Kimberly Trowbridge, Backyard Peony, 2021, Oil on Paper on Panel, 20 x 16 x 2 in

Kimberly Trowbridge is a painter, an installation artist, a performer, and a lecturer on color theory. She received her MFA from the University of Washington (2006). Her first solo museum show at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (2021) was developed during her time as Creative Fellow at Bloedel Reserve (2018-2020), a 150-acre garden amid an old growth forest.

Trowbridge recently completed a Facebook Open Arts commission (2021), and was Artist in Residence at Jentel Artist Residency, in Wyoming. She is a two-time Neddy Award Finalist (2014, 2016), and an Artist Trust GAP Grant recipient (2014). She is the Director of the Modern Color Atelier, a multi-year painting program at Gage Academy of Art, Seattle. She has led plein-air painting tours in Spain, Portugal, and Twisp, WA.

Maggy Rozycki Hiltner, Treehouses 2, 2019, hand-stitched and found embroidery, linen, 25 x 16 x 1 in

Maggy Rozycki Hiltner is a full-time studio artist and living in Red Lodge, Montana. For over 30 years now, she has been collaging found embroidery and quilts with her hand-stitched imagery, giving these abandoned textiles new meaning and relevance. Her work has been published and exhibited in museums and galleries nationally and internationally, and she was a recipient of the Montana Arts Council Artist's Innovation Award. 'I've tasked myself with questioning the artifacts of my culture by changing their context and content. Working with handmade remnants of the past, I repurpose them to comment on the present, and I employ a multitude of anonymous assistants. I try to celebrate and elevate their abandoned handwork. I search antique shops, thrift stores and yard sales for embroidered linens and quilts, collecting the brightly colored flowers, foliage, animals, and patterns that appear in my work. What I cannot find I hand-stitch and mix in with the collected embroidery. I use the familiarity of the stitch along with seemingly lighthearted and cheerful designs to convey more serious subject matter. I often use humor to tell my stories, and very rarely is everything quite what it seems.'

Joan Stuart Ross, Another Frontier, 2026, Acrylic, oil, ink, collage on canvas, 36 x 36 x 1.5 in

Joan Stuart Ross creates work inspired by exploratory imagery and the invention of color through relationships, connections, juxtapositions, and dynamic arrangements. Her practice searches for a sense of life force, energy, and meaning by using color and shape as carriers of value, depth, and visual intensity. Through metaphorical form, she incorporates complementary and analogous color structures, along with symbols and glyphs that suggest an underlying, vital current.

Her paintings, prints, and drawings draw on natural and structural sources of growth, including poplar trees, hydrangea blossoms, oyster shells, grids, and implied text. Across media, she builds compositions through color, mark, rhythm, repetition, pattern, and disruption, creating visual fields that oscillate between order and variation. Ross's work reflects an expansive visual language shaped by observation, abstraction, and a continuous search for energetic connection within form and structure.

Leo Osborne, Swansong, 2020, bronze, 14 x 24 x 24 in

Leo Osborne has been an artist for a lifetime, with a practice that began in Boston and Cape Cod and later evolved in Maine, where he first developed his sculptural work. He is a Fellow of the National Sculpture Society, a Master Signature Artist of the Society of Animal Artists, and a member of the International Artists for Conservation.

Now living on Guemes Island, Osborne has participated in the MONA Annual Auction since relocating there in 1993. His multidisciplinary practice includes wood sculpture, limited-edition bronze casting, and unique paintings on gold leaf with acrylics. In addition to visual art, he writes poetry and stories, extending his creative expression into language. Across media, his work reflects a sustained commitment to form, material, and narrative over decades of artistic practice.

Alan Newberg, World on Fire: Guernica, Gaza, Ukraine, Somolia, California, 2025, Black walnut wood, 72 x 36 x 30 in

Alan Newberg describes art as both a way of thinking and a way of doing-an evolving process of responding to moments in life that demand attention. For him, each artwork emerges through hundreds or even thousands of decisions, gradually giving form to feeling. In this sense, process itself becomes content, with finished works carrying traces of their own making across time and space.

Working across sculpture in steel, clay, wax, cast metal, and carved wood, Newberg finds that material directly shapes meaning. Steel tends toward abstraction and precision, while clay and wax invite more fluid, representational forms. Wood, by contrast, offers a sensuous and responsive material encounter, especially in its subtractive carving process, where the form must be discovered within the block.

In World on Fire, carved from a six-foot black walnut log, an unexpected pocket of decay transformed the work's direction. What began as an abstract composition of shifting, plank-like forms became charged with narrative when the eroded cavity evoked imagery reminiscent of Picasso's Guernica. This encounter redirected the piece into a response to contemporary turmoil, revealing how chance, material resistance, and perception converge to generate meaning in his practice.

Devin River, Hive, 2025 Reclaimed, dyed, and commercial fabrics, batting, thread, 116 x 94 x .5 in

Devin River's practice transforms discarded and secondhand materials into works that affirm dignity, value, and presence. Working primarily with scavenged textiles, loose threads, and reclaimed fabric, River reclaims what is often overlooked or discarded, responding to a world in which excess production leads to waste. Through labor-intensive processes of cutting, sewing, and recomposition, these materials are elevated into intricate textile works that emphasize care, attention, and renewal.

River describes this practice as an antidote to internalized worthlessness shaped by systems of environmental, economic, and colonial harm. By transforming discarded materials, the work asserts the inherent value of both material and self, inviting viewers to recognize their own worth.

The studio practice moves between two modes: precise, patterned constructions that provide structure and calm, and more improvisational processes that embrace unpredictability. This tension creates a dynamic rhythm between control and spontaneity.

In the series The Bugs, River reworks traditional starburst quilt motifs, fragmenting and reassembling them into new visual forms using reclaimed textiles, sometimes hand-dyed, often sourced from free piles or donated materials.

Aaron Loveitt, Traverse, 2026, Forged Steel, 11 x 48 x 2.5 in

Aaron Loveitt lives and works on Blanchard Mountain in Bow. His work is inspired by a deep reverence for the Pacific Northwest landscape, as well as exploration into the raw nature of metal, glass and other mediums. His sculptures become symbolic intersections of material, process and points of understanding around the phenomenon of this region's time and place. The geographic features of a region's landscape become the unique signature of that place. In turn, the sculpted steel of this work looks to express the energetic script drawn from my inspiration walking the North Cascade mountain ridge lines.

Kendra Larson, Night Garden, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 36 x 24 in

Kendra Larson is a Portland-based artist whose work focuses on the ephemerality of Pacific Northwest landscapes and the evolving relationship between people and the natural world. Her paintings engage historical ideas of landscape while subtly addressing environmental awareness and contemporary ecological connection.

Larson's recent work explores the hidden life of forests, drawing on research from authors such as Peter Wohlleben and Suzanne Simard. These influences inform her interest in trees as communicative, intelligent systems, where interconnection and resilience mirror human experience. Working in color-rich, atmospheric compositions, she transforms real places and trees into expressive fields of emotion and perception.

Deeply rooted in the Pacific Northwest, Larson's practice continues the lineage of the Northwest Mystics and the Group of Seven, treating landscape as a site of spiritual inquiry and psychological reflection. Her paintings merge ecological awareness with elements of magical realism, inviting viewers to experience the forest as both sanctuary and mirror, and to reconsider their relationship with the natural world through wonder, empathy, and care.

Jan Hoy, Rhythm Squared, 2024, clay with iron oxide finish, 8 x 10 x 10 in

Jan Hoy works from small, hand-built water-based clay forms that serve as the foundation for her larger sculptural practice. Finished with iron oxide, these intimate tabletop pieces often become prototypes for expanded works intended for outdoor and public spaces. Hoy translates the patterns and structures of the small sculptures into larger scales, adapting them to new materials and environments.

Her larger works are fabricated in materials such as Corten steel, mild steel with painted finishes, or stainless steel, each choice altering the character and presence of the form. This shift in scale and medium transforms the original clay studies into durable public sculptures, many of which are installed throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Hoy values the collaborative process of public art production, working with fabricators, engineers, and communities to bring each piece into being. For her, the transition from small studio objects to large-scale installations is both technically and creatively rewarding, offering the opportunity to share her sculptural language with a wider public.

Karen Hackenberg, Unnatural Disasters (triptych), 2025, Archival pigment on stretched canvas w/frame, 25 x 80 x 1.5 in

Karen Hackenberg's (B.F.A., RISD) paintings were featured in MoNA's 2024 Surge exhibition as well as in her solo exhibition, Sea Change: The Art of Karen Hackenberg, at Tacoma Art Museum. Her paintings' "green" sensibility has earned a place in museums and private collections, including Portland Art Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, and Washington State Art Collection. She exhibits her work internationally, and is represented by Patricia Rovzar, Seattle, and Rebecca Hossack, London, UK. Karen uses humor and beauty to light a candle in the darkness of our eco-disaster weary minds. In her wry post-pop Unnatural Disasters paintings series, she interprets the effects of climate change such as recurrent large-scale fires, destructive superstorms, droughts, floods, melting glaciers, habitat loss, and species extinctions.

Chuck Gumpert, Urban Relic 2600, 2024, oil & mixed media, 40 x 50 x 1.5 in

Chuck Gumpert is a Seattle-area artist whose practice spans bold abstraction, impressionistic landscape, and figurative work developed over more than two decades of professional exhibitions throughout Washington, Oregon, and California. His work has attracted national and international collectors and has been featured in interior design and architectural projects across the Pacific Northwest and beyond.

Gumpert's paintings are built through layered combinations of oil, acrylic, ink, graphite, and collage. These materials interact in complex surfaces that generate organic forms, gestural marks, and shifting spatial illusions. He describes his process as one of "intentional happy accidents," where chance and control coexist to create texture, depth, and atmospheric energy.

His work often evokes memory, place, and emotional resonance, inviting viewers to form their own interpretations. Rather than presenting fixed narratives, Gumpert sees each painting as a culmination of lived experience and imagination, offering a visual field where personal stories can emerge through engagement with color, form, and layered material.

Joyce Gehl, Moondance, 2022, mixed media resin, 24 x 24 x 2 in

Joyce Gehl is an artist living and working on Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands, whose practice is shaped by the quiet complexity of the Pacific Northwest landscape. Her work explores emotional and imaginative relationships with nature, focusing on how it feels to be immersed in forests, shorelines, shifting light, and interconnected ecosystems.

Gehl begins with photographs taken outdoors, which she uses as the foundation for digitally composed landscapes. Through layering, blending, and iterative refinement, these images evolve into hybrid compositions that bridge observation and imagination. The works are then translated into painting and finished with resin, creating luminous, dimensional surfaces.

Her process builds multiple transparent layers in which painted marks appear suspended, producing depth and a sense of movement. Up close, the imagery breaks into mosaics of individual gestures, reflecting the living systems that inspire her work. The final resin surface subtly reflects the viewer and surrounding environment, integrating them into the composition.

Gehl's paintings invite contemplation on interconnection, emphasizing that humans are not separate from nature but part of its unfolding presence.

Meg Holgate, Nightflower, 2025, Oil on Canvas, 36 x 32 x 1.5 in

Meg Holgate creates paintings inspired by the transient, shifting qualities of the Pacific Northwest environment. Her work explores the fleeting and conditional nature of landscape, shaped by filmy light, atmospheric color, and an opalescent sense of place. Forms in her paintings often seem to emerge from or dissolve back into the landscape, reflecting a world in constant transformation.

Working with large, soft-haired brushes, Holgate applies veils of color that blend and accumulate to shape space, perception, and emotional resonance. Her compositions layer clouds, islands, water, and botanical forms into shifting structures that balance chaos and stillness. Rather than fixed representation, she aims for states of awe and ambiguity, where landscape becomes a field of perception rather than a static image.

Holgate views nature as an interconnected, time-sensitive system and a source of continual inspiration. Through painting, she engages with cycles of change, honoring the ebb and flow of life while exploring new possibilities for seeing and experiencing the natural world.

Julie Sevilla Drake, Amuse Bouche, 2022, Quilt: Hand-dyed Cotton Fabrics, 30 x 27 in

Julie Sevilla Drake approaches her work as an expression of how to love the world. Her life, shaped by friendship, travel, and time spent in wild places, informs an artistic practice grounded in direct experience of landscape and movement through it. She works across mediums, but her quilts become a primary space for translating memory, observation, and emotional response into visual form.

After extensive time hiking and backpacking through forests, mountains, and remote regions, Sevilla Drake returns to the studio with impressions of place that are distilled into color, shape, line, and texture. Her work embraces what she describes as the "mess, mayhem, mischief, and mystery" of existence, using these forces as creative material rather than obstacles.

Through quilting, she constructs layered visual fields that reflect both external landscapes and internal states. Her practice becomes a way of witnessing and affirming the world's complexity, offering viewers an invitation to see and feel through the lens of attention, affection, and lived experience.

Julie Devine, Skagit Sky, 2025, Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 x 1.5 in

Julie Devine's work explores heightened spiritual awareness and emotional states experienced within wilderness landscapes. Her paintings are rooted in direct encounters with nature, where she seeks to translate sensory and contemplative experiences into visual form.

Using expressive brushwork and palette knife techniques, Devine builds shifting fields of color that move between warmth and coolness, creating dynamic atmospheric tension. These variations in color temperature contribute to a sense of movement and transformation across the surface.

Her work often suggests animism in the natural world, where landscape feels alive, responsive, and imbued with presence. Through this approach, she aims to convey joy, dissolution of self, and immersion in something larger than the individual. The result is an experiential painting practice that emphasizes emotion, energy, and the spiritual dimensions of landscape.

Linda Davidson, 03 23 22, 2022, Oil on linen on panel, 24 x 24 x 1.5 in

Linda Davidson has been working since around 2021 on a series of paintings focused on a short stretch of ravine along Thornton Creek in Seattle. Her work reflects sustained observation of a landscape that, like herself, is constantly changing.

Over time, both the ravine and the artist have proven mutable, shaped by shifting seasons, weather events, and ecological change-heavy rains, snow, drought, and the continual fall of leaves, branches, and trees. Working in direct response to these conditions, Davidson records moments of perception as they unfold, often under physically demanding circumstances of heat, cold, and distraction.

The resulting paintings form a cumulative study of place and time. Together, they act as a visual record of ongoing transformation, reflecting both the instability of the natural environment and the act of attentive looking within it.

Richard Royal, Obelisk III, 2016, Solid Glass, 5" x 5" x 9"

Richard Royal's professional life has been a commitment to creativity in blown art glass, and for over 30 years has stretched the limits of large glass sculpture. Richard is a faculty member of the Pilchuck Glass School and was the first Artist in Residence at the Waterford Crystal Factory in 1998 and 1999.

A recipient of a National Endowment of the Arts grant, Richard has recently been associated with the Corning Museum of Glass, the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Ohio State University and the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His work is shown in numerous museum, public and private collections, including the IBM Collection, the Safeco Collection and the Westinghouse Collection.

Charles Laurens Heald, Not Forgetting April Showers, 1996, Acrylic on Canvas, 44 x 34

Jeffry Mitchell, Small Hulu Vase with Friends, 2023, painted wood, 6.25 x 4.25 x 3.125 in

Jeffry Mitchell approaches artmaking as an instinctive and devotional act, rooted in lived experience and shaped by influences that move fluidly between craft, graphic design, fine art, social practice, and spirituality. His work includes drawings, posters, illustrations, ceramics, furniture-like objects, and decorative forms that blur distinctions between art and craft, the precious and the everyday.

Mitchell's visual language is deeply informed by his biography: growing up in a large working-class family that moved frequently across the American West, learning domestic crafts from his mother and grandmother, and later studying calligraphy and ceramics while living in Japan. These experiences continue to shape his interest in labor, ornament, storytelling, and the tension between popular culture and elite aesthetics.

Working in the studio becomes a contemplative process through which memories, grief, humor, affection, and longing are quietly transformed into objects. Mitchell describes his works as offerings-like valentines or votives-made in the hope of expressing and receiving love.

Ingrid Williams, Repose 2, 2017, Casein and egg white, 12 x 14 x .02 in

Ingrid Williams has worked with casein paint for more than fifty years, exploring the medium's ability to merge abstraction and representation through gesture and material behavior. Beginning in Coupeville, she painted local scenes on furniture and wooden boxes, allowing the grain of the wood to become part of the composition. Because casein requires a rigid surface, the interaction between paint and substrate became central to her process.

Later, while working in the Skagit Valley, Williams developed poured painting techniques in which textures resembling water, clouds, sand, and hillsides emerged organically through the movement of the medium itself. Her approach emphasizes simplicity of gesture and the capacity of material to evoke natural forms without direct depiction.

Subsequent work created in Sekiu further explored these possibilities, particularly the luminous qualities of sand-like surfaces. Her recent paintings focus on the expressive depth and tonal range of ivory black pigment, continuing her investigation into abstraction, landscape, and the physical nature of paint.

Annie Haynes, Ladies Stare, 2025, Digital, 11 x 14 x 2 in

Annie Haynes, originally from Oregon and now living in Skagit County, creates work rooted in the belief that creativity fosters confidence, connection, and shared understanding. Inspired by the landscapes and communities of the Pacific Northwest, she paints recognizable locations using vibrant watercolors and acrylics. Through bold color and expressive brushwork, she captures the character of familiar places while inviting viewers to experience them in new ways. Her paintings reflect both the physical environment and the emotional resonance of memory, belonging, and change.

In addition to her representational work, Haynes develops abstract compositions influenced by neurographic processes, kaleidoscopic imagery, and fractured mosaic patterns. These pieces explore themes of connection, transformation, and inner reflection through layered lines and dynamic color relationships. Across both landscape and abstraction, her practice balances observation with imagination, emphasizing optimism, creative exploration, and the belief that art can inspire growth and meaningful engagement.

Sam Albright, Rheology #796, 2017, Photographic print, 16 x 11 x 1 in, Photo image of flowing sumi ink painting. Part of the Rheology series. Matted, glazed and framed.

This photographic image is part of Sam Albright's series Rheology: The Flow and Shaping of Matter. Each work begins with a brushstroke of sumi ink placed into a flat bed of water. Local earth pigments from Eastern Washington are then introduced, grounding the composition in regional material. Gravity and surface tension guide the movement of the inks and pigments, forming shifting rivers, pools, and layered patterns within the water's surface.

As the water gradually evaporates, particles settle and deposit onto the substrate, preserving the traces of these fluid interactions. During this transitional stage-when the composition remains in motion-high-resolution photographs are taken to document the ephemeral forms. These images capture what might be called "lost paintings": fleeting states that exist only within the flow of water and pigment before they resolve into their final sedimented form. This photograph preserves one such moment in that ongoing process.

Jose Castro, The Daily Buzz, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 14 x 11 x 0.5 in

Jose Castro's work explores the interplay of color, form, and emotion, creating visual experiences that are both vibrant and contemplative. Through abstract shapes and layered textures, I reflect the energy, tension, and subtle rhythms of daily life-capturing moments that are felt rather than seen. Each piece invites viewers to pause, engage, and interpret, fostering a dialogue between the canvas and the individual where perception remains fluid and personal.

Color serves as my primary language, expressing mood, sensation, and the unseen forces that shape human experience. Through abstraction, I seek to reveal the coexistence of chaos and harmony, encouraging a deeper awareness of the beauty and complexity that surround us. In this space between structure and spontaneity, I aim to create work that resonates emotionally while remaining open to interpretation.

Junko Larossa, A pair of pears 1, 2024, Acrylic, 15.25 x 19.25 x 1 in

The quest for the crossroads between realism and abstraction defines Junko Larossa's creative practice. Her work moves between two modes of expression: the raw, impassioned energy of palette knife acrylic and the contemplative stillness of oil realism.

Whether driven by motion or stillness, Larossa's paintings invite viewers to pause and look again. Not everything reveals itself at first glance; what remains unsaid often carries the greatest weight. Through texture, light, and layered form, she explores the balance between immediacy and reflection, encouraging deeper observation and emotional engagement.

Joshua H Phelps, That Tropical Light, 2025, Large Format Photograph, 20 x 16 x 1 in

Joshua H. Phelps explores the interplay between humanity and nature through a combination of sly wit and irony delivered via photography. To wit, humanity has employed natural resources for millennia. Originally for survival, as culture developed, so too did the depth of our relationship to nature. Things became more than themselves, symbols of magic, power, myth, and maps of the known world. At times serious, this ambiguity can also extend into the realm of kitsch and even the lines in a parking lot. At a time when humanity's relationship to nature feels all the more precarious, perhaps it is time to step back for a moment and examine the rules of the game which we have been playing all this time.

Kathryn Rantala, A Little Family, 2023, Assemblage/Sculpture, 11 x 9 x 3.5 in

Kathryn Rantala is a visual artist and poet who has lived in Edmonds, Washington more than 30 years. Since 2014, she has been working with found objects and miniatures to create what she calls "Stills" - assemblages, tableaux, portraits, or moments such as we would find in individual frames of a film where a personality, situation, concurrence, scene, action, reaction or apparent thought is captured for us to consider outside of the whole. Her aim is for pieces not just to be decorative but to project an aspect of their nature within new context, perhaps the context to which they have always aspired.

Chris Baumgartner, White Haired Woman with Her Man, 2024, Acrylic, 24 x 18 x 1.5 in

In this series of abstracted human figures, Chris Baumgartner explores the many ways the human body can be presented graphically in a flat, static format. By intentionally removing gestures of movement, the figures emphasize structure, silhouette, and visual design rather than physical dynamism.

With over thirty years of experience in fashion design, Baumgartner draws upon an understanding of form, fabric, and visual presentation. The figures are "clothed" in ways that become central to their identity and expression, reflecting how garments shape perception and communicate presence. Clothing functions not merely as adornment, but as a defining visual element that informs composition, balance, and narrative.

Through this approach, Baumgartner examines the intersection of body, design, and abstraction, presenting the human form as both object and image within a carefully constructed visual space.

Austin Cullen, Float, 2025, Archival Inkjet Print, 20 x 16 in

Austin Cullen explores the evolving relationship between technology, representation, and the natural world. As technological systems change, so too does the way we perceive and depict our surroundings. Through this body of work, Cullen examines the ethics of display and the points of overlap between humanity, landscape, and the constructed illusions of the virtual realm.

The project reflects on historical and contemporary modes of access to nature. In the past, natural history museums served as primary gateways to unfamiliar landscapes, presenting curated environments through dramatic dioramas and miniaturized scenes. Today, digital platforms allow near-instant access to images and representations of distant places. By contrasting these experiences, Cullen investigates how shifts in medium influence perception, memory, and understanding.

The framing devices used to present nature-whether museum displays, interactive virtual environments, or digital imagery-function as interpretive windows. While these frameworks guide how viewers read and understand the natural world, they can also be examined as constructs that shape and mediate our relationship to land. Museums have historically educated audiences about the environment, yet they may also create a sense of separation from it. In an era defined by global climate crisis, Cullen's work encourages a reassessment of how institutions influence our perception of nature.

Erin Power, Domestic Watershed, 2024, Oil on canvas, 12 x 12 x 1.5 in

An interest in how humans experience and remember the environments they inhabit lies at the core of Erin Power's work. She is drawn to ordinary spaces and objects-landscapes, architectural structures, domestic interiors, and everyday forms-that carry subtle traces of human presence through light, surface, and material.

Her process often begins with observation. Power walks, photographs, and draws, studying how light moves across a place or object and how forms organize space. These studies serve as the foundation for studio work, where layering, editing, and simplification transform direct observation into distilled interpretations of lived experience.

Working across oil painting and printmaking, she combines attentive observation with refined composition and a restrained palette. Whether depicting a landscape, interior scene, or still life, Power is interested in the moment when light reveals quiet expression within an ordinary subject. Human presence appears not through figures, but through traces-paths worn into a landscape, the arrangement of objects, or surfaces shaped by daily use.

Pam DeVries, Just Being Koi, 2024, soft pastel, 11 x 9 x 1 in

Making art has long provided Pam DeVries with a sense of peace and balance. When her inner world-or the world around her-feels marked by turmoil or chaos, painting becomes a source of joy, clarity, and meaning. Through creative expression, she seeks equilibrium and a sense of renewal, finding comfort in discovering beauty in nature, in animals, and even in everyday human interactions.

Her work has often been described as "outsider art." Having received no formal training, DeVries believes this background contributes to a sense of freedom in her practice. Without adherence to conventional rules or academic structures, she approaches painting intuitively, guided by exploration rather than established methodology. This openness allows her to experiment and respond directly to color, form, and process.

Painting serves as a space for play and discovery. She delights in the richness of color and works across multiple media, primarily acrylic and watercolor, while expanding her experimentation in recent years to include soft pastels and oils. Each painting becomes an immersive environment-an internal world where she can work for extended periods of time.

Alice Dubiel, The Book of Shadows: turquoise kootenia, 2026, acrylic and mixed media resist on canvas, 15.24 x 15.24 x 6.30 cm

Alice Dubiel approaches her work as a series of visual essays exploring landscape, reproduction, and the intersection of cultural and natural systems. Influenced by ecological ideas of convergence, she investigates how life evolves along similar paths across time and environments. Working with acrylic, encaustic, mixed media, printmaking, and handmade papers, she layers maps, washes, imagery of plants and animals, text, and iridescent pigments to build complex surfaces.

Topographic maps and field-based practices-plein air painting, photographic documentation, and seasonal studies-inform her process. A residency in North Cascades National Park and experiences in Korea deepened her interest in temporality, geography, and traditional technologies. Through framed works resembling specimens and large installations that resist containment, Dubiel examines how systems of representation shape our understanding of land, ecology, and truth.

Johanna Paterson, Adrift, 2020, Oil on canvas, 30 x 24 x 2 in

Johanna Paterson graduated from The Kansas City Art Institute in 1970. She moved to La Conner, Wa., drawn in by the Mystics and the greatness of art in the area. She feels that her search for that infinitesimal space where form begins to emerge from the mists began then, and yet continues. Her paintings are in private collections throughout the United States.

Annabelle Vergne, Forest Bathing, 2026, Acrylics, pastel and charcoal on canvas, 30 x 15 x 1.5 in

Annabelle Vergne was born and raised in France in a family of artists and also spent part of her life in Tunisia. Early exposure to the visual and performing arts later shaped her career as a dance teacher and choreographer. Now retired, she has fully transitioned her creative focus from choreography to painting.

Self-taught, Vergne draws inspiration and color influence from her North African cultural heritage, spirituality, and the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest. Her palette reflects the vibrancy and depth of these environments, blending personal history with place.

Living with multiple sclerosis and its physical and cognitive challenges, she views painting as both expression and healing. Creating is a necessity for her; the deep focus required by the process feels spiritual in nature and provides clarity and balance.

Laurel Emmons, Light The Dark, 2026, Acrylic, gesso, gold leaf, 30 x 10 x 1.5 in

Laurel Emmons has recently focused on creating work that incorporates greater layers and texture. Through a process of self-teaching, experimentation, and trial and error, she has discovered new techniques that allow for a deeper expression of complex emotions and lived experiences. This evolving approach has expanded both her technical range and conceptual depth.

Working with layered surfaces enables Emmons to explore subtle shifts in material, form, and meaning. She finds that this process supports a more nuanced articulation of feeling, creating space for reflection and transformation within the work.

In many ways, this method of making fosters a sense of connection to the broader human condition. Through texture, accumulation, and process, her work reflects contemporary experience while inviting viewers to engage with shared emotion and presence

Tara Campbell, The Writer (View 2), 2025, Yarn, bone, mannequin hands, hemp twine, leather cord, 43 x 9 x 9 in

Before moving to Seattle in 2023, Tara Campbell was active as a painter in the Washington, DC arts community, exhibiting in group and solo shows. She received grants and commissions from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and has work in institutional and private collections in the U.S. and abroad. Since her arrival in Seattle in 2023, she has begun creating visual art once again, with fiber arts as her medium. Crochet exists in a liminal space between craft and art, but by combining it with unexpected materials, the work can help shift and broaden perspectives on art and value. The softness of yarn may seem inappropriate to pair with the hardness of bone, but in a way, they belong together because of their fragility. Campbell is additionally a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse. She writes and teaches speculative and flash fiction, and is the author of two novels, two hybrid collections, two short story collections, and a chapbook of sestinas. Additional publication credits include Masters Review, Wigleaf, Electric Literature, CRAFT Literary, Uncharted Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, and Escape Pod/Artemis Rising.

Dianne Dickeman, Listening to the Sea, 2024, charcoal, gouache, watercolor, collage on paper, 17 x 14 x 1.25 in

Dianne Dickeman is a painter and drawer whose work is firmly grounded in the two-dimensional plane. The physicality of paint-and the visible evidence of process-plays a central role in her practice. Brush marks, scrapes, erasures, and the layered traces of revision remain present in the finished work, recording the history of its making.

She is also interested in a subtle sense of movement within the picture plane, where forms may appear flat against the surface yet simultaneously suggest depth and recession. This tension between surface and illusion is a recurring focus in her work.

Dickeman's imagery often draws from the natural world, particularly landscapes and water. Her work is shaped by memory, functioning as both influence and subject. Moving between representation and abstraction, she explores the shifting boundary where observation becomes interpretation and image becomes experience.

Kate Dwyer, Blue Garden, 2025, Fabric and thread mache', 12 x 18 x 16 in

Kate Dwyer is compelled to make things-gardens, paintings, necklaces, tortured eggshells, bowls, batiks, and other forms that resist easy categorization. The source of this persistent creative drive is uncertain; it does not appear to stem from upbringing or formal education, yet it remains a defining force in her life.

Dwyer approaches making as something both instinctive and surprising. She experiences creativity as an ongoing gift-one that brings both gratitude and an abundance of energy. Her practice is guided less by fixed intention than by curiosity and responsiveness, allowing each new work to emerge as part of a continuous, evolving exploration. Across materials and forms, she remains attentive to process, transformation, and the unexpected possibilities that arise through making.

Robert Gideon, Parking Garage, 2024, Photography, 20 x 16 x 1 in

Photography is fundamentally documentary in nature. Whether capturing a moment in time for later reflection or layering emotion and interpretation onto a black-and-white image, photographic work ultimately seeks to communicate effectively and evoke an emotional response in the viewer.

Robert Gideon's work exists at the intersection of human empathy and visual perception, shaped by a desire to express appreciation for the small wonders of the world. His practice is driven by a compulsion to observe and interpret subtle patterns, contexts, and relationships of light and shadow within everyday environments.

Rather than focusing on grand subjects, Gideon engages in a form of daily visual meditation, attuned to overlooked and humble details. In these quiet observations, he finds moments of transcendent beauty. Through his photographs, he hopes to share this awareness and invite viewers to recognize and appreciate these fleeting, often unseen aspects of the world around them.

Mindi Katzman, Nuclear Skylight, 2022, graphite/pastel on wood veneer, 14 x 11 x 1 in

As above, (skylights), so below (mycelium). Where the visual spinning wheel lands is always a mystery. This picture is part of a series on skylights, drawn with pencil and pastel directly on wood. As with many artists, Covid made us look around and.use what we had with in reach. In this case, skylights with the constant change of light and shadow, and wood cradle boards, purchased for other projects.

Catherine Stevens, Joel Brock in his La Conner Studio, 2004, Photography, 12 x 14 x 1 in

Cathy Stevens is a photographer living in Mt. Vernon, WA. where she owned and operated Peeps Photography for more than 40 years. After graduating from Western Washington University in 1975, she planned a trip across the United States to document Bicentennial events in 1976. In 1977, she opened Peeps Photography in downtown Mt. Vernon. She was especially known for her portraits of children, and her images were featured on the covers of several national photography magazines. She also loved documenting artists in their studios and co-produced The Barn Shows, 1987-2003, book in 2019.

Bob Hogan, Sea Breeze, 2024, Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16 x 1 in

Bob Hogan is a regional artist based in Anacortes, Washington. The beauty of the San Juan Islands provides him with a continuous source of inspiration. His work explores local color while incorporating a subtle contemporary edge, focusing on landscapes, wildlife, and the iconic natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest.

Working primarily in acrylics, Hogan continues to refine his style and approach, creating paintings that aim to evoke meaningful memories for those who have experienced the region. His intention is to capture a sense of place that resonates emotionally with viewers and reflects their connection to the landscape.

In addition to his painting practice, Hogan co-illustrated the best-selling children's book The Tortoise from Anacortes with his wife, author Claudia Hogan.

Carolynn Wicker, Summer Walk Down Boulevard, 2025, Oil Paint, 16 x 12 x 0.625 in

Carolynn Wicker works primarily in oil painting on canvas. Her practice focuses on landscapes and seascapes that she feels carry strong emotional resonance or meaning. As a Pacific Islander living on Coast Salish land, she maintains a deep connection to environments shaped by wind, water, and shifting atmospheric conditions.

Wicker uses oil paint, color, and light as expressive tools to shape mood and feeling throughout her process. Rather than aiming for direct replication of a photograph or specific scene, she is more interested in evoking emotion, memory, and nostalgia. Her paintings invite viewers to experience themselves within the landscape rather than simply observe it, encouraging a sense of immersion and emotional connection to place.

Mark Danielson, Doorway, 2018, Acrylic on Canvas, 10 x 8 in

Mark Danielson's work grows out of an interest in landscape painting, architecture, and the graphic design of the mid-20th century, and connects these influences to the computer-fabricated environments of the present day. His practice explores the intersections between these disciplines and the spaces they occupy, examining how visual languages shift across time and media.

Within this framework, various formal elements interact and respond to one another, informed by both observed and constructed worlds. Danielson's work considers how historical aesthetics and contemporary digital systems overlap, merge, and inform new ways of seeing and organizing visual experience.

Sue Danielson, Abundance, 2019, collage, 18 x 15 x 1 in, Framed. Paper size 14" x 11".

Seattle's watershed runs from the peaks of the Cascade Mountains through old- and new-growth forests, subdivisions, towns, and cities. It flows through culverts, tunnels, rivers, and creeks before reaching reservoirs, lakes, or Puget Sound. Over many years, Sue Danielson has developed an intimate connection to this watershed by tracing its waterways on foot, following its shifting "veins" through the landscape.

Her experiences in these environments serve as the foundation for her abstract paintings, collages, and installations. While walking the watershed, she often holds paradoxical emotions; grief for the forest under pressure from entropy, climate change, and development, alongside awe at its persistence, complexity, and abundance. The presence of wildlife within these systems remains a continual source of wonder.

Working from memory and emotional response, Danielson translates these experiences into layered compositions of chromatic lines, shapes, and patterns that reflect the dense stratification of growth and the shifting perceptions of space shaped by wind and light. Her process incorporates aerial perspectives and draws from, then departs from, traditional mapping as a visual framework.

Kay Mattson Ferris, In the Artist's Garden, 2024, Watercolor, 27 x 34 x 1 in, Painting of my backyard garden.

Charlene Hall, Monument to Mayhem, 2025, Watercolor, 19 x 9 in,

Charlene Hall is an artist based in the Skagit Valley working in watercolor and mixed media. With a background in theatre set design, she is drawn to the ways light, atmosphere, and composition shape our experience of place.

Her watercolor paintings focus on capturing the quiet beauty of the landscape-the fleeting qualities of light and the sense of presence within a specific moment. Observation and restraint are central to this practice, allowing the transparency of watercolor to evoke mood, depth, and spatial feeling.

Alongside this work, Hall's mixed media practice takes a more intuitive approach, using texture, layering, and material exploration as a way of responding to landscape in a less literal form. Across both practices, painting becomes an act of attention-a way of honoring the land she lives in and the subtle, continuous shifts of light that define it.

Fred Videon, Tropics, 2025, Acrylic on Canvas, 19 x 20 x 1 in

Fred Videon is an artist living and working in Port Townsend, Washington. Raised in Montana, he discovered his first artistic interest in black-and-white photography as a teenager. He later earned a degree in Engineering from Stanford University. After graduating, he began studying painting and drawing, eventually completing a BFA with an emphasis in painting at the University of Washington. Following a 30-year career in technology, he moved to Port Townsend in 2020 and returned to making art full time.

Each of Videon's paintings is a process of discovery. Through repeated cycles of revision and repainting, he searches for shapes and lines with character. He is drawn to ambiguity, suggestive spatial relationships, and subtle shifts in light and form.

His work embraces visual uncertainty, allowing ambiguities, spatial tensions, and unexpected relationships to emerge through the painting process. He is interested in the ways compositions can suggest depth, movement, and atmosphere without fixed resolution.

Videon's practice is guided by an attention to visual relationships and moments of surprise. He ultimately seeks to create work that is both beautiful and evocative, inviting viewers into a space of open interpretation and sustained looking.

Bella Kim, Echoes of Eden, 2026, Recycled Materials, 41 x 21 x 4 in

Bella Kim creates leaf-like forms from sewn fragments of recycled plastic packaging and fabric. Through stitching discarded materials together, she transforms what was once overlooked into new patterns, textures, and visual narratives. Her process is intuitive, allowing the materials themselves to guide composition and structure.

Her practice is inspired by Jogakbo, a traditional Korean patchwork wrapping cloth made from small fabric remnants. Growing up watching the women in her family sew, Kim developed an early connection to hand-stitching that continues to shape her work today. She now collects discarded plastics, washing, sorting, and stitching them into new compositions that reflect both material care and environmental awareness.

Expanding on historical practices of reuse-where fabric remnants were repurposed within the home-her work extends this tradition to contemporary materials, incorporating plastic packaging and other household discards. In doing so, she addresses themes of consumption, waste, and ecological responsibility.

Through this piece, the story of Eden becomes a metaphor for human agency. Everyday decisions-what we consume, discard, or preserve-collectively shape the future of our environment.

Yonnah Ben Levy, Winter Raindrops I, 2026, acrylics on canvas mounted on wood, 17 x 23 x 1 in

Yonnah Ben Levy's work emerges from her deepest sense of self. She believes in redemption, a quality she has witnessed in her own life, and gratitude for the world and for life is deeply embedded in her artistic practice.

As a teacher, she seeks not to create followers of a particular style, but to help unlock the creativity within each individual. She often describes herself as more of an artist in residence than a traditional instructor, while also remaining a lifelong learner who continually acquires and shares new techniques. Her experience working in various art production studios has also shaped her view of herself as a kind of "factory worker," engaged in both making and process.

In her workshops and teaching at an art center, she places equal importance on listening to her students. Each participant brings a unique background, story, and perspective, which informs the shared creative experience.

In 2013, Ben Levy received a Certificate in Pastoral Leadership from Seattle University, where she participated in a cohort of clergy as the only non-clerical member. During this time, she hosted individual art sessions as part of her practice. She views both teaching and art as grounded in humility and presence, understanding art itself as an act of faith.

For seven years, she taught at the Grunewald Guild in the Cascades, an organization centered on the motto "art and faith," where she was also the only Jewish instructor. In collaboration with her husband, she has created numerous large-scale paintings for hospitals, produced both through commission and from existing works.

Evy Halvorsen Holstein, Incoming, 2026, oil on canvas, 16 x 16 x 1 in

Evy Halvorsen Holstein is drawn to artistic challenges and often shifts styles in search of new ways to express her ideas. Metaphor is a central focus in her current practice, along with the ongoing challenge of translating internal concepts into visual form for the viewer. Her process frequently involves multiple revisions, with paintings reworked several times before reaching resolution.

Recently, her work has moved toward storm imagery, severe landscapes, and dramatic atmospheric conditions. Within these scenes, she suggests passages, safe havens, and beacons of safety, creating tension between vulnerability and refuge.

Holstein's work engages with themes of mortality and the perceived dangers of the universe, as well as the psychological states they can evoke. For her, the surrounding space-complex, subtle, and ever-shifting-has a profound influence. It functions simultaneously as sanctuary and adversary: a place that nurtures creativity while also challenging her to exceed her artistic limitations. This duality forms the foundation of her practice, driving her to create work that is visually compelling, emotionally resonant, and intellectually engaging.

Christie Houston, Dusk Flight, 2025, Sewn ecco printed paper, Sumi ink, string, burlap, dried wheat, 33 x 21 x .25 in

Christie Houston works primarily with paper, drawn to its versatility and its ability to hold texture, shape, and form. Her practice is rooted in experimentation, using paper as a means of exploring material possibilities and discovering new directions through process.

Much of her work is inspired by nature, particularly its lines, surfaces, and shifting color relationships, ranging from bold contrasts to subtle tonal variations. She is interested in how these elements can be translated and reinterpreted through layered and tactile approaches.

Houston's process is intuitive and exploratory, often involving trial and discovery. For her, the work is centered on pushing the boundaries of what paper can do, continually seeking new ways to engage with the material and keep the process open and evolving.

Jon Schmidt, The Eyes Have It, 2025, Stone sculpture, 12 x 6 x 5 in, Laguna Lace (Mexico) on a granite base

Jon Schmidt's sculptural practice is deeply rooted in a respect for the inherent qualities of stone. Each work begins with the intention of enhancing, rather than imposing upon, the natural character of the material. His practice is conceived as a dialogue with the stone, where its unique textures, colors, and forms are not merely a foundation but the central focus of the work.

Through careful carving and shaping, Schmidt seeks to reveal and amplify the intrinsic beauty within each piece of stone, allowing its natural qualities to guide the final form. This process emphasizes presence over intervention, enabling the material to remain at the forefront of the sculpture.

The resulting works invite viewers into a direct encounter with the essence of stone, fostering an appreciation for its raw, untamed elegance and the quiet strength embedded within its structure.

Jim Lilly, A Brief Encounter, 2026, Acrylic on Wood, 12 x 16 x 2.25 in

Jim Lilly's work is rooted in a lifelong connection to the lakes and waterways of Puget Sound, shaped by childhood summers along Hood Canal and years of fly-fishing regional rivers. The Salish Sea remains central to his practice, serving as both inspiration and responsibility. As environmental conditions have changed, his response has grown more complex, balancing admiration for place with concern over ecological degradation. His work functions as both reflection and inquiry, responding to lived experience, memory, and current environmental realities.

Lilly creates sculptural "reliquaries" that merge medieval altar-like structures with industrial aesthetics, using traditional sculpting methods alongside laser-cut fabrication. These trompe-l'oeil works suggest distressed materials such as metal, wood, and stone, populated by carved fish, whales, and crabs as objects of reverence. Fragmented text introduces tension and meaning, inviting interpretation between beauty and critique.

Born in Seattle, he studied painting at Pomona College and earned an MFA from Claremont Graduate University, studying with Karl Benjamin, Roland Reiss, Michael Brewster, and Connie Zehr.

Patrick Anderson, Drapery Twist "Untitled", 1997, pastel on paper, 28 x 20 x 1 in, Gray scale pastel on paper of drapery folds using light and shadow

Born in San Francisco (1961), Patrick grew up in Northern California and developed an interest in printmaking and fine art while attending high school. He studied history at New York University, where be began to engage in the art world of the late 1970's and early 80's East Village and Soho scene. In 1981 he relocated to Seattle, where his love of mountain wilderness and art combined. Patrick has exhibited widely from the Old Print Shop, NYC to Carolyn Staley Gallery, COCA, Kirkland Arts Center, University of Washington, Davidson Gallery, and many other Northwest venues.

Chaim Bezalel, Winter Sun, 2011, encaustics on linen mounted on wood, 24 x 14 x 2 in

Chaim Bezalel began as a photographer in the 1970s and retains a documentary sensibility, often working in series. Over time, he found traditional photography too constrained and influenced by the precision of darkroom practice and the visual saturation of contemporary advertising. In response, he began exploring image degradation and material transformation, using photography primarily as a starting point for painting rather than an end in itself.

His work often originates from his own photographs but is translated into paintings on rough handmade paper, burlap, or raw linen, emphasizing texture, imperfection, and material presence. Early experiments included toy and inexpensive cameras, reflecting an ongoing interest in chance and limitation.

Bezalel studied documentary film and photography in college and maintains a mental archive of images informed by both his upbringing in New York and years spent living in Israel. His practice is further shaped by a deep engagement with art history and a belief that taste and perception can be developed over time.

Elvira Butler, Graceful, 2022, photography, 20 x 22 x 2 in

Elvira Butler's photography has been a lifelong passion, evolving from early nature studies toward more abstract expressions. Her work emphasizes dynamic energy and seeks to actively engage the viewer through movement, composition, and visual rhythm.

She works primarily in-camera, with final refinements made using digital tools. This blend of capture and post-production allows her to shape images while maintaining responsiveness to the original moment of creation.

Butler's work has been exhibited in galleries and published in magazines, calendars, and art catalogues. She has received recognition in international juried competitions, including the Monochrome Awards and a second-place placement in a national monuments competition.

Donna Watson, Flight Pattern, 2026, Cold wax and oil paints, 18 x 18 x 1.5 in

Donna Watson has lived in the Pacific Northwest for many years, including the past twenty-five on Camano Island, where her home overlooks water and distant mountains. Across the landscape, she is continually drawn to the thin strip of white light where water meets land, a subtle horizon line that has become a lasting source of fascination and inspiration.

Traveling through the Skagit Valley, Watson is equally moved by the sight of large flights of birds, which evoke a deep sense of connection and renewal. These experiences form the foundation of her current body of work. A painter for many years, she now works primarily in cold wax and oil, drawn to the medium's capacity for layering and atmospheric depth. Through repeated applications of paint, she creates surfaces that convey emotional resonance and spatial ambiguity.

Her recent work centers on horizons and birds in flight. For Watson, the horizon represents both a physical meeting point and a symbolic boundary between the known and the unknown. The birds moving across this threshold embody hope, transition, and freedom, reflecting her deepest sense of place and belonging within the landscape she calls home.

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Heidi Epstein, Winter Rose in the Wind, 2025, Dry pastel on paper, 21 x 17.5 x 1.0 in

This pastel by Heidi Epstein is part of a series of six works previously exhibited together as a visual poem titled Winter Rose. The series includes pieces such as Winter Rose In the Wind, Winter Rose A Perfect Design, and Winter Rose Its Scent Falling From the Sky.

Created during January and February of 2025, these dry pastel works were inspired by a single rose in Epstein's garden as it endured the effects of winter weather. Over time, she became captivated by the rose's simultaneous fragility and resilience, finding within it both beauty and sorrow.

Through subtle shifts of color, texture, and atmosphere, the series reflects on impermanence, endurance, and transformation. The rose becomes both a specific subject and a poetic symbol-an image shaped by the passage of time, the harshness of season, and the quiet persistence of life.

Ron Pattern, Clamdiggers, 2000, Watercolor on Arches cold press paper, 21 x 28 x 1 in,

Ron Pattern approaches painting with a sense of childlike curiosity and heightened sensory awareness, seeking to capture fleeting moments and the emotional resonance of lived experience. Immersing himself daily in his local environment, he becomes captivated by the shifting drama of light and shadow, as well as the tensions created through texture, line, and form. These observations become the foundation for his studio practice.

Working primarily in acrylic on canvas, Pattern is drawn to the medium's capacity for bold realism in both landscape and portraiture. He also works in watercolor and egg tempera and is a Signature Member of the Northwest Watercolor Society.

Throughout his life, painting has served as a way of understanding and expressing his emotional connection to the world around him. For Pattern, art is both an act of observation and a deeply personal response to environment, memory, and experience. Through pigment and brush, he seeks to translate what he sees and feels into images that carry both immediacy and reflection.

Matthew Cory, Connections, 2020, acrylic on board, 35 x 39 x 3 in

Matthew R. Cory's work centers on figurative acrylic paintings, drawings, and digital illustrations that explore the relationships between humanity, nature, and spirit. Combining interests in metaphysics, philosophy, and the natural world, his compositions often incorporate a subtle sense of humor intended to engage and invite viewers into layered narratives.

Many of Cory's figures exist "in medias res" captured in moments that suggest both a preceding story and an uncertain future. This sense of suspended narrative encourages viewers to imagine how a scene emerged and what may happen next. His work aims to function both as a unified composition and as an environment rich with smaller discoveries and visual pathways.

Cory combines energetic color, repetitive patterning, figurative imagery, geometric structures, symbolism, and abstraction to create dynamic visual tension. By juxtaposing patterns with solid forms, and balancing modern and ancient, material and spiritual references, he creates works that seek harmony within complexity and contradiction.

Jennifer Harrington, Purple Reflection, 2002, Mixed Water Media/Collage, 16 x 20 x 1 in

Jennifer Harrington views art as a balance between two essential forces, much like the wings of a bird working together in flight. One wing is technical execution-composition, color, articulation, and structure-while the other is the ability to engage emotion, memory, and intellect. Her process begins through observation and intuition, allowing experiences to move through the body and emerge physically through the act of painting. Layers of paint, collage, and varnish create surfaces rich with texture, depth, and atmosphere.

Working primarily through abstraction, Harrington explores the internal world and the challenge of expressing experiences that are often difficult to define in words. Symbolic imagery arises organically through dreams, meditation, journal writing, and lived experience. Recurring motifs include birds, wolves, dogs, deer, black-and-white trees, screens, and shrine-like forms. Recent works have been influenced by her experiences living within a Buddhist retreat center, where contemplation, ritual, and quiet observation continue to shape her visual language.

Pat deCaro
Untitled
unknown
gouache on mylor work
17 x 14 in

Daria Agafonova-Knight, Homeland, 2025, photography, cyanotype, drywall, wire, old window, 18 x 28 x 1 in

Since 2022 and the beginning of the war, Daria Agafonova has become increasingly interested in how national borders shape identity, perception, and political consciousness. Her work reflects on the idea that the less people move beyond the boundaries of their own countries, the more those borders become embedded within their thinking and self-definition. Rather than focusing on one nation alone, she approaches this as a broader human condition, examining how limited perspectives can influence understanding across cultures and societies.

Relocation and displacement over recent years have also led Agafonova to reflect deeply on homesickness and the meaning of "home." Her current series, Ethereal Memory, consists of cyanotype prints that function as echoes of fleeting yet deeply felt experiences from different periods of her life.

These works evoke memory as something both fragile and persistent, exploring longing, belonging, and the emotional landscape of return. Through layered imagery and the atmospheric qualities of cyanotype, Agafonova creates meditative spaces that invite viewers to reconsider ideas of place, identity, and emotional connection beyond geographic borders.

Marianne Partlow, Starting, 2012, Soft Pastel on coated paper on foam core, 16 x 16 in

When Marianne Partlow turned to pastel, she realized that the medium required a more simplified approach to process and design in order to preserve its immediacy and raw energy. Seeking this balance, she began revisiting earlier paintings, isolating areas of intensity and focus that could function as distilled expressions of larger ideas.

Often inspired by nature and architecture, her pastel works act as visual fragments or signals, suggestive forms that point toward broader sensory and emotional experiences. Through abbreviation and reduction, Partlow creates compositions that emphasize presence, atmosphere, and movement rather than detailed representation.

Color plays a central role in her work, functioning both emotionally and symbolically. Through layered yet direct applications of pastel, she explores how color can communicate energy, memory, and meaning with immediacy and clarity.

Kyle Bjorklund, Life's Progression #7, 2025, Encaustic on linen over panel., 24 x 15 x 1.5 in

Referencing Jasper Johns' observation that "Seeing a thing can sometimes trigger the mind to make another thing," Kyle Bjorklund's work explores the transformative nature of perception and association. His paintings emerge from the intersection of two distinct influences: the muted atmospheric palette of the Pacific Northwest and the abstract visual language of ancient Tantric art from the northern Indian subcontinent.

Traditionally created as meditative tools, Tantric paintings employ deceptively simple forms intended to focus contemplation and awareness. Bjorklund is drawn to the strikingly modern quality of these abstract compositions and the way they resonate across time and culture.

Through encaustic painting, one of the oldest artistic mediums, he synthesizes these seemingly disparate experiences into layered, contemplative works. The resulting paintings balance restraint and complexity, combining atmospheric color, abstraction, and meditative structure to create spaces that invite reflection, perception, and quiet psychological engagement.

Terry MacDonald, Driven to Abstraction, 2020, Acrylic/Mixed Media, 20 x 20 x 1.5 in,

Terry MacDonald is an Anacortes artist. Her work has been described as "joyful art." Bright colors, whimsey and texture are employed in most paintings, whether they are the birds, wildlife or florals she is most well-known for, or the abstracts that feed her need to be free and expressive.

Rebecca Meloy, Flooding, 2026, acrylic, rag paper, collaged papers, 14 x 13 x 1.25 in,

Rebecca Meloy's visual voice is innately strong supporting the environment. Works from the 'Regenerative Energy: Water, Land, Trees, Sun' series are paintings that embrace priority habitats. Diversity of shorelines and lowlands create living environments for wildlife. In the Skagit County, many water loving birds. These moist havens are transition zones for communities, growing wild food, and providing protection for wildlife. Rebecca Meloy's land based art is influenced by her Scandinavian heritage from Finnish farmers, Swedish ministers, and pioneer Norwegians who emigrated and homestead in the Minnesota Boundary Waters. Born in the north woods she grew on a small Oregon farm. She has lived in Bellingham Washington for 46 years.

Sheila Sondik, First Fuki, 2017, Monotype, 20 x 16 in

Every exploration of the Pacific Northwest landscape offers Sheila Sondik new arrangements of light, form, and texture that inspire continued discovery. The motifs she chooses to work with reveal additional layers of depth and meaning as they are translated through drawing, carving, and the etching press.

Sondik practices a wide range of printmaking techniques, embracing both the technical process and the element of transformation inherent in the medium. She is especially drawn to the way a print becomes the mirrored counterpart of the original image created on the plate, introducing both surprise and reinterpretation into the work.

Her studio practice mirrors the sense of exploration she experiences outdoors. Through the tactile and often unpredictable nature of printmaking, Sondik creates works that reflect close observation, curiosity, and an ongoing dialogue with the natural world.

Gary Gillespie, Tell Me Why, 2025, Mixed media collage, 24 x 22.5 x 1 in

"Tell Me Why" depicts a wounded bird through angular, fractured forms. Editors of Phil Lit Journal recently selected it for publication in the Spring 2026 issue, placing it as a finalist for their cover art contest. It was GJ Gillespie's 205th publication. In addition, the piece generated a strong response at Ethereal Journeys: Abstract Figures and Dreamscapes, Gillespie's solo exhibition at the Coupeville Public Library in January 2026. Working in the tradition of the Northwest Mystics, who created haunting bird figures as symbols of spiritual transformation, "Tell Me Why" explores vulnerability and resilience through layered abstraction, reflecting the visionary legacy of Morris Graves, Mark Tobey, and Kenneth Callahan while speaking in a distinctive collaged voice. GJ Gillespie is a mixed-media collage artist based in Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island, Washington. His work has appeared in 210 literary and art journal publications, 71 exhibitions, and earned 23 awards. He is Professor Emeritus of Communication at Northwest University and has completed six artist residencies at the UW Whiteley Center at Friday Harbor Labs on San Juan Island.

Karen Schmidt, Fremont Canal Tugboat, with Barge and Crane, 2023, Watercolor, 10.5 x 15.5 in

Karen Lee Schmidt moved to Seattle 17 years ago from New York City, where she had a 30 year career as a children's book illustrator. In Seattle her focus veered toward the fine arts, and now, instead of bunnies and silly dogs, she paints the Northwest: landscapes, industrial and urban scenes. Karen loves to work "plein air," in watercolor, oils, and charcoal. While in New York, Karen studied at the Art Students League, The School of Visual Arts and The National Academy of Design. She has continued her painting studies here in Seattle, with Tom Hoffmann, Terry Furchgott, Mitch Albala, and Charles Emerson. Karen has shown her work at many juried shows in the Northwest. These include Royal Nebeker Gallery (Astoria, Oregon,) Seattle BallardWorks Galleries, Magnuson SPACE Gallery, University House Galleries,The Seattle Locks Gallery, the Bremerton CVG Show and The First Street Collective. While in New York she showed with The Society of Illustrators. One of her many picture books, "HOPTOAD," (written by Jane Yolen) won the KIND award from the ASPCA.

Sarah Banks, Babylon, 2015, Mixed Media Collage, 20 x 24 x in

Sarah Banks' work explores the visible and lingering effects of history on people, landscapes, and cultural memory. She is particularly interested in what she describes as "invisible cities and towns"-places shaped by conquest, empire, migration, labor, and decay, where layers of history accumulate over time. Her work considers how large historical forces continue to affect individuals and communities, from ancient civilizations to contemporary working lives.

Working across paper cut, printmaking-including serigraph, intaglio, and monotype-and painting, Banks combines observation, research, and material process to investigate these themes. Long periods of travel and artist residencies in Portugal, Spain, and Washington State have deeply informed her practice, providing both visual and historical points of departure. Sketches and studies developed during travel are later reexamined and expanded within her Seattle studio.

Banks is a member of Center on Contemporary Art, Seattle Print Arts, and Northwest Collage Society. Her work has been exhibited throughout the Pacific Northwest, Los Angeles, North Carolina, and Portugal, and is included in both public and private collections in the United States and abroad.

Margaret Davidson, Teapot, cup and saucer, colored pencil on rag paper, 21 x 21 x 2 in

Margaret Davidson's work explores the relationship between the drawing mark and the surface on which it exists. Whether working in realism or abstraction, she is interested in the tension between the physical reality of the drawn mark and the illusion created through representation. For Davidson, this interplay is central to the experience of drawing itself.

She often works within the still life tradition, a genre she finds especially subtle and compelling. Beyond the objects depicted, she is interested in what still life can reveal about the person who selected, arranged, and lived with those objects. Through careful observation and composition, her drawings examine presence, memory, and human experience through seemingly ordinary forms.

Davidson works almost exclusively in drawing, on paper and other surfaces, embracing realism as a means of exploring abstraction, structure, and perception. She holds a BFA from the University of Michigan and an MFA from the University of Washington. She has taught at Gage Academy of Art and has also worked as a scientific illustrator.

Nicole Lang, Near Cape Meares, 2025, oil on cradled panel, 16 x 20 x 2 in

Nicki Lang is a multidisciplinary artist whose creative practice embraces experimentation and exploration across materials and forms. After spending a decade crafting leather goods, she turned to painting with a palette knife, creating expressive Pacific Northwest landscapes inspired by the region's atmosphere and terrain. This work is part of her ongoing series Love Letters to the Northwest, painted from reference photographs taken along the Oregon Coast.

More recently, Lang has expanded her practice into hand-built ceramics, exploring both sculptural and functional forms through clay. Her work reflects a playful and intuitive approach to making, grounded in curiosity and a strong connection to place.

Christen Mattix, Resting Girl, 2024, oil, 18 x 24 x 2 in

Christen Mattix is a painter whose work centers on slowness, presence, and the quiet beauty found in ordinary life. She was part of a two person show with Susan Bennerstrom at Rick Leonard Gallery in 2025. Her work has been shown at the Whatcom Museum, Bainbridge Island Art Museum, and SAM Gallery, among others. Mattix's work graces the Permanent Collection of the Bainbridge Island Art Museum, the City of Burlington, and numerous private collections.

Kimberly Balla, Dust and ruins, 2021, oil and metallic pigment on panel, 24 x 24 x 1.5 in

Kimberly Balla's work is rooted in experimentation with paint as a chemical and material system, using unconventional mixtures to generate unexpected textures and patterns. Through a process developed over more than thirteen years, she combines traditional oil paint with modern mediums, allowing controlled chemical interactions to produce unique surfaces that feel both accidental and intentional.

Her practice engages an "alchemical" approach to painting, where material transformation mirrors cycles found in nature-building, breaking down, and reforming into new visual structures. These processes result in works that explore themes of emergence, impermanence, and continuity within natural and perceptual systems.

Balla is particularly drawn to recurring symbolic forms such as the circle and ring, which appear across cultures in motifs like halos, mandalas, and the Enso. Influenced in part by ideas associated with Carl Jung and the collective unconscious, she explores the circle as a universal structure of meaning and connection.

Fractals also play a central role in her imagery, reflecting patterns found in nature, mathematics, and systems of scale from micro to macro. Through these forms, her work seeks to evoke a sense of interconnectedness, creating immersive, dreamlike environments that invite viewers into what she describes as a liminal, hypnagogic space of familiarity and wonder.

Abigail Drapkin, Nora at the Studio with Daffodils, 2024, Oil on canvas, 28 x 24 x 1.75 in

Interiority is both the setting and psychological terrain of Abigail Drapkin's paintings. Her figures press into corners, recline upside down, and wedge against one another within compressed domestic spaces that at times fracture into geometric planes. Rooted in lived experiences of womanhood and shaped by conversations with family, friends, and models, the work explores motherhood, caregiving, relationships, aging, and the quiet tensions of domestic life.

Drapkin often begins from direct observation, painting her subjects while in conversation with them, then continuing after they leave. Through layered marks and shifting structures of light and geometry, she searches for balance between observation and emotional memory. Books, seedlings, newspapers, thread, and other fragments of daily life become symbols of responsibility, intimacy, and the persistent noise of the outside world.

Influenced by Frantisek Kupka, Gustav Klimt, Pierre Bonnard, Edvard Munch, and Richard Diebenkorn, her paintings move between figuration and abstraction, dissolving bodies into patterned geometries and layered color. By painting herself and the women around her, Drapkin subverts the historical male gaze, replacing fantasy with lived experience, vulnerability, stillness, and emotional complexity.

Cory Goulet, A Head of His Time, 2025, Paper Collage, mixed media, 24 x 24 x 1 in

Cory Goulet is an award-winning Master Pastelist and mixed media artist whose work embodies an intuitive abstract style. Through layered compositions of line, shape, and color, Goulet explores the balance between chaos and harmony while inviting viewers to form their own personal connections to the work.

Central to the practice is the transformation of discarded and overlooked materials. Goulet incorporates found and revitalized papers, vintage elements, and handcrafted papers produced in the studio, creating richly textured surfaces that reflect themes of renewal and reinvention. Each piece emerges through a spontaneous and intuitive process guided by experimentation, memory, and the subconscious.

By breathing new life into ephemeral materials, Goulet transforms what was once forgotten into something resonant and meaningful. The work celebrates process, imperfection, and the quiet beauty of reuse, revealing how fragments of the past can be reassembled into new visual narratives.

Kate Rusek, Nothing is Required of You Here 4 (La Albiceleste), 2023, porcelain, industrial mineral glaze, palladium luster, 3 x 10 x 4 in

Kate Rusek's sculpture, installation, research, and writing examine the connective edges and dissonant intersections between humanity and the natural world. Rooted in Post-Natural Studies, her work engages materials and objects through complex processes in which the synthetic yields to organic fluidity.

Rusek forages history-laden excess from society to construct scenes that interrogate the binary between living and manufactured worlds, emphasizing somatic experience, craft, and deep time. Her current practice explores novel casting techniques to create vessels of accumulation, translating biomedical discards into porcelain micromarine-inspired organisms.

These works stitch together considerations of fertility, reproduction, and legacy across human and non-human kin. Working with clay, she captures forces of fluidity, water, and air, grounding the medium in its Earth-based origins. This deep-time orientation situates her practice within "old-growth thinking," where past, present, and future converge in intimate, handheld forms.

Ron Wigginton, Atmosphere, 2005, Co-polymer and metallic on honeycomb aluminum panel, 15 x 11 x 1 in

Ron Wigginton is a Fellow of the Morris Graves' Foundation where he painted the "Loleta"series (Solo Exhibition - Fresno Art Museum, and the "Washi" series (Solo Exhibition - Ugi, Japan). He earned an MFA from the University of Oregon and taught at Cornish School of Art, UC Berkeley and Davis and exhibited extensively in Portland and Seattle including representation by the Foster/White Gallery and in Japan. He lives and works between his studios near Yosemite and in Bellingham. His paintings are included in the Permanent Collections of the Seattle Art Museum, the Museum of Northwest Art, The Portland Art Museum, the Oakland Museum, and many Pacific Northwest private collections.

Ria Harboe, In Conversation, 2025, Acrylic, 36 x 24 x 1.5 in

Ria Harboe's work is rooted in an ongoing search for a heightened level of awareness-one that exists just beyond the visible world. Across her practice, there is a consistent attraction to the mysterious and the ineffable, a sensibility that reveals itself through shifting light, atmosphere, and perception.

While wandering in nature, Harboe is drawn to moments when the familiar becomes subtly otherworldly, when light transforms the landscape into something more eerie, dramatic, or charged with presence. These fleeting conditions inform her painting process and her desire to extend what is already seen into something slightly beyond recognition.

Her aim is not to replicate the natural world, but to intensify its latent strangeness, amplifying atmosphere and sensation. In doing so, she creates works that hover between observation and imagination, where the boundaries of reality soften and perception becomes an experience of transition and wonder.

Jonelle Johnson, It's Gold, 2025, Monotype, 30 x 35 in

Jonelle Johnson's prints emerge in a space between intention and its dissolution, where process and chance shape the final image. Her printmaking practice embraces unpredictability, allowing for welcome surprises that arise through material interaction and layered decision-making.

At the heart of her work is an interest in how a two-dimensional surface can be disrupted to create a visceral sense of depth. A single brushstroke or mark can shift perception, suggesting dimensional space within a flat plane. Johnson explores this phenomenon through overlapping shapes, calligraphic gestures, and rhythmic accumulation of line.

In this way, her studio practice becomes a site of discovery, where control and accident coexist. The resulting works reflect the "magic of printmaking"-the moment when process reveals something unexpected, and meaning emerges through the tension between intention and absence.

Kathleen Kemly, King's Meadow; Sister Lakes, 2025, Mixed Media Acrylic on Panel, 30 x 21 x 1 in

Kathleen Kemly finds solace and peace in nature, whether hiking through forests or watching rainstorms roll across the city from her porch. These moments of connection foster a sense of continuity with all living things and inform the foundation of her painting practice.

An avid backpacker, she has explored the mountains of the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia, as well as landscapes across the western United States, Hawaii, and Costa Rica. These experiences shape her visual language of color, rhythm, and form, through which she seeks to convey the felt presence of place.

Kemly's paintings often begin in direct response to nature, where she experiences a kinship with trees, clouds, and mountainous terrain. In this space, she perceives a persistent "thrum" of life that endures despite human disruption. Her work aims to translate this energy into visual form, inviting viewers into a moment of immersion and reflection.

Through abstraction rooted in lived experience, her paintings become portals-offering an encounter with the essential vitality of the natural world and a reminder of its fragility and importance.

Johannes Kunst, op zolder1, 1974, pencil ink gouache, 11.5 x 14.5 x 1 in

Johannes Kunst was a Dutch-born artist who emigrated to the US in 1958. He studied graphic arts and worked in the field for years. Eventually he turned to his art which he was dedicated to pursuing for the rest of his years. Kunst's artistic journey spanned four decades, during which he explored a variety of styles and techniques. His compositions often feature biomorphic shapes, symbolic imagery, and a whimsical, childlike quality that exudes spontaneity and freedom. Johannes style is imbued with a strong narrative quality, reflecting personal experienced, fantasies and deeply rooted memories. Kunst's work has often been interpreted as an exploration and elaboration of the traumatic experiences of WWII. His years as an artist served as a means of self-expression and self-healing allowing him to navigate and transform his personal history into something resonant.

Cynthia Richardson, Out on a Limb Again, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 16 x 20 x .75 in

Cynthia Richardson is an artist and retired architect living in Anacortes, Washington. Cynthia started painting in college, but put her brushes aside for many years of graduate school, raising children, and a full-time architectural career. Rediscovering the pleasures of painting a few years ago, she now shows her work in several galleries, and enjoys the challenges of this new creative adventure. While Cynthia paints a variety of subjects, landscapes are a special interest, along with the birds, animals, trees and flowers that share our world. She enjoys creating scenes that invite the viewers into the picture so that they can imagine themselves being in that place, or be reminded of somewhere they've been. Cynthia was honored to be a featured artist in LaConner's Art's Alive 2017 Invitational Show. Many of her paintings have been selected for juried shows at the Anacortes Arts Festival and the Edmonds Arts Festival. Her paintings are displayed in the permanent art collections at Island Hospital and Skagit Valley Hospital, and the Anacortes Public Library and she is an Artist's Magazine award winner.

Kristen Ingman, Bridge Over Whatcom Falls, 2024, Oil on Canvas, 24 x 36 x 2 in

Kristen Ingman draws primary inspiration from the colors, forms, textures, and compositions found in nature. Often encountered on trails, she can be found photographing moments when light sifts through trees or reflects off water, treating these fleeting conditions as an essential part of her creative process.

Her work translates these observations into watercolor, gouache, and oil paintings that reflect the landscapes she has experienced while running trails throughout the Pacific Northwest and beyond. These environments serve not only as subject matter but also as a source of emotional grounding.

Ingman's paintings aim to communicate the sense of peace, wonder, and joy she experiences outdoors. Through attentive observation and responsive mark-making, she seeks to capture the ephemeral qualities of light and atmosphere, allowing viewers to share in the immediacy of those natural moments.

Susan Cohen Thompson, Gathering at Sunset, 2022, ceramic, 8 x 11 x 1 in,

Thompson's imagery flows out of her perception that the Earth and Cosmos are alive with consciousness. Her softly calming and dreamlike style flows from her heart centered perspective of the living land that embraces life. In Thompson's cosmology, the birds are symbolic of a dream she had where 1000 birds flew out of her hands and traveled the globe whispering to humans how to be more Earth honoring. All the birds in Thompson's art are part of that thousand. The work hopes to evoke that feeling.

Craig J. Barber, Gathering Tulips, 2021, Archival Pigment Ink on Rag Paper, 24 x 36 in, Limited Edition 2/4

Craig J. Barber's work documents food production on small farms in early 21st-century North America. His photographs offer an introduction to the daily working lives of farmers and farm workers: the continuous cycle of planting and cultivating, irrigating and harvesting, preparing crops for market, and caring for livestock. These tasks repeat without pause, year after year, revealing what it takes to feed us and sustain the landscapes farmers tend.

While this project focuses on a small region of the Pacific Northwest-Skagit Valley-the labor of farming is universal.

Peter de Lory, Upper Racehorse Creek Falls, Whatcom County, WA 2020, 2020, Photograph, archival pigment print, 21 x 26.5 x 1.75 in

Peter de Lory began making photographs of the landscape on Cape Cod at the age of sixteen. Growing up on a narrow spit of land surrounded by ocean anchored his early sense of place and attuned him to the relationship between land and water. Later, traveling west to study in San Francisco, he was struck by the scale and vastness of the American landscape.

Looking back, de Lory sees the evolution of his work as mirroring the environments and structures he has inhabited. He describes his approach as that of a "romantic structuralist," a term he coined to define a practice grounded in formal clarity and straightforward structure, which in turn allows space for emotional and interpretive openness.

His work consistently returns to the interplay between memory, myth, and lived reality-a tension well suited to the framing capacities of photography. Committed to a regional approach, de Lory understands his role as an intermediary between viewer and environment, re-representing place in a way that removes it from the everyday and opens it to layered meaning.

Alida Latham, Salt Evaporation Pond Walvis Bay Namibia. Purchased 2013, Photograph
26"H x 37"W x 1" framed

Alida Latham is a Seattle based photographer who travels the world documenting the culture, wildlife, and environment she sees. Her work has been shown at Honeychurch Antiques in Seattle and has been published in National Geographic.

Arthur S. Aubry, Switchbox @ King County Airport 1/6, unknown date, C print photography
28 1/2" H x 28 1/2" W x 3/4"deep

Arthur Aubry photographs details from industrial landscapes around the Northwest with great formal control and grace. He has exhibited locally at such venues as Esther Claypool Gallery, Linda Cannon Gallery, and more recently at University of Puget Sound and Arizona State University. His work is included in the permanent collections of Seattle Art Museum, Henry Art Gallery, and the Microsoft Art Collection among others. Aubry runs his own commercial studio business in addition to his work as a fine artist. He has begun a relationship with the Gitterman Gallery in New York and has an upcoming show there in late 2006.

Jazz Morgan, Moon's Woven Stories, 2026, OIL, 20 x 24 x 2 in, rust background purple flowers expressive

Artists are runners, carrying stories from earlier times and maintaining a direct connection to nature. Jazz Morgan's imagery is expansive, combining bold use of color with rich gestural marks and open spaces that invite viewers to become active participants in the work.

The paintings emerge through a process of planting, tending, and harvesting the inputs of lived experience.

Brooke Borcherding, Wetlands in the Rain, 2022, Acrylic plein air, 24 x 36 x 1.5 in

Brooke is a full-time award-winning artist working out of Wallingford, Seattle WA. Her acrylic landscape paintings depict familiar places in her own innovative and deconstructive technique using broken color mark making. She paints both en plein air (on site) and from photos in the studio, aiming to capture the beauty of everyday places with a style to stimulate our perception. People have described her work as a contemporary take on Cezanne's cubism or a modern impressionism, which enables the viewer to engage and investigate a scene further. Brooke has been painting almost 20 years and earned her BFA from the University of Oregon in 2010. Although she obtained an art degree, she considers herself a self-taught artist when it comes to landscape painting, as most of her "brush miles" come from a prolific output, working from observation and abstaining from any landscape workshops. Over the past decade as an exhibiting artist she has become nationally collected, shows in galleries on the West Coast and has earned numerous awards for her vibrant work. Last summer she took home 1st place at the 2025 Whidbey Island plein air paintout.

Richard Longstreet, 2025 06, 2025, Oil painting on board, 36 x 24 x 2 in

Richard Longstreet has been learning and teaching art for over sixty years. While he has accumulated degrees and credentials, his primary sources of learning have been individual artists he has encountered or worked with-whether briefly or over extended periods-as well as every student he has ever known.

He believes that art is, beyond any decorative or polemical function, a synthesis of all that is felt or known, however contradictory. His work is grounded in an interest in the pre-conscious layering and juxtaposition of diverse impressions in the formation of meaning.

Longstreet describes his practice as a form of "conscious dreaming," intended to engage the viewer's own deeper perception.

Lisa Daniel, Strength of a Samurai, 2025, Acrylic, fiberglass & glass beads on panel, 30 x 30 x 2 in

Lisa Daniel creates large-scale mixed-media abstract paintings through the pouring, directing, and manipulation of layered materials including fluid acrylics, gels, paper, fabric, and other elements applied to canvas. Her work explores the interplay of color, texture, depth, and transparency, inviting viewers into intricate surfaces where forms continually emerge and shift.

Each piece begins with a considered composition and palette. Her process is intentional and methodical: multiple canvases are placed on the floor, and paint is poured from above, guided by tilting surfaces and wedges that control movement. Layer by layer, the work evolves through a process that demands patience, precision, and sustained attention.

At the same time, the drying process introduces unpredictability. While waiting for layers to set can be challenging, Daniel often responds to the temptation to intervene mid-process, allowing disruption and spontaneity to reshape the work. These interventions can transform the surface, generating unexpected textures and forms.

Her practice is defined by the tension between control and chaos, and by the ongoing search for moments when the surface resolves into something compelling and alive.

Chris Stine-Elliott
Elementals
2012
Collage
25 x 21 x .5

Bruce Hall, Glove Stories, 2004, Photos, 40 x 200 x 1 in, Photos of lost gloves. In-situ. Framed and artfully presented

Glove Stories began after Bruce Hall's wife pointed out a few lost gloves lying unnoticed along the street. Once he began noticing them, he saw them everywhere. What started as curiosity became an obsession. Hall photographs lost gloves exactly as he finds them - never moved, arranged, or staged.

The collection has grown into an archive of nearly 2,000 images documenting these overlooked objects and the quiet human presence they suggest. A child's mitten in the rain, a worn work glove on gravel, or a single leather glove in snow each hints at an untold story.

From this archive, 120 photographs have been framed and artfully presented in public exhibitions. Displayed together, the images transform ordinary discarded objects into a study of repetition, chance, absence, and memory.

Glove Stories invites viewers to slow down and reconsider the unnoticed details embedded within everyday life.

Margy Lavelle, Permutations, 2025, oil and dry pigment on canvas, 24 x 24 x 2 in, painting

Margy Lavelle has painted and drawn for most of her life. She began drawing as a child and completed her first oil paintings at the age of fifteen. She later moved from Fargo, North Dakota to Seattle, Washington, where she attended the University of Washington School of Art, graduating in 1976 with a BFA in painting.

During her studies, she had the opportunity to work with Robert Jones, Alden Mason, Norman Lundin, Mike Dailey, and spent an independent year with Jacob Lawrence. She also studied with Elaine de Kooning through the Centrum program in 1978. Alongside raising a family and supporting herself through work, her art practice at times took a secondary role.

Lavelle now lives in the Skagit Valley, where she has returned to working as a full-time artist. The region's changing light and open vistas have inspired a renewed approach to painting that re-engages drawing through oil paint and brushwork. What once felt separated in her practice-drawing and painting-has now merged. She describes a renewed sense of freedom and buoyancy that carries through into the work.

Kathy Roseth, Wheel Bound, 2023, Oil on Canvas, 24 x 18 x 1 in

Wheelbound combines imagery of the traditional "Storm at Sea" quilting pattern with the familiar sight of Canada geese, stepping their way through colorful triangles, their curving backs mirroring the straight/curved lines of the pattern, enmeshing them. Roseth has long been fascinated by the austere power of traditional Amish quilts, having spent the first twenty years of her artistic production as an avid quilter exploring how simple geometric patterns establish a framework through which fantastic color progressions and color effects are possible.

Karen Bakke, PNW Menagerie, 2026, Soft Pastel, 38 x 14 x 1 in

As the Impressionists have done, Karen Bakke enjoys observing nature, painting en plein air and breathing that life into her studio paintings. She is not held back by any one type of subject or medium and is persistently creating challenges for herself. Karen strives to find that certain "je ne c'est quoi" - evoking a memory, a mood, or passion.

Nelleke Langhout Nix
Beanswarm
1993
Polaroid Transfer
15" x 14.5"

Julie Baer, Crater lichen (Diploschistes muscorum), 2025, Mixed media on wood panel, 24 x 24 x 2 in

Julie Baer's work reflects deeply felt encounters with local nature, focusing on small-scale, often overlooked native land- and waterscapes as they shift through seasonal cycles. She seeks to capture the immediacy of a first glimpse of a scene, following the changing shapes, colors, and compositions shaped by movement and shifting light.

Her approach balances scientific attentiveness, aesthetic abstraction, and a sense of human spirituality. She aims to surprise viewers with uncommon vantage points-looking down, up, close, and inward-encouraging the same sustained attention she brings to her subjects. Central to her work is an interest in the complex design and recurring patterns of nature: intricate life forms on aging trees, dense intermingling of growth and decay on the forest floor, dynamic activity within water, and fragmented skies filtered through canopies.

Through heavily layered mixed-media surfaces-including painted paper, metallic pigment, glass beads, seashells, sea glass, and pebbles-her compositions become textured and uneven, as though life is emerging from within them. Often without a fixed focal point, the works reflect the mobile and sometimes disorienting ways nature is experienced.

Baer's practice is also shaped by environmental awareness and concern for habitat loss. By honoring local ecosystems, she aligns her work with calls for native restoration and rewilding. Her work ultimately invites viewers to reconnect with nature, reflecting research linking time outdoors with wellbeing, and encouraging attentive, restorative engagement with the natural world.

Jeffrey Thostenson
Untitled
Acrylic on Arches paper
32" x 24" Framed

Jeffrey Thostensonwas a voracious reader and a longtime artist. He spent long hours in the La Conner Memorial Library and the Mount Vernon City Library pouring over art books and periodicals, reading thrillers, and searching out obscure mystical religious writings. His painting are abstract- acrylics on paper or woods.

Anna Skibska, What a Day!, Glass, 0 x 10 x 0 in

Anna Skibska's work sits at the intersection of sculpture, architecture, three-dimensional line drawing, and even storytelling. She uses a powerful acetylene torch to melt and stretch glass rods, creating slender and transparent threads, that are then joined to create perfectly balanced sculptures. Her signature technique, known as the Anna Skibska Technique, was developed in the early 1990s.

Skibska graduated from the Painting program at the Academy of Art in Wroclaw, Poland in 1984. She later was a professor of fine arts and architecture at the Academy of Art. In 1988, her work was selected for the respected New Glass Review journal, and the Corning Museum of Glass recommended her as an instructor at Pilchuck Glass School. She was grateful to escape the artistic isolation of communist Poland to teach at Pilchuck. Prior to immigrating to Seattle in 1996, she had already exhibited her work extensively throughout Europe and Japan. She went on to exhibit internationally, including in the Tuileries in Paris, Musee-Atelier du Verre, Museo del Vetro in Murano (coinciding with the Venice Biennale), National Museum in Wroclaw, and in a solo exhibition at the Seattle Art Museum. In 2004, the flameworking studio in Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle, WA was officially named the Anna Skibska Flameworking Studio. Anna Skibska continues to be an influential artist in the Seattle art community.

Jennifer Frohwerk, Garden Window, 2016, oil on canvas, 28 x 36 x 2 in

Jennifer Frohwerk studied abroad in Italy after completing her university degree. While in Florence, she took a drawing class in which she sketched the interior of the Chiesa Santo Spirito, sitting cross-legged on the stone floor with her drawing board in her lap. During a critique, her professor encouraged her to move beyond ornate detail and instead consider how to draw the space contained by the architecture-how to depict the air itself and the filtered light.

This idea became formative in her practice: how to represent not only objects, but atmosphere, movement, and the sense of awe within a space. She continues this inquiry in Seattle through en plein air drawing and painting, working outdoors to capture architectural forms in neighborhoods such as Queen Anne and Capitol Hill. Indoors, she studies windows, curtains, and the shifting boundary between interior and exterior worlds.

She also revisits childhood slides as a source of inspiration, drawing on contemplative images shaped by early experiences of reading, observation, and imagination.

Anne Martin-McCool, Sun Moon Day, 2021, mixed media on canvas, 30 x 30 x 2 in

Anne Martin-McCool's work explores the beauty and complexity of the natural world through an abstract lens. Drawing inspiration from traditional landscape painting, she uses bold brushwork, vivid color palettes, and an expressive, intuitive approach to create works that are grounded in observation yet transformed through abstraction.

Her aim is to evoke atmosphere and emotional response, encouraging viewers to develop a deeper connection to the environment and to reflect on the relationship between humanity and the natural world. Through the abstraction of natural forms, she seeks to capture not only what landscapes look like, but what they feel like.

Working in acrylics, inks, and mixed media, her process balances spontaneity with intention. Materials are allowed to guide the development of each piece as layers accumulate gradually, until a final composition emerges. Through this approach, she strives to distill the essence of the landscapes that inspire her while also creating images that feel new, unexpected, and alive.

Don Wesley, Bald Starling, 2021, Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 x 1.5 in

Don Wesley's practice has been shaped profoundly by teachers, mentorship, and education. He describes educators as central to both his development as an artist and his broader personal growth, offering guidance, support, and formative direction.

While studying art at Western Washington University in the mid-1990s, Wesley worked closely with painting professor and mentor Ed Bereal, who emphasized the idea that art can function as a "lever for change," a principle that continues to inform his work. Another professor, Margery Amdur, introduced him to the use of non-art materials and techniques for making acrylics behave like oils through mediums and suspensions. His study of dance under Nolan Dennett also informs his understanding of movement and the depiction of physical gesture in his work.

Wesley is an artist and teacher living and working in Skagit County, with studios in Day Creek and La Conner. His engagement with nature began after arriving in Washington State from Ohio in 1989 while serving in the U.S. Army at Fort Lewis. After completing his service, he earned a degree from Western Washington University in 1995 with portfolios in painting, illustration, and graphic design. In 2025, he completed the Washington State Arts Commission's Teaching Artist Training Lab (TATLab) and now teaches art for grades K-12 throughout Skagit County through the Museum of Northwest Art's Creative Connections program.

Kate Oltmann, Eagle with Bull Elk, 2026, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 x 2 in

Kate Oltmannt lives and works in rural Northwest Montana, on land where her family homesteaded and built structures in Glacier National Park. Her work is rooted in land, labor, lineage, and the traditions that have shaped-and continue to shape-the American West.

Working in cyanotype and oil paint, she integrates quilt patterns passed down through generations. Often dismissed as "craft" due to their association with women's work, these patterns become a central visual language in her paintings. They function as echoes of the women whose labor built and sustained the West, even as their stories remain largely unrecorded.

Oltmannt is interested in depicting the West as it exists now, where tradition is not a relic but a living practice carried forward by families and communities. Her paintings operate as both record and reflection, honoring the quiet labor of women while examining contemporary life through pattern, gesture, and material grit.

Katie Kratzer, Sunset Sea Spray, 2022, acrylic on raw canvas, 38 x 52 x 1.5 in

Katie Kratzer (b. 1985) is a painter based on Mercer Island, Washington. Her work explores color, instinct, and vibrational energy - compositions made from a meditative place, often with her eyes closed. Katie Kratzer works channeling source energy, releasing inhibition and allowing instinct to guide her mark-making. Her process embraces spontaneity and fluidity while exploring the relationship between intuition and composition. The result is a celebration of layered color and expressive, gestural marks, drawing inspiration from music, joy, and visceral experiences. She comes to painting through an unusual convergence. Twenty years as a professional graphic designer - brand experience for Alaska Airlines, art programming for Kaiser Permanente WA, environmental graphics for REI - gave her a deep fluency with color theory and visual communication; and work recognized with a SEGD Global Design Merit Award and an Interior Design Magazine Best of Year Finalist. She studied color under Pantone's Leatrice Eisman. And then there is synesthesia - sounds arriving as fields of amorphous color, music becoming a physical space she moves through and paints from. Dyslexia, rather than a limitation, taught her to think non-linearly, to trust what arrives intuitively over what can be reasoned through. Together these ways of perceiving the world have led her to believe that the best work doesn't come from her so much as through her - that in the right state, painting becomes less an act of making and more an act of listening. She works in action, not calculation. Occasionally the canvas itself becomes a mark - ripped, sewn, or intervened upon in the same intuitive moment as the paint, never as an afterthought. Some of her most honest work has been made in stolen hours - on the bathroom floor during a toddler's nap, at the kitchen sink while her husband took the kids out for an hour. She has three young sons, whom she includes in an evolving series, Painting with My Sons - always moved by their uninhibited marks and their complete absence of doubt. The practice has had to learn to live inside a life, not apart from it. She has come to believe that constraint is not the enemy of the work. Often, it is the work. Her paintings draw from joy, grief, motherhood, memory, and the conviction that color carries its own vibrational frequency - that a painting made from a genuine place carries that energy into whatever room it enters, into whoever lives with it. A piece changes meaning over time - as she does. She has sold and shown work through her studio practice since 2017, with commissions for residential clients and corporate environments, and auction exhibitions including the Museum of Northwest Art. Her deepest affinities are with the 9th Street women: Mitchell, Frankenthaler, Hartigan. The painters who trusted the body, the instinct, the mark that arrives before the thought does.

Laura Lasworth, Natural & Grafted Branches, 2010, Oil on wood panel, 12 x 12 x 1 in

Laura Lasworth received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and MFA from California Institute of the Arts. Since her first solo show in 1981, she has consistently exhibited her work in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Her work has been featured in publications such as Art in America, Artforum, the Los Angeles Times, and the Huffington Post. Lasworth was born and raised in Chicago, IL. After many years living in Los Angeles, she relocated to Seattle, Washington, in 2002, where she currently resides.

Laura Lasworth is a painter who's known for her use of sophisticated literary, philosophical, and personal symbolism. In her elaborate cycles of paintings, her method is like a long form writer where each cycle functions as a chapter, from which a continuing narrative emerges. Across the decades, laden trees, stormy skies, lace cloths, and broken branches have become familiar motifs of her personal vocabulary. In her solo shows, viewers encountered imagined interiors, symbolic still-lifes, and various landscapes that feature ever-changing weather patterns over mythical fields where admired persons may make an appearance, or absent fathers and missing children return. Through her art, she aims to provide viewers with a respite in a space that reflects our common humanity, away from the unjust, complex, and complicated world we find ourselves in today.

Valeriya Bugatti, Fairy, 2016, acrylics paint on Canvas, 24 x 18 x in

Valeriya Bugatti's work is a process of devotion measured not in hours, but in depth. Each piece begins with research into history, culture, textiles, movement, and symbolism, approached with a commitment to authenticity, respect, and precision. She spends extensive time constructing not only an image, but a layered narrative that develops gradually over time.

This body of work explores identity, feminine strength, and ancestral memory, engaging the tension between historical reality and contemporary interpretation. Rather than replication, her goal is resonance-creating work that feels emotionally and materially truthful even when reimagined.

Texture, composition, and detail are central to her process. Each artwork is treated as a living environment in which clothing, gesture, and atmosphere carry meaning and contribute to the narrative. The intention is to evoke presence rather than simply produce an image.

Still in the ongoing process of artistic development, Bugatti views each finished work as a point of departure for further research and refinement. Her practice is understood as evolving, with the aim of inviting viewers into that evolution. If her work sparks recognition, curiosity, or emotion, she considers it to have fulfilled its purpose.

Robert Matinjussi, Basket of Shadows, 2026, Tempera, 24 x 18 in

Robert Matinjussi is a deeply observant artist who sees the world through a lens of detail and subtlety. For him, painting is not about solving problems or adhering to formulas, but about capturing the essence of an image.

He understands style as something akin to handwriting-distinct, personal, and reflective of individuality. Each mark or stroke carries a sense of personal perspective, shaped by how he perceives the world rather than by prescribed rules or prevailing trends.

For Matinjussi, observation becomes an intimate act of translation, where what is seen is filtered through perception and re-expressed as personal vision.

Mark Larson, Out of the Office, 2025, Oil on panel, 30 x 48 x 1.5 in

Mark Larson's work explores the meeting place between external landscapes and the inner lives we carry into them. He is drawn to the sublime landscapes and architecture of Italy, the high ridges and deserts of the American West, old-growth forests, and the thundering beaches of the Pacific Coast-not only as scenery, but as repositories for memory, grief, and gratitude.

Working as an oil painter, Larson builds images that function as thresholds, existing between the real and the symbolic. Architectural fragments, mythical animals, and manmade objects appear alongside recognizable natural landscapes, creating spaces where dream and reality intersect. In works such as Out of the Office, a computer desk is placed within a thundering surf, reflecting on the fragility of human endeavor in relation to the power of nature.

Ultimately, his work invites viewers to consider their own crossings: the people they have loved, the places that have shaped them, and how lived experience transforms landscapes into something sacred and personally resonant.

Kathleen McCarty, Rumba, 2026, acrylic on canvas, 48 x 36 x 1.5 in

Kathleen McCarty is an abstract painter interested in creating work that uplifts and energizes a space through color and presence. Her paintings develop through a process of discovery, in which she releases control and allows color, movement, and composition to guide her toward unexpected outcomes.

She grew up in Wisconsin and earned her BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago, including a year of study in Florence, Italy. After graduation, she moved west and eventually settled in Northwest Washington, where she has lived for many years. The Skagit Valley's coastal light, waterways, and landscape continue to deeply influence her work.

A key shift in her practice came when she began working on raw canvas laid on the floor rather than prepared canvas on the wall. Through pouring and staining, each layer interacts organically with the next. Working without a fixed plan, she allows each painting to reveal itself over time.

Her daily three-and-a-half-mile morning walk-through water, cliffs, cedar forests, and wildlife-is a significant source of inspiration. Each walk offers a different experience, which she carries back into the studio as energy, observation, and momentum.

Kelsey Fernkopf and Steve Gilbert, Magic Meadow, 2025, Archival pigment print, wood frame with a plywood backer under museum glass, 60 x 84 x 180 in

Kelsey Fernkopf is a visual artist who creates site-responsive light installations using luminous neon glass tubing. Drawing on more than three decades of experience fabricating neon, he places geometric neon forms in forests, open landscapes, and urban environments. Situated in unexpected surroundings, his site-responsive work reveals each location through immersive, radiant forms that echo architectural fragments and operate as symbolic markers. Encountered in the wild, these installations are both phenomenological and threshold-like: ephemeral points of arrival that alter perception and soften the distinction between here and there, between nature and the neon element itself.

Steve Gilbert translates these transient installations into digital archival pigment prints. His photographic sensitivity captures the sculptural and spatial qualities of the work, as well as the unique luminosity of neon. His images are not simply documents, but extensions of the work itself. His photographs hold the tension between presence and disappearing, capturing moments where luminescent form and environment briefly converge. They suggest temporal openings to other worlds, preserving the experiential threshold while transforming it into a lasting contemplative form.

Cie Goulet, August Day, 1989, Monoprint, 26" x 37.5'' x 1.5"

Cie Goulet is an American contemporary artist known for her rich, vibrant monotype prints and oil paintings of warm landscapes, particularly the vineyards and oak groves of the Pacific Northwest and California

Scott Sueme, A Rare Spruce, 2019, Acrylic on panel, 36 in. X 36 in. X 1 in.

Scott Sueme is a contemporary Canadian artist known for his hard-edge abstract paintings and assemblages that explore the interplay of color, geometry, and texture. Based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Sueme transitioned from a background in graffiti and graphic design to focus full-time on fine art. His practice bridges digital composition with hands-on, meticulous craftsmanship.

William Ingham, Quake, 1994, Acrylic on board, 18 x 14, Framed 25 x 21

William Partridge Ingham (1944-2025) was a prominent Seattle-born American painter celebrated for his vivid, large-scale Abstract Expressionist works. Over a career spanning more than three decades, his unique approach fused bicoastal influences-specifically drawing from the New York School and Minimalism-while capturing the creative evolution of modernism within the Pacific Northwest art scene

Terry Furchgott, Untitled, 1986-1987, Pastel over watercolor, 28.5 x 38.25

Terry Furchgott has made art her career and her passion for over fifty years. She is represented by the Harris Harvey Gallery in Seattle, WA. Working primarily in acrylic and soft pastel, her paintings focus on the figure and are notable for their depth of color, strong, innovative compositions and exploration of archetypal human relationships and of the Feminine. Furchgott received an honors degree in art history from Radcliffe College and studied classical drawing and painting at the Camden Arts Center, London. She brings a broad understanding of art history, seasoned practical experience, a continuing creative excitement and a questioning mind both to her creative process and to her work as a teacher.

Furchgott has been the recipient of Individual Artist Awards and Fellowships from the Washington State Arts Commission, the King County Arts Commission and Artist Trust. Along with her studio work she has also pursued a successful career in public art, completing large-scale commissions for the Seattle Center House, the Kent Regional Justice Center, the United States Post Office, the Regional Arts and Culture Council of Portland, the Fairbanks School District, Olympia High School and the Washington State Arts Commission among others. A community activist, Furchgott has used her talents as an artist to design and coordinate several key community projects including the Art to the People Project, a multidisciplinary arts celebration of Seattle's African Americans, and The First Street Artist's Collective, an ongoing mentoring and critique group for emerging and established Seattle artists.

She is represented in key Northwest collections and her work can be viewed at the Microsoft Corporation, the WA Sate Arts Commission, the Seattle Center, Virginia Mason Medical Center, the UW Medical Center, Continental Bank, McDonald's Corporation, Providence Hospital, Group Health, Federal Home Loan Bank, and the United States Postal Service.

Lavone Newell-Reim, Untitled, Date Unknown, Acrylic Painting, 24"x24"x1.5"

Lavone Newell-Reim was an influential abstract painter, author, educator, and a cornerstone of the Pacific Northwest art community. Often described as a "mother figure" to the Skagit Valley arts scene, she spent decades cultivating a creative sanctuary at her home and barn on Fir Island, Washington

Janie Ackerman, Ancient Lore, 2014, Oil on canvas, 30 x 24, 32 x 26 framed

Janie Ackerman is a Skagit Valley artist who began painting with oils in 1994, receiving formal training in the Russian impressionist style. She currently works in oil, acrylic, and collage, frequently applying multiple layers of paint, which are then rubbed away to reveal a time worn essence.

Paul Thorne, Whelk Shell coffee table, 2003, Wrought Iron, hand forged 17 1/4" x 25" x 52 1/2" (height x maximum width x length),

Paul Thorne's ancestors come from a long line of skilled workmen including a blacksmith, carriage maker, tool and die maker, pattern maker, machinists, locomotive engineers, mechanical engineers and teachers. Paul has been a working blacksmith since 1983 and has worked in the metal working industries his entire adult life. His architectural and sculptural work is found in fine homes throughout the Pacific Northwest. He has demonstrated in numerous conferences and taught students, apprentices and fellow smiths out of his own shop for many years. You will find his teaching thorough, understandable, patient and enthusiastic. Paul's passionate life calling is to create beautiful ironwork and pass on this craft to the next generation of blacksmiths.

Charles Stavig, Art 101, 2007, Mixed Media, 32.5" x 19"

Charles "Chuck" Inar Stavig was a multi-talented Pacific Northwest artist, educator, and building designer deeply embedded in the arts community of Washington's Skagit Valley and surrounding regions.

Paula Peterson, Building on the Beach, 1984, Oil and Oil Pastels on Paper, 30 1/4 x 24 1/4 x 3/4 in