June 4- July 11
Featuring Sculptor LeeAnn Perry
Special guest Metal-Urge artists Joan Joachims & Micki Lippe

Meet The Artists
June 5th 5-8 pm
June 18th Third Thursday

  Cubist Warrior / Sensual Woman
marble 23x12x13 Featuring figurative sculpture by stone carver LeeAnn Seaburg Perry with Metal Urge guest artists Joni Joachims and Micki Lippe.  Co-operative, member artists also respond to Rock Paper Scissors with their materials, and methods, and some varieties of “madness?”  Exhibiting this month are Shirley Benton, Nick Butler, Bill Colby, Heather Cornelius, Becky Frehse, Bea Geller, Faith Hagenhofer, Mirka Hokkanen, Dorothy McCuistion, and Peter Serko.

Chisel, hammers, rasps, and a small grinding wheel are the tools LeeAnn Seaburg Perry uses to carve abstract human forms in marble, alabaster, soapstone and limestone.  LeeAnn’s process is physical and intuitive as she strives to reveal the most evocative, figurative gestures within each raw hunk of stone. LeeAnn personally chooses her stones from a quarry in Vermont and carves them in her outdoor studio in
Name This PieceTacoma where she endures the extremes of Puget Sound’s weather to focus all of her creative energy on carving.  LeeAnn grew up in Lakewood and studied sculpture at Pierce College and Lewis and Clark College. She earned her MFA from Pratt Institute in New York. Her work is in private collections in the US and abroad.

LeeAnn will also be present in the gallery on Saturday, June 6th, 12-4PM and Sunday, June 7th, 2-6 PM.

Joining Perry in this show are special guest artists Joan Joachims and Micki Lappe part of the City of Tacoma’s summer long celebration of “metals art” called Metal-Urge

Joni Joachims is a jewelry artist who creates one of a kind, wearable pieces such as rings, talismans, and personalized momentos as “miniature sculptures.”  Joni’s ideas are often inspired by stories and events suggested by the lives of people who commission her work.  She begins her evocative forms by carving them from wax and then casting them in various metals.  Her exquisite combinations of silver and gold are sometimes rendered with semi-precious stones and other materials of delight.

Micki Lippe tells us that her studio is her “safe place”. She makes the rules there; where there are no stop signs, no speed limits. It’s the place she goes to when life is good and when life is bad. Making jewelry offers her the pleasure of working with her hands building things. She likes to work directly with her materials, whatever they are. To quote Ramon Puig Cuyas “ The handwork turns itself into a way of thinking, where intuition is confronted with reflection.“ Most often her thoughts are about the myriad of shapes and forms that she sees as she hikes or cross country skis through the woods of the Northwest.

Micki’s work was seen in Tacoma most recently this spring in the 9th Northwest Biennial at the Tacoma Art Museum.

Dorothy McCuistion responds to the theme of Rock Paper Scissors with a watercolor that was created in response to a hand injury caused by scissors. She generally works on paper, and her piece entitled, “Cut” carries this image further with the double meaning of the work being carved in linoleum.

Heather Cornelius exhibits stoneware pieces created by using different methods of firing such as cone 10 reduction gas firing and cone 6 oxidation firings, as well as multiple techniques for creating voluptuous vessels.

Becky Frehse is showing three, new mixed media pieces that reference the ephemeral natures of rock, paper, and scissors. The painting Ingathering, contrasts the gravity and solidity of rock with the fluidity and movement of fishing nets being cast about.

Shirley Benton’s paintings are characterized by strong color and form that evoke a wide range of emotions, from reflective and playful to chaotic and intense. The paintings selected for Rock Paper Scissors have a common cord of playfulness. Her primary medium is acrylic on masonite. Using simple tools, paint rollers and sticks, Shirley applies and blends multiple layers of color, sometimes cutting and sanding into the layers of paint to create a unique and free flowing style.

Gallery members Bill Colby, Heather Cornelius, Becky Frehse, Bea Geller, Mirka Hokkanen, Faith Hagenhofer, Dorothy McCuistion, Shirley Benton and Nick Butler will all show new and exciting work center on the shows theme.