Articles

   In memory of Clemens Starck, 1937-2024

Who can say the old way’s dead and gone,
these days when who says anything for sure?
Feet dangling out the boxcar’s toothless maw
here sit a couple throwbacks drinking in the view,
snaking through the Siskiyous this balmy afternoon.
 
Both have beards, and both have scraggly hair.
In the air there is a touch of spring. One with
his Red Sox ballcap screwed down tight could be
the ghost of Clem Starck on a ramble,
heading east and south, a free ride caught
to look for work, really a footloose excuse,
a lark and nothing more. But here they sit,
their boots laced up, their knapsacks full of apples,
socks, potatoes, and a couple cans of beans.
One tells the other Siskiyou is Chinook slang
for a bob-tailed horse. We know who that must be.
On this four percent grade the engine labors,
and along for the ride climbing slow they take
a while to pass. As they are turned about to go
into the dark again they think to wave at us.


Paul Hunter

Paul Hunter is a Seattle poet who has won the Washington State Book Award for his farming poems, and is currently working on a series of contemporary cowboy novels that wrestle with how we might savor nature more fully and accommodate ourselves to climate change. The first cowhand book won a Will Rogers Medallion. His last book was Untaming the Valley, and the next to appear soon in 2025 is Desert Crossing.  

What goes up does not always come down. Especially if it’s Ginny Ruffner. If you think that maxim sounds slightly off, like it’s been reversed, reimagined, and turned upside down, you would be correct. But that’s what Ginny Ruffner did to whatever so-called obstacles she encountered. She was naturally buoyant. She modified, reimagined, and transformed everything to suit her purpose.  Like death, for instance.

The first time death came for her, in the form of an oncoming car, she turned it upside down, shook it until its pockets rained stars, and walked—admittedly, with a cane and a limp — away from a two-month coma, alive and well, and better than ever. That was in December of 1991. Against all odds, she stayed alive and thrived for another incredibly productive 34 years until she passed away a few weeks ago, quietly, quickly, gracefully, and on her own terms, in the home and studio that was one of her most astonishing works of art.

You would struggle to find evidence of that epic struggle with death in her work. It might be lurking in the twisted and tortured metal forms of her large glass and stainless-steel sculptures that are both beautiful and menacing. But her optimism is always there too, although it’s not the least bit sentimental or cloying. Optimism was simply her assumption about the nature of the world as she saw it. She insisted that beauty was always there, waiting for those who had the wit and courage to lure it out and wrestle with it. And of course she’s right about that. What kind of fool would question the assumptions of someone who has bested death?

Plenty of things made her angry — complacency, mediocrity, banality — but nothing seemed to frighten Ginny. She worried about mundane things like getting to the airport on time, but never about the big terrifying things like what her next act would be. She had second, third, fourth, and many more acts, constantly surprising everyone by taking up a new medium once she had conquered the previous one, moving from painting to glass, mixed-media sculpture, collage, pixels, and augmented reality. As far as anyone who knew her knew, she worked most of the day, every day, never stopping, and always thinking about her next move.

She once told me she didn’t understand writer’s block. How could you not know what to do next, she wondered. How could your art paralyze you? A couple of months later, when she was hopelessly stuck in the middle of an essay she  was writing for a catalogue of one of her shows, she called me and said, “Okay, I get it.”

I laughed, delighted and vindicated. The mighty Ginny had struck out. My malicious glee was short-lived. She called again the next day and said, “I’ve figured it out. I’m going to write a crappy first draft and you’re going to edit it.”

“Okay, Gin. You win again.”

Ginny was interested in a wide swath of subjects that included mathematics, philosophy, botany, genetics, normal science, weird science, space exploration, and world-building. She worked with an impressive array of eminent thinkers and inventors who became friends and enthusiastic collaborators in her quest to unleash beauty on an unsuspecting world. Her work was and is important. Although she’s gone, it is still here in museums, public spaces, and prestigious private collections. But she left behind many friends, followers, and fans here in Seattle, and all over the world, who have been gathering informally for the past weeks to remember and celebrate her as a person as well as a public figure. Her passing left a deep hole in the lives of everyone who was close to her and anyone who loved her art.

So, the story of death and Ginny Ruffner has ended in a tie. She would have laughed at that idea. She laughed at everything. She found it especially funny whenever anyone described her as a glass artist, because it made her sound like she was made of glass. But Ginny wasn’t made of glass. She was made of steel.

To find out more about Ginny, her work and her life, watch the excellent feature-length documentary about her, A Not So Still Life. It was directed by filmmaker Karen Stanton and produced by David Skinner and his company, ShadowCatcher Entertainment, who have generously made the film available for streaming online at https://player.vimeo.com/video/1002140337?h=0d9b3177db. For a comprehensive look at her work, visit www.ginnyruffner.com which was created in collaboration with her friend and colleague, Michael Hilliard.

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.

A small immersive exhibit of Alfredo Arreguín at Whatcom Museum offers us a chance to meditatively enter into his luscious canvases. “The Exquisite Veil” refers to Alfredo Arreguín’s repeated use of masks from Pre-Columbian culture and folk art. The masks can appear in the foreground, or as a frieze filling the background.

In many paintings he inserts animals and birds in the jungle, as well as the faces of familiar icons.

An early work, Mexicans in Exile, sets the theme of entering his paintings: here the jungle becomes a proscenium curtain that opens to a view of lake and mountains. 

Arreguín alternates between flat surfaces and opening up the center as in—most dramatically—The House of Peace. A tiger lies on a patterned floor looking straight at us. He is not exactly inviting us to move past him, but we move our view beyond his space anyway, beyond a simple fence to the background of land, sea, and birds.

Many of these works, even as they include depth, as in Rialto, can also be read as a series of horizontal planes. This beach is familiar as the public beach on the Olympic Peninsula. In the painting, the lovely succession of land, sea mist, and starry sky with birds flying across gives a feeling of joyful freedom.

Similar in composition is Kodiak II, referencing Alaska, except that here we have a large bull moose in the foreground, and formline design on the glaciers in the background as a tribute to Native artists.

Six of the paintings in the exhibit are the gift of Arreguín’s estate, including the three described earlier. Another is Los Monos de Peru, a depiction of five monkeys hanging from trees in different positions, with some sky behind them. La Familia, is a stupendous all-over painting of masks that align up and down and which also create a continuous pattern.

Twilight, a stunning work of salmon leaping through Hokusai-like waves with a huge moon above, creates a rhythmic panorama. This piece epitomizes the second major theme of Arreguín’s work, a celebration of the Northwest cultures of salmon and orca, sea, beach, and sky.

The additional works include Zapata, a portrait of the Mexican revolutionary hero embedded almost entirely in an abstract red pattern. But most intriguing for studying the various ways that Arreguín works are the three portraits of Frida Kahlo. El Collar has a simple repeated pattern, so that her profile is clearly seen. She appears to have a snake around her shoulders for a necklace.

In La Feria, Kahlo’s face emerges from blues leaves that seem to be holding her; beneath, unusually, Arreguín breaks his pattern to include several faces of skeletons, as well as what appear to be ordinary people attending the fair. 

Untitled (Frida with a blue butterfly mask), almost entirely hides the subject’s face behind a blue butterfly mask. The jungle filled with birds, flowers, and insects surrounds her and almost envelopes her.

Many are familiar with Arreguín’s dramatic life story: as an illegitimate child, he was passed from one relative to another, but eventually ended up at art school in Mexico City. He then had an accidental meeting that changed his life, an encounter with an American family lost near the Chapultepec Castle. They subsequently invited him to join them in Seattle. After being drafted into the army during the Korean War, he visited Japan, which later became an important reference point for his art. While studying at the University of Washington in the 1960s, Arreguín explored European modernism in addition to following his own interest in Mexico. La Serape indicates that intersection with its strong geometric x-shape indicating an abstracted serape all embedded in an all-over pattern.

Whatcom Museum is a perfect place for Arreguín’s art, given the museum’s strong commitment to Northwest culture. There are permanent exhibits featuring artifacts and detailed explanations of Northwest Native American fishing, weaving, and other practices. The museum also feature exhibits about the local shipbuilding industry.

Bellingham is a delightful city to visit. The Whatcom Museum is in the magnificent early-twentieth-century city hall building close to the waterfront. It includes two other buildings nearby. Hopefully you can get there before Arreguín’s show closes on July 6. 

Susan Noyes Platt 

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

“The Exquisite Veil” is on view through July 6 at Whatcom Museum’s Old City Hall Building, located at 121 Prospect Street, in Bellingham, Washington. Museum hours are Wednesday through Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m. For further information, visit www.whatcommuseum.org.

In March, Smith & Vallee Gallery in Edison, Washington exhibits the work of three artists: Nicki Lang, Brian O’Neill, and Tia Matthies. The gallery often pairs artists together in their large gallery, and this month-long exhibit displays Lang and O’Neill’s work side by side. Matthies’ encaustics are installed in The Flex Gallery, a smaller, more intimate room in the back of the gallery. The styles are as varied as the materials used by each artist, but all draw attention to the surface of the object or picture plane in their work. Smith & Vallee Gallery focuses primarily on artists based in the Northwest with a connection to the landscape and natural environment, and this thesis holds true this March.

Nicki Lang paints her landscapes primarily with a palette knife, and this body of work captures images ranging from the Oregon coast to British Columbia mountains. Lang states that she paints what she sees; these aren’t imagined landscapes but are scenes depicting real places. The paintings feel immediate, almost as if they were intuitive reactions to the artist experiencing these places in real time. Because she paints with a palette knife, the paint accumulates with every movement and creates an enticing texture, almost mimicking a frosted cake of landscapes. In Bull Kelp, the paint deposits from the palette knife start to mold a surface that comes out of the picture plane toward the viewer as if the kelp itself was emerging. The nuances of color are reminiscent of the changing tones of the Puget Sound as water moves and overlaps with marine vegetation. This movement creates a dynamic image as the colors and textures swirl around the landscape, created by layers of paint and color to build both depth and tactile texture.

It seems very fitting that Lang’s dimensional and layered paintings are paired with Brian O’Neill’s ceramics, which are described by the gallery as “monumental at any scale and ancient, as if unearthed from the sea.” The forms of O’Neill’s work are so appealing and balanced, yet they also feel very organic and fluid. The patterns swirl along the surface to create more dynamic movement and recall certain elements of mid-century design. O’Neill is part of a long history of ceramicists in the Northwest, each with their own way of bringing art, design, and the natural world together in their work. One favorite in this body of work is Black/White Crater Egg Sphere. The object is small, measuring 8 x 4.5 x 4.5 inches, and appears as if the bottom half was charred by fire. These objects tell a story in their own way through the narrative interpretations of the marks on the surface.

The Flex Gallery at Smith & Vallee is a small space that allows the gallery some flexibility in their programming. Sometimes the room has a rotating selection of artwork in the gallery’s inventory, and during other months an artist is selected to display their work. In March, the space features the work of Seattle-based artist Tia Matthies. The show focuses on Matthies’ reflections on the Pacific Madrone trees on Orcas Island, and that artist writes in her statement that the trees “have a flesh-like quality that sends my imagination to a place where I start to see them as beings that express in shape and form and also have a particular way of relating to each other in their tree world.” The artist creates these images using encaustic on panel, and the luminous quality of the material combined with the intertwined branches of the Pacific Madrone trees create an image that glows and moves from within.

All three artists featured in the current shows at Smith & Vallee Gallery take direct inspiration from the natural world. Lang’s visual interpretation is direct, while O’Neill and Matthies use their chosen material to bring an element of conceptual interpretation to their subjects. Lang and O’Neill consider the texture and artist’s physical intervention in the work. In contrast, Matthies attributes human emotion and relationships to her Pacific Madrone trees in such a way as to personify them for the viewer. All three seek to make a stronger connection between the viewer, the artwork, and the environment that surrounds and inspires them.

Chloé Dye Sherpe

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

Artworks by Nicki Lang, Brian O’Neill, and Tia Matthies are on view through March 30 at Smith & Vallee Gallery, located at 5742 Gilkey Avenue in Edison, Washington. Gallery hours are Thursday through Sunday from 11 a.m, to 5 p.m. and by appointment. On Saturday, March 1, 3 to 5 p.m. hosts a reception for the artists. For more information, visit www.smithandvalleegallery.com.

Thirsty

Their first real fight caught Charlie

at a low spot tractor broken down

just with the wheat coming on

golden heads nodding in the sun

no room time money for anything

but this toothless gear to mend

when Evaleen had most need of him

with her firstborn just starting to show

he loaded up sold half the pigs

they were fattening for the fall

counting on said not one word

until there was the check in his hand

to squander on tractor parts

the deed done an announcement

she met with an absolute silence

which meant he slept in the hayloft

took a couple days quiet thinking how

to lift the whole thing on his shoulders

carry on like he knew best

somehow with or without her

ignore her while she simmered down

forgetting how good she could be

figuring things close which only meant

his first mistake he compounded

so there they were both broken down

stuck in the road where life went

silent in slow motion on around them

untouched untasted all but meaningless

each put-upon staggered like a young

mule overburdened scared to take a step

then he recalled how folks used to say

looks like you threw both your

bucket and rope down the well

better hope you don’t never get thirsty

which to look at her he surely did

so drug out his heart’s longest ladder

in the cobwebby dark after supper

got set to climb down that hole

sundown on the porch apologize

down on his knees like he meant it

purely ask her forgiveness and vow

from now on to forever ask her first

Paul Hunter

Paul Hunter is a Seattle poet who has won the Washington State Book Award for his farming poems, and is currently working on a series of contemporary cowboy novels that wrestle with how we might savor nature more fully and accommodate ourselves to climate change. The first cowhand book won a Will Rogers Medallion. His last book was  Untaming the Valley, and the next to appear soon in 2025 is Desert Crossing. “Thirsty” is from a book of comic poems about a farming couple, Charlie and Evaleen, that is titled Starry Dark Farm Romance.

Last summer was a dark one for the Puget Sound ceramics community; it lost two important figures within a day of each other. Revered local potter and ceramics teacher Reid Ozaki died suddenly on July 25. One of Ozaki’s last public statements was to mourn the passing, the day before, of sculptor and ceramicist Ken Lundemo. Neither man played the part of the introverted-and-isolated-artist stereotype. Both men helped cultivate the creative community around them, passed along their knowledge of ancient traditions and techniques, and brought together local artists young and old to strengthen the craft. These are rare and much-needed capacities, and their losses are keenly felt.

Lundemo was born and raised in the southern Puget Sound area. After serving in the U.S. Navy, he enrolled in the Arts program at Olympic College in Bremerton, Washington, circa 1950. The program had just one art instructor at the time, and he did not teach sculpture. Lundemo made sculpture his focus anyway. Two years later, armed with his Associate of Arts degree, Lundemo became a lineman for Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone. Although art-making was a side gig, the artist scored some notable early successes: in 1975, the Washington State Art Collection made its first acquisition, Lundemo’s 19-foot tall longboat sculpture “Langskip Norseland Spirit.” It still stands proudly today in Poulsbo, Washington. Lundemo continued to expand his toolkit and skillset—he taught himself welding and metal casting, he sculpted stone, bronze, wood, and clay. He worked in miniature and monumental scale using a boom truck to install his more colossal work.

Lundemo hung up his lineman’s hardhat in 1984 to focus on art full-time. On his 20-acre property in Seabeck near the Hood Canal, he and two potter friends constructed Santatsugama, a 17-foot-long anagama, or Japanese-style wood-fired kiln. The three-chambered “Dragon kiln” became a gathering place and informal learning center for ceramic artists near and far. Lundemo hosted nearly a hundred firings. A firing involves five days of around-the-clock burning and stoking of the fire by a crew of 10-12 people. Working in shifts, they maintain a temperature of approximately 2300 °F in the bellies of the Dragon. A communal spirit is inherent in the ancient tradition.

Lundemo’s spirit and teachings live on in the work of the artists who fired at Santatsugama, such as Eva Funderburgh (former kiln manager), and Kitsap artists Jenny Anderson and Elena Wendelyn. His presence also continues to be felt at Collective Visions Gallery in Bremerton, Washington, which Lundemo co-founded in 1994—a place where his work is shown and celebrated.

Reid Ozaki, for his part, was raised in Hilo, Hawaii, but came to the University of Puget Sound to study biology. And though he did earn a Biology degree, an elective course in ceramics changed everything. He took courses toward an MFA degree at University of Puget Sound, and then joined the faculty at Tacoma Community College. Ozaki taught ceramics for the next 25 years. Being an educator didn’t seem to detract from his art making. He loved to show his innovative work and to tell about it: check out the YouTube video of Ozaki’s gallery talk at Bainbridge Arts and Crafts in 2021. What shines through is his boundless fascination with the practice of pottery-making (mistakes and mishaps included) from shaping to glazing to firing. 

Raised to respect his Japanese heritage, Ozaki let Ikebana (flower-arranging) and Chado (tea ceremony) and other Japanese aesthetic traditions influence his work at the potter’s wheel. One reason his pieces are in prominent collections (including the Smithsonian Museum) is that they embody Japanese, Hawaiian, and Pacific Northwest influences. A shallow bowl, an empty tea cup, can hold multiple worlds.

Ozaki may have retired from the teaching profession, but he remained a teacher until his death. In his own words: “Several years ago, I came across the Japanese word shokunin. It’s generally translated as ‘craftsman’ and is a title earned after years of practice and accomplishment; however, craftsman doesn’t quite capture the full meaning… It implies a responsibility to present one’s best work in a spirit of social consciousness, to honor the traditions of the craft, and to pass that knowledge on.”

Ozaki was all too aware of discouraging trends in the arts scene: the closure of galleries, museums, and craft centers that once featured serious ceramics work; the defunding of arts programs at all education levels; the list goes on. Ozaki and his colleague Kristina Batiste established the Tacoma Pottery Salon to counter these trends. They drew together potters young and old to share, to learn, to laugh, to teach, to support, and of course to eat. Batiste, an influential ceramic artist in Tacoma, stepped up to host the monthly gatherings at her home. The salon was casual, organic, free. Ozaki came up with an activity he called “Potle” (think “Wordle”), a way to get the community to recognize itself and the notable pottery work going on locally. Tacoma Pottery Salon has grown to become an important hub—much like Ken Lundemo’s Santatsugama. And yes, the salon continues, even without its dearly departed shokunin, Reid Ozaki.

Tom McDonald

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

For information about the Tacoma Pottery Salon, visit www.tacomapotterysalon.org.

Nestled in downtown Bellingham, Rebecca Meloy’s Meloy Gallery occupies a small space off Bay Street and E. Holly Street. Meloy describes her gallery as a “closet gallery” due to the fact that it is a small space packed full of art. She opened the gallery in 2022 and also managed Meloy & Company LLC from 1997 to 2004, where she focused on exhibiting work by local artists. Meloy Gallery is no different. In an interview with the gallerist, she noted that she often invites her friends to exhibit their work in her gallery. Meloy is also an art educator and artist, so her roster of artist friends is extensive. For January, she invited her good friend Joe Reno to exhibit his work alongside other artwork in his personal collection. In addition to Reno’s work, pieces by Jay Steensma, Patrick Burke, and Elizabeth Aurich are for sale at the gallery. In February, the gallery is welcoming Richard Longstreet, a local painter and printmaker, to exhibit his work. Since Meloy is friends with many of these artists, the exhibitions have a personal connection with the gallery and offer a more intimate view of an artist’s work. She also has posted many insightful photographs of artists working on her website and in the gallery. This insider perspective is a peek inside the mind of an artist and gives us an idea of the work required to create the objects on display.

The January exhibit, organized by Reno and Meloy,  titled “Chronology of Abstract to Realism” includes paintings, drawings, and prints by the artists listed above. Those who are knowledgeable about art in the Northwest will recognize Jay Steensma’s work. Steensma was a key member of the broader “Northwest School” in Western Washington, like Joe Reno. The other artists in the exhibition, Patrick Burke and Elizabeth Aurich, are close friends of Joe Reno and have a long exhibition history in Washington State. The work included in the show is expressive, both through color and the evidence of the artist’s hand, and incredibly figurative. Reno included many portraits and paintings that reference his societal observations. In “The View of a Scientist,” insects buzz around the paintings with a fervor as they are surrounded by layers of colorful swirls. The painting is filled with Reno’s energy and his unique sense of color. In his “Self Portrait” from 1991, the artist utilizes color contrasts to create depth and perspective for the viewer. The artist’s face is filled out through blocks of varying colors; periwinkle blue, orange, yellow, and pink shape the contours of his face while brushes of blues and greens make up his sweater.

In February, visitors to Meloy Gallery have the opportunity to see work by Richard Longstreet, who seeks to tap into the various aspects of consciousness and unconsciousness through his artistic process. The work appears intuitive; geometric shapes and colors are layered onto one another to create a complex web of imagery. The content is largely determined by the viewer. Much like the Surrealists and Impressionists before him, Longstreet seems to be equally, if not more, interested in the process in which an artwork is created as by the final product. Making art is a process of discovery for him and seeking out the origins of emotion and thought through mark making is of key importance. Longstreet’s woodblock prints are exceptionally beautiful, and the use of layered colors and patterns is very impressive. The resulting image has an atmospheric quality that can be challenging to attain in a woodblock print. Many of the prints on Meloy Gallery’s website are around 18 x 14 inches and quite affordable.

Artists are often in attendance at their openings at Meloy Gallery during the beloved First Friday events from 6 to 9 p.m. The gallery has a robust exhibition schedule in 2025 and Meloy plans to present a new exhibition every 4 weeks. January and February are traditionally slow months for all retail businesses, and this is true for art galleries as well. So if you have plans to visit Bellingham, a trip to Meloy Gallery can easily be combined with visits to Fourth Corner Frames & Gallery in the same building, Geheim Gallery across Bay Street, and Allied Arts of Whatcom County on Cornwall Avenue. Whatcom Museum, where guests can find art and history exhibits, is also located in downtown Bellingham. Many upcoming exhibits are already listed on the gallery websites, so please look if you are planning a visit to downtown Bellingham in the near future.

Chloé Dye Sherpe

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

Chronology of Abstract to Realism: Joe Reno Collection is on view through January and Dream States: Richard Longstreet through February at Meloy Gallery, located at 301 West Holly in Bellingham, Washington. Hours are Thursday through Sunday from 12 to 6 p.m. First Friday Art Walks are from 6 to 9 p.m. For more information, visit www.meloygallery.com.

in a previous incarnation

we were an all-girl group

the styrofoam cupcakes

a one hit wonder

with the song, “love on saturn”

after that, the group just broke up

too many egos

and no more money

now we sit

soaking up rays

in the window of wig-o-rama

letting the day’s music

stream through our heads

Alan Chong Lau

Alan Chong Lau is a poet and visual artist based in Seattle, Washington. He serves as Arts Editor for the International Examiner, a community newspaper. As a visual artist, he is represented by ArtX Contemporary in Seattle, Washington. His upcoming art show opens October 2025.

John Levy is a poet and photographer. In 2023, Shearsman Books published 54 poems: new & selected, which includes works from 1972 to 2022. He lives in Tucson, Arizona.

Alan Chong Lau and John Levy have published three volumes of a poetry and photography collaboration that can be found by searching online for “eye2word.”