Carson, who often extends the image beyond the perimeters in the viewer’s imagination.

Drawings feel more immediate than almost any other medium. With a small leap of imagination, the viewer can visualist the artist creating a work on the surface in front of them. On Paper is no exception to this practice. Each artist is attracted to drawing to fulfill a particular need or interest, with the resulting work exhibiting a juxtaposition of control, tension, and action. It is also worth noting that the show is not on display in the white box of an art gallery. Gallery spaces are excellent venues for displaying artwork, but it is also important to consider work in locations that bring another context or perspective. Drawings installed on wooden barn walls certainly can change the context or interpretation of work, but it is up to each unique viewer to bring that aspect of the show.

Chloé Dye Sherpe

Chloé Dye Sherpe is an art professional and curator based in Washington State.

On Paper is on view from September 14 through October 13 at Bitters Co. Barn, located at 14034 Calhoun Road in Mount Vernon, Washington. Hours are Thursday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. for more information, visit www.bittersco.com.

New paintings by prolific artist Maxine Martell are included in the exhibit, Maxine Martell: Magical Beings, at the Aurora Loop Gallery in Port Townsend, Washington. Curator Kathleen Garrett has assembled an interesting mix of paintings, collages, and other works on paper, that spans fifteen years and includes several new pieces that were created this year. 

The title Magical Beings alludes to the shimmering mystery that inhabits all of Martell’s art, on the surface and sometimes just below it. The concept of collage has always been a central idea in her paintings, which is not surprising when you consider that her work is inspired by her interest in film, fashion, architecture, literature, and history. She blends those influences with her own memories, travels, and family history, sometimes incorporating personal narratives. At first glance, the paintings in this show are beautiful, decorative, and engaging, but as you spend more time with them and look more closely, an undertone of intrigue, intellect, and hidden powers emerges.

The centerpiece of the show is a selection of paintings pulled from her Hybrids series. Not all of the pieces in that series are included here, but there are enough to keep your eye and imagination occupied and your brain firing on all synapses. Their layering and collage effects echo the tromp l’oeil paintings of an earlier series called Torn Paintings, in which Martell created paintings that appear to have been pasted over paintings that have now been partially revealed by a mysterious someone who peeled away parts of the painted-over images so that they are no longer completely covering up the evidence. The longer you look at them, the more those partially exposed paintings begin to capture your attention, and you find yourself inexorably drawn to thinking about what might be happening in the concealed work, and wondering how the two layered stories connect. If you’re interested in looking at those before or after you visit this show, you will find them in the Archive pages on her website: https://maxinemartell.com. 

Nearly all the new works included in this show are portraits of magisterial, elegant, and strangely powerful women. Perhaps they are they are outsiders, witches and sorceresses, perhaps they are imperious empresses. Or maybe they’re merely very confident ladies of leisure. Some appear to be established, easy and assured of their power. Others are more enigmatic and difficult to pin down, like the ethereal seer who has hung her lamp on an outstretched tree branch and gazes thoughtfully at something or someone that’s just behind your left shoulder. Martell clothes all of these women in layered and multi-patterned headdresses, hats, collars, and elegantly patchworked garments made from recycled bits of her older paintings that she has cut up and pasted onto the canvas.

There is always as much to think about in Martell’s paintings as there is to see. She’s a storyteller, but not the kind who holds your hand. Those women in Japanese kimonos—are they portraits of different people or are they different angles and aspects of the same woman? The titles are not much help. They’re little nuggets of misdirection, leading you down several possible paths or into spirals of introspection. Some portraits are named for objects, qualities, or ideas: Swallows, Evening, Plum Petals, Spring Willow. Others are directly descriptive: Gilded Butterflies and Girl with Amaryllis. There are references to mythological beings, including Merlin, Graces, Artemis, and Kitsune, the fantastical shape-shifting, nine-tailed foxes of Japanese legend, who are guardians, protectors, and sometimes lovers of mortal humans. But others are ambiguous. Are April and Aries women’s names or references to seasons and the zodiac? And speaking of odd little mysteries, why is Zodiak spelled like that? What is she up to? Since Hybrids is a series, what is the secret connection that links them? 

I unearthed one possible key to this mystery buried in an interview the artist gave after an exhibit of some of her paintings at Museo Gallery on Whidbey Island. She said: “A series often begins with an individual painting, which suggests variations. Once begun, I work on several paintings at a time. They call back and forth to one another until I abandon them.” 

So, there’s your first clue; the rest is up to you. Go see this wonderful show of Martell’s newest work if you want to hunt down more revelations about the kind of conversations that might be quietly whispered in the background between these magical beings. I promise it will be time well spent.

Kathleen Cain

Kathleen Cain was a journalist and a creative director at the legendary Heckler Associates for many years before starting her own communications consulting firm. Find her writings at www.postalley.org.

Through September 29, Aurora Loop Gallery, located at 971 Aurora Loop in Port Townsend, Washington, displays Maxine Martell: Magical Beings. Hours are Thursday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.auroraloopgallery.com.

Two groundbreaking exhibits at Cascadia Art Museum are A Legacy Rediscovered: Northwest Women Artists, 1920-1970 and Building a Dream: Z. Vanessa Helder and Artists of the Inland Northwest. What a special pairing! 

David Martin, our treasured curator of mid-twentieth century modernism in the Northwest, curated both of these exhibits. The first introduces a group of artists each of whom demonstrate a knowledge of a main direction in twentieth century art: impressionism, realism, surrealism, abstraction. In the second, he assembled a group of Z. Vanessa Helder’s Grand Coulee Dam watercolors, as well as a selection of work by her students.

Several of the women in A Legacy Rediscovered are well-known, although not always for the type of work in the exhibit. Doris Chase became known for her large abstract sculptures, videos, and films, Myra Wiggins for her pictorialist photography, and Yvonne Twinning Humber for her realism and magic realism. Some of these women came from or were able to study on the East Coast, at major art schools, and with prominent teachers. The Women Painters of Washington, formed by Myra Wiggins in 1930, became a focal point for many women in Seattle.

The back stories of these artists can help with understanding how they chose their subjects. Peggy Strong for example, suffered a paralyzing car accident in 1933. This led to her identification with other people who were struggling, particularly African Americans. As with so many of these artists, the government art programs provided opportunities such as mural painting and printmaking that otherwise would not have been available.

In this exhibit, we see several mural studies by Lucia Wiley from a series called Youth Marches On. She worked in true fresco and later won a national award as an outstanding mural painter. As we look at these studies we see a range of approaches and a sophisticated organization of space. Later she converted to be a sister in the Community of the Holy Spirit in New York City and taught in their schools for many years.

Vivian Kidwell Griffin stands out as an early surrealist in the 1930s even as her entire education was in the Northwest. The paintings included by her are unusual and original—she does not follow other familiar surrealist approaches.

Among the abstract artists is Maria Frank whose blue green painting suggests, with its curving pastel greens and blues, quite a different understanding of abstraction than the aggressive forms of the New York based Abstract Expressionists.

Indeed, what emerges from this exhibit is a strong group of women who forged their own careers on their own terms. It is hard to believe they were so successful in the context of the Northwest culture in the mid-twentieth century.

Building a Dream: Z. Vanessa Helder and Artists of the Inland Northwest 

Z. Vanessa Helder studied at the Art Student’s League in New York City on a scholarship in 1934. On returning to Washington state she was hired by the WPA to run the Spokane Arts Center from 1939-41. The center was a hub of creativity featuring theater, writing workshops, and painting until it was closed during World War II.

On her own time, Helder spent two years painting the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam, the only woman permitted on the site. She created sketches during the day and watercolor paintings at night. Her precisionist style of clean-cut buildings and industrial sites juxtapose details of the building of the dam with the specific landscape of Northeastern Washington. The compositions include complex diagonals of the industrial equipment set in the swelling hills of the region. She also painted worker housing, although in a precisionist way—no people, no cars, no stores. The small houses stand in for the life in the village of Grand Coulee. Read B Street by Lawney L. Reyes, University of Washington Press (2008), for the rest of the picture.

Widely praised for the Grand Coulee paintings, they are still her best known work. It was a fortuitous conjunction of her initiative in seeking out this subject, inspired by her precisionist perspective, and her sophisticated approach to both medium and composition.

In a second room of the exhibit are works by her students including the later well-known Alden Mason. Each work tells us that these artists learned from Helder, but went their own way.

Susan Noyes Platt 

Susan Noyes Platt writes for local, national, and international publications and her website is www.artandpoliticsnow.com.

Building a Dream: Z. Vanessa Helder and Artists of the Inland Northwest is on view through September 29 and A Legacy Rediscovered: Northwest Women Artists through January 5 at Cascadia Art Museum, located at 190 Sunset Avenue S., Edmonds, Washington. Hours are Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information www.cascadiaartmuseum.org.

The sculptor Hib Sabin has been showing his art at Stonington Gallery for almost two decades now—a sizable chunk of time, but just a fraction of Sabin’s lengthy artistic career. Defying time itself, Sabin at age 87 is presenting new work that is as strong as ever, on the occasion of his solo show at Stonington Gallery. The exhibit is called The Four Seasons and it is inspired by Vivaldi’s famous violin concerti, “The Four Seasons.”

The Four Seasons consists of four tableaux, each ensemble composed of four wood carved figures respresenting a season. Birds and boats are the repeated elements that unify the four ensembles.

Birds have long featured in Sabin’s imagination. They have an added resonance in the Four Seasons context: Vivaldi famously incorporated birdsong into his composition. In “Spring Equinox Ensemble,” we see one bird taking flight, another bird fixed in a watchful pose, and a bird transmuted into a bowl. And there is a bird represented by a solitary feather–that is, unless the feather refers to something else entirely: the journey of the soul perhaps, or divination, or the ephemeral nature of existence. (These are all concepts that Sabin has explored in earlier works.) Sabin’s imagery resists easy readings, and remains enigmatic; it’s as if the images are lured in from mythic or spiritual realms well beyond the rational, and then captured in juniper wood carvings. The carvings, which are beautifully hand-painted, may be taken as hand-held spiritual implements meant for healing, or tools to re-invoke the dream-world from which they emerged.

While one could ponder the tableaux all day long, the art itself is not ponderous. In fact a whimsical spirit is present, shining through in unexpected color choices, or in the simplified and almost child-like design of the boats. Boats and canoes (like owls and ravens) are recurring images in Sabin’s world; these charming vessels in The Four Seasons, with their determined little oars, may call back the Odyssey, or the Ship of Fools. Or both, or neither.

Sabin’s imagery feels timeless, ancient, tied to myth, and that probably has to do with Sabin’s extensive world travels. He lived and studied with the Hadza people in Tanzania, and with aboriginal Australian communities; he immersed himself in shamanic practices in Mexico. He undertook cultural projects in India, Russia, and Uzbekistan. And somewhere along the line he encountered Pacific Northwest Coast Native mythologies and art-making traditions; they left the deepest mark on his own artistic vision.

Sabin’s days of international travel may be behind him, but The Four Seasons reveals that he still takes internal journeys, and still brings back valuable findings.

Tom McDonald

Tom McDonald is a writer and musician living on Bainbridge Island, Washington.

The Four Seasons is on view Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. through September 28, at the Stonington Gallery, located at 125 S. Jackson Street in Seattle, Washington. For further information, visit www.stoningtongallery.com.

In the midst of mid-century modernism in the United States, the organization Northwest Designer Craftartists (formerly Northwest Designer Craftsmen) was founded by a group of Seattle artisans dedicated to supporting and promoting the rich tradition of craft in the region. Through August 24th, the organization is exhibiting a major show at the Schack Art Center in Everett, Washington. The exhibit includes the work of nearly 100 artists based in the Pacific Northwest,juried by art professionals Carol Sauvionand Sarah Traver. In addition to theshow, the Schack Art Center and NWDCare hosting masterclasses by artistsGeorge Rodriguez and Lisa Telford for both members and the general public.

There has been a kind of divide between “Art” and “Craft” for centuries that was amplified in the mid-twentieth century. When asked about the importance of craft, NWDC Executive Director Daniel Wallace replied, “Viewers appreciate handmade objects that are made directly with one human’s hand. There is also an appreciation for the slowness of the process. Sometimes it takes an artist a year or more to complete a work.” This is true for the works in the exhibition NWCraft24 at the Schack; it is a critical survey of the status of craft in the United States. By featuring both members of the NWDC and guest artists, the organization reinforces its commitment to dialogue about the genre amongst each other and also the public. Artists and the general public can learn much from the experienced artisans in the show. Wallace continued to say that “our membership has a life-time of experience and have been working in their method for 40+ years. The objects speak to that and are connected to the individual maker.” The over 100 objects in the show speak to that level of artistic mastery and lived experience.

Visitors to the show experience work by beloved craftartists of the region, including, but not limited to, DickWeiss, Tip Toland, Crista Van Slyck Matteson, Lanny Bergner, NaokoMorisawa, Patti Warashina, and many more. It is important to point out that art appreciators can see Warashina’s workat both the Schack Art Center andthe Seattle Art Museum this summer, which is delightful! All of the work in the show demonstrates the creator’sexperience in the material. For example,Dorothy McGuinness’ “Variations ona Theme 5” contains watercolor paper,acrylic paint, and waxed linen thread. McGuinness challenges the shapes that exist in traditional basket forms, andexpands on this craft through materials and techniques. The resulting objects areconstructed with hundreds of pieces of paper woven in unexpected ways.

The materials on display in the show are vast, which is fitting for a region with a long history of craft that is inspired by so many sources. Ceramics, glass, jewelry, stoneware, wood, silk, and more can be found in NWCraft24. The dialogue between the traditional and contemporary methods are witnessed in many works, but perhaps best illustrated in Ellen Ramsey’s tapestry. Ramsey’s “Portal to the Metaverse” measures 77 x 68 inches and connects the artist’s experience with the loom and an interest in bridging those techniques with themes of consumption and technology. Whether the artists are using solely their hands or bringing in an outside, technological instrument (such as Ramsey’s use of generative software) the time and technical commitment is evident. 

The NWDC was founded in 1954 and was solely managed by dedicated volunteers until 2022 when the organization hired Daniel Wallace as the first Executive Director. Under Wallace’s leadership, the organization continues to acknowledge their commitment to supporting members and educating the broader community about the importance of craft in their region. According to Wallace, “It is important that people know the history of this organization that has been a hidden gem while also having an enormous impact on the region.” The exhibition and accompanying programs provide a thorough education in the field of craft, and by visiting the show viewers are supporting an organization and dozens of artists who are truly committed to perfecting and evolving their craft. Art and craft alike continue to evolve; by recognizing a technique’s past these artisans are able to bring their work into the present in new and surprising ways.

Chloé Dye Sherpe

Chloé Dye Sherpe is an art professional and curator based in Washington State.

“NWCraft24” is on display through August 24 at Schack Art Center, located at2921 Hoyt Avenue in Everett, Washington.Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Be sure to check the Schack Art Center website, www.schack.org, for more information about programming surrounding the exhibit.

Approaching Mary Ann Peters’ provocative exhibit, the edge becomes the center, we first encounter “the impossible monument (gilded)” filling an entire wall. Screening set in a large gold frame obscures the interior, we only have a partial view of details as we move in front of the work. What we can decipher are keys, keyhole plates, and ribbons along with laminated survival blankets. Peters refers to the act of “glazing over groups who are domestically unmoored, covering their full stories with a patina of incomplete explanations, particularly in conflict zones. The telling of the experience is gilded, defusing responsibility.” She invokes home with her choice of material. As we gaze at the keys we think particularly of the Palestinians holding the keys to their homes after 75 years. But the key as an icon of a lost home can also be a universal symbol. 

Near the large “monument” hangs an empty oval frame invoking a lost ancestor. The absences in Peters’ work are as crucial as what we see, our inclination is to fill in the gaps with our own personal experiences. Her work reaches us by what we cannot see as much as the physical materials that we do see. 

The ten large abstract paintings collectively titled “this trembling turf” again suggest missing and hidden histories. As we look closely at these paintings, we dive into a mysterious world of suggested images that pulse and disappear. It feels like we are being tossed in a turbulent sea or churning earth.

They were inspired by Peters’ visit to the Arab Image Foundation in Beirut which houses 600,000 photographs, all archival images created since the turn of the twentieth century. The artist accidentally found photographs of unidentified mass graves lying underneath an upscale golf course.  As seen in the “impossible monument” work here and other earlier examples, the artist has long been interested in creating monuments to forgotten histories.

Each “trembling turf” has thousands of small and even tiny strokes, created with a white pigment pen on a black surface. Each painting has a distinct stroke, that builds into swelling shapes. The artist said that the titles of the work emerged from creating it, as for example, “the waters” or “the surge.”

Mary Ann Peters is a second-generation Lebanese American, who has focused for almost forty years on histories that are not told, of marginalized events, people, and places. Her work is particularly timely at this historical moment, as marginalized histories are being exposed in the Middle East and Ukraine, and decolonization of history is ever more prominent.

But these drawings are inspired by new archeological forensic techniques which give far more detail than the early photographs. On the other hand, the interpretation of these mass graves is also disputed, although prominent historians have confirmed them. We are not given information on a particular historical moment that led to this mass grave (there are certainly a lot of possibilities in Lebanon). The point for the artist is that this could be anywhere, really (think of the recently-discovered graves at Indian Boarding Schools using the same forensic technique). Her purpose is not to be specific, but to suggest that the acts of obliteration are worldwide. 

We can examine each of these works for a long time. The earliest, from 2016, with no subtitle, suggests the pulse of a heart monitor, with its thrusting verticals at its center. The waters give us no rest, as we feel deep beneath the heaving sea, moving in all directions, its swirls seeming to coalesce into an image, but then slip away. The work is suffocating, it suggests the sense of inescapable movement, the feeling of no base to stand on, much like people who migrate across water, many of whom drown. The surge is equally turbulent but provides an escape in a black sky above. Several others have a focal point that emerged as the artist works, as in “the oasis,” “the burst,” and particularly “the hollow” with its large black center.

The artist has not shown this entire series together before, many of them are owned by collectors or organizations like the Seattle Convention Center. The ten works interact and immerse us in a world of unknown parameters, which is exactly what people experience as they lose their homes, migrate, or whose stories are forgotten by history. 

Be sure to allow time to plunge into these swirling churning paintings.

Susan Noyes Platt 

Susan Noyes Platt writes for local, national, and international publications and her website is www.artandpoliticsnow.com.

“the edge becomes the center” is on view through January 5, 2025, at the Frye Art Museum, located at 704 Terry Avenue in Seattle, Washington. Hours are Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For further information, visit www.fryemuseum.org.

Any showing of new work by printmaker Wendy Orville is a special event for her many collectors and followers. But this summer’s show seems especially auspicious: after years with the Davidson Galleries, Orville has joined the fine roster of artists at the Harris/Harvey Gallery. Her first solo exhibit at this new space is a showing of recent monotypes that explore a new thematic direction in her work, as alluded to in the show title, Seeing Trees.

It’s true that we’ve been seeing trees in Orville’s prints throughout her career–some of her most emblematic images feature a tree or two. But note the plural form in the show title: It reflects the artist’s shift from observing a tree in isolation to considering forests and other large gatherings of trees. 

She is drawn to windswept coastal conifers like those at Point Wilson in Port Townsend, and riparian woodlands like those at the Nisqually Wildlife Refuge.  But she also finds inspiration in a docile suburban park, past the swing sets and pickleballers. Wherever there’s a grove or stand or forest of trees, she’s there to explore its potential for image making.

People tend to mistake Orville’s monotypes for black-and-white photography; closer inspection shows how painterly they are, how unfussy and free. The artist earned a Masters of Fine Art in painting, then dallied with printmaking some time later, and was soon wholly absorbed by the process. Her lack of formal training in the art form helps to account for the originality of her monotypes. 

Orville sketches with dark charcoal to work out her compositions. The real magic occurs in the translation to ink. It’s here that those “photographic” details emerge, often by removing ink from the printing plate with rags, squeegees, and Q-tips. These marks convince you that sunlight is spilling on underbrush, or glinting off ripples on a peaceful bay. Her graceful tonal blends capture subtle changes in shade or vegetation, and convey distance and atmospheric phenomena. In twilight works like “Winter Forest No. 2” you can see and almost feel the mist rolling in through the thicket. 

Ambiguity and mystery, spontaneity and surprise are always in play. In “Port Gamble Grove” and “Forest Edge, Port Gamble,” she lifts ink from the mass of black woods in a series of quick vertical strokes—tree trunks in the forest. The more forceful strokes read as trees on the sunlit perimeter, while more tenuous strokes define trees in the shadowy interior. This addition (achieved by subtraction) gives realistic spatial depth to the woods, and it enriches the emotional landscape—the dark forest as a primal motif, a place of fear, a place to be drawn to. 

In terms of visual energy and rhythm, these same quick strokes in the woods establish a strong pulse moving horizontally across the plane. Maybe it’s this motion that gives those high-altitude clouds their sense of expansive silent stillness. In “Port Gamble Grove” the strokes march gently downwards to suggest the underlying landform. You may not notice at first that one stroke is diagonal, to render a tree at a tilt, as if weakened by a wind gust. This touch adds subtle drama to the scene without calling attention to itself. Nothing ever seems too showy or forced in Orville’s work; secretive details patiently await their discovery.

Certain prints in Seeing Trees seem to bend the norms established in Orville’s earlier work. “Battle Point, Flooded” is twice as wide as it is tall, a departure from the squarer format the artist prefers. But that wide horizon supports the disorienting scene—a flat parkland overtaken by floodwaters. Water standing everywhere mirrors the bright sky so that we are flooded with light as well as with water. Basic distinctions are dissolved—where has the ground gone? Where does the water end and sky begin? The park itself seems astonished at its predicament. But if the flood is the antagonist here, we have a protagonist in the row of old maples. Planted on a berm that lifts them just above the waterline, the trees stand tall over standing water, images of stability in one respect and of fragility in another.

One more piece in Seeing Trees stands slightly apart from previous work, “Grand Forest.” Here the viewer does not look out toward the scene, but looks up from the forest floor into the surrounding crowns of trees that tower overhead. Trunks and branches huddle in from all four sides of the frame, nearly blocking out sky—an unexpected move for Orville, who exults in space and light. The sense of enclosure and restless energy strays from her customary voice. Some will see and feel something joyous here, I’m sure—Orville allows that her prints are often seen as “cheerfully moody.” But I’m left unsettled by “Grand Forest.” I feel that I am no longer gazing at the forest, but that I am occupying it, and the forest is looking at me. (OK, trees seeing? Maybe I need to get out more.)

Orville seems vexed that it took so many years of living in the Pacific Northwest to see that the woods are a compelling subject. (She was busy with other fascinations—skies and cloudscapes, coastal wetlands, animals.) The wait was worth it. Her best monotypes feel strangely like one’s own personal memories. The thought is never “I want to go to there,” but more like “Yes, I’ve been there, wherever it is. I was there and it was sweet like that, and I felt very alive in that place.”

Tom McDonald

Tom McDonald is a writer and musician living on Bainbridge Island, Washington.

“Seeing Trees” is on view from August 1 through August 31 at Harris/Harvey Gallery, located at 1915 First Avenue in Seattle, Washington.  Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, please visit www.harrisharveygallery.com.

Art Blooms in Skagit Valley

i.e and Smith & Vallee Gallery • Edison, Washington

While crowds flock to the Skagit Valley throughout April to witness the beautiful tulip blooms, May is quickly proving to be another excellent time to visit the area. Edison continues to be a favorite for both locals and visitors with its excellent food and drink options, home goods shopping (including a newish bookstore), and beloved art galleries. The two staple art venues continue to be Smith & Vallee Gallery and i.e. Both galleries exhibit primarily the work of local artists but the artistic styles of their gallery directors can range greatly from traditional landscape painting to sculptural assemblages to ceramics. In short, a visit to the small town of Edison can quickly fill the day of both foodies and art lovers alike.

i.e. gallery typically exhibits one-person shows that can include both 2D and 3D artworks in their one-room space in the historic Edison Eye Building. However, May is a departure from their usual program. The gallery exhibits photographs by David Hall, an artist that the gallery represents, in addition to artwork on loan from Stonington Gallery in Seattle by Indigenous artists based in the Pacific Northwest. The show is titled “Reflections on Northwest Coast Formline” and it includes Hall’s series titled “Shoreline Reflections” and the work of numerous Indigenous artists including Susan Point, Preston Singletary, Kevin Paul, Rande Cook, and many more. The impetus of the exhibition began when Hall was photographing the water along the shore of Ross Lake, and he began to notice a similarity between the curves of the water and the shapes included in the iconic formline imagery. The comparison between the artworks provokes discussion about the origin of this imagery and its continued utilization in the present day.

It is important to note the significant work that is included in the exhibition, especially Tom Hunt’s “Kwaguʼł Thunderbird” from 1999. There are several artists based on Vancouver Island in the exhibit, and Hunt’s work is a key example of the master carver’s skill and artistic perspective. Another artist to note is Kevin Paul, also a master carver whose recently completed totem can be seen outside of the new La Conner Swinomish Library. Bringing all of these artists and their work together in conversation with David Hall’s photographs is quite the achievement, and visitors benefit greatly by learning more about formline along with the opportunity to experience many excellent examples in person. If you do visit i.e., please note that the beloved Tweets Café is right next door. But be sure to bring cash so that you can purchase one of their delectable baked goods.

A short way down the road from i.e. is Smith & Vallee Gallery. The gallery director and curators often exhibit the work of two artists during their month-long shows in the historic school house, and May is no different. Local painter Lisa McShane continues to transfix viewers with her sweeping vistas of the surrounding landscape, as the reader can see in her painting titled, “Blanchard Mountain at Dusk.” McShane shows with ceramicist Brian O’Neill who meticulously forms his vessels and pays extra attention to their surfaces. The gallery is comprised of one large room with a smaller gallery space in the back of the building. This space provides the gallery the opportunity to work with artists not on their roster, and in May they feature work by Perri Lynch Howard. Howard reflects on the landscape and includes a series of lines that emanate from various points in the picture plane. The artist refers to these as “frequencies” and writes in their artist statement that the sounds of a place transferred into a visual manifestation bring the viewer closer to their natural environment.

In summary, May brings artists from across the Pacific Northwest to the small, yet vibrant, town of Edison in the Skagit Valley. The themes range greatly and provide a rich, substantial viewing and learning experience for even the most frequent gallery visitor. If you do decide to visit and want to see even more artwork, continue to La Conner to see the Museum of Northwest Art’s exhibits, peruse the art galleries on South First Street in downtown Mount Vernon, or head to Camano Island for its 25th Annual Camano Island Studio Tour from May 10-12 and 18-19.

Chloé Dye Sherpe

Chloé Dye Sherpe is an art professional and curator based in Washington State.

“Reflections on Northwest Coast Formline” is on view Friday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., May 3 through June 3, at i.e., located at 5800 Cains Court in Edison, Washington. Visit www.ieedison.com for more information.

Until May 26, Thursday through Monday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., view exhibitions by Lisa McShane, Brian O’Neill, and Perri Lynch Howard at Smith & Vallee Gallery, located at 5742 Gilkey Avenue in Edison, Washington. For further information, visit www.SmithandValleeGallery.com.