Grand Impromptu Gallery
January 29 – February 28, 2009
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Bill Colby has his prints in museums, corporations, schools and Northwest cities. As a master printmaker he has exhibited extensively throughout the Northwest and his art works are in many art museums, corporate and public school collections. He taught studio and art history at the University of Puget Sound for 33 years and has made his mark on printmaking in the Pacific Northwest. Nature has inspired Bill Colby to use wood grain to reveal the source of a swift river, the thrill of being in high country and towering peaks, the oneness of driftwood and open beach. For five decades, Bill has described the nature spirit of water, trees, birds, rocks, hills, mountains, clouds and the ever-changing sky views. Bill invited:
Fumiko Kimura, Tacoma, WA – painter
Fumiko Kimura studied art at the University of Puget Sound, Nanga School and Zen Temple in Japan and currently continues to paint, teach and exhibit locally and has exhibited internationally at Tokyo Art Museum, Kyoto Cultural House and Taipei. Her works are in the collection of Tacoma Art Museum, Microsoft, Columbia Bank and Group Health Hospital in Bellevue among others. She has published Painting in Sumi: Stroke on Stroke, A Guide Book for Beginners in 1997, which was partially funded by a grant from Tacoma Arts Commission. Fumiko invited:
SELINDA SHERIDAN , Tacoma, WA, sumi painter/mixed media
Selinda Sheridan grew up in the Puget Sound area and began Chinese brush and ink painting in 1982 after earning a doctoral degree in Chinese Literature from Cornell University. She has taught ink painting with Seniors Making Art and other organizations and has been a member of Puget Sound Sumi Artists since 1994. In addition to ink painting and calligraphy, she experiments with mixes media and occasionally writes poetry. Selinda invited:
LOIS YOSHIDA , Tacoma, WA, sumi watercolor painter
Lois Yoshida turned her focus to a long-held interest in art after earning degrees in medical technology and microbiology from the University of Washington and participating in the development of a biotechnology company. She is intrigued by the process and beauty of sumi art in its quest to capture the essence or spirit of a subject in as few spontaneous brush strokes as possible. She seeks to extend this aspect of “essence” to her watercolor paintings. Her work can be found in private collections in Washington, California, Maine, and Hawaii. She formerly taught sumi painting at the Bellevue Art Museum and currently at the Kirkland Arts Center. Lois invited:
Caroline Buchanan , San Juan Islands, WA, painter
Caroline Buchanan has been teaching watercolor for the past 30 years, in workshops as far away as Greece and every summer on Orcas Island. She learned this from her beloved teacher, Rex Brandt and has passed this observation on to Lois Yoshida and Mary Scheibler, also in the show. Caroline invited:
MARY SCHEIBLER , Leavenworth, WA, watercolor painter
Mary Scheibler lives in Leavenworth and works for the family business, Scheibler Brothers, Inc., which manufactures dry offset printing machinery that prints on egg cartons. The manufacturing plant is located on their small family farm, which produces organic pears and alfalfa hay. Mary has been making art since childhood and explored oil painting and porcelain painting before focusing on watercolor. The process of creating art provides a good balance to my work world.
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Becky Frehse holds an MFA from Central Washington University and a B.F.A from Arizona State University. She has been exhibiting extensively for over two decades and has received awards including an Artist Trust GAP grant in 1995 and in 2004 the Kathe Kollwitz Award from the Northwest Women’s Caucus for Art. As an arts educator Becky is currently teaching part time at the University of Puget Sound. For Frehse, art making is a way of telling stories. She compares her creative process to that of an archeologist discovering layers of meaning by studying an artifact’s proximity to other found objects; combinations of collage bits, text and imagery may be mysterious, but also lead to new realizations and understanding in a composition. Becky invited:
KATHY GORE FUSS , Olympia, WA
Kathy Gore Fuss lives in Olympia, WA. She recently completed her BFA in Drawing and Painting at the University of Washington (after a 30 year hiatus) and is currently building a new studio behind her house. Her recent work explores reduction and reconstruction using mixed media while modified vestiges emerge from the rubble. The process examines the dominant characteristic of a material: its strength. Kathy invited:
Susan Christian, Shelton, WA - painter
Susan Christian will put any colored substance on any surface. She prefers leftover building materials, but will sometimes fall back on traditional art supplies. Christian went to two art schools and has taught the interface of art and psychology in many venues. Her work has been shown in France and the USA. She has had two public-art commissions, both in Olympia. Susan invited :
Marilyn Frasca , Olympia WA - printmaker
Born in N.Y.C., Marilyn Frasca studied art at Cooper Union, the San Francisco Art Institute and Bennington College. She has shown paintings and drawings in galleries and museums on both coasts and was a faculty member at The Evergreen State College from 1973 until her retirement in 1999. Marilyn uses a variety of techniques to create textures on an inked plate from which she pulls a print. Responding emotionally to textures and shapes, Frasca assembles them into astonishing pictures of people, places and events that have no recognizable connection to her life. As she works it is as if she remembers this person and her or his expression. www.marilynfrasca.comMarilyn invited:
Susan Aurand , Olympia WA
Susan Aurand received her M.A. in Art from Ohio State University. She has been a full-time faculty member at The Evergreen State College since 1974, teaching studio art, art history and humanities and has been active in arts administration at the college. Susan has exhibited regionally in galleries and museums as well as nationally and internationally. Her work is included in numerous public and private collections, including the Seattle Public Works Collection and the Washington State Arts Commission Public Works Collection. Susan invited:
MattHEW Hamon , Olympia, WA – new media
Matt Hamon is a new media artist who specializes in photography as well as digital art and is an assistant professor at The Evergreen State College. He combines the qualities of verisimilitude that are inherent in photography with the nebulous qualities of drawing. The unfolding narrative is based on insinuation rather than representation. Matt is interested in the malleable qualities of fiction that are invented by the viewer. It is the ambiguity hovering between what is imagined and what one sees, between reality and fiction, that Hamon hopes will reinforce the sense of intrigue for the viewer. He attempts to make work that is ambiguously specific, chaotically tranquil, and viscerally banal. For him, the magic is in the in-between places.
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Bea Geller is a digital artist and photographer. She received her master's degree from Rochester Institute of Technology School of Photography. Living in the Northwest for the past twenty years, she finds an affinity with the landscape of the Pacific Northwest, and draws inspiration from the cultural richness of her home in New York City. Major museums were her playground, and these experiences conveyed a sense of enchantment. The strength of her visual artwork is her design and composition. This geometry of space is manifest in all of her artwork irrespective of conceptual focus. Geller is associate professor of photography and digital imaging at Pacific Lutheran University. Her work has been exhibited throughout the country as well as locally at the Tacoma Art Museum, Bellevue Art Museum, Whatcom County Art Museum, and the Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle. Bea invited
CARISSA MEIR ,
LARRY NAYLOR , Seattle, WA, ceramicist
Artist/Mechanic Larry Naylor has a diverse background that fluctuates between the technical and artistic realms. Larry draws upon his technical experiences as a bicycle mechanic/frame builder, carpenter and ceramicist, to create mixed media sculptures that are stoic parodies of a bygone futurism. Larry is currently half-way through a two year residency at Pottery Northwest in Seattle, WA. Larry invited:
Kevin Erhard , Seattle, WA, ceramicist
Kevin Erhard is a resident at Pottery Northwest. He moved to Seattle a year and a half ago from Boston, where he completed his BFA. Ironically, he lived most of his life in Kansas, yes, that Kansas--- the state that half the time doesn't believe in teaching evolution, while it de-evolves into a bastion of conservatism. Erhard says, “Luckily, I have crawled out of that pond.”
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Faith Hagenhofer grew up on Staten Island, made her way to the Pacific Northwest by thumb as a young adult, and has lived here rurally with her family for the last 25 years. She’s had sheep and goats for the last 8 years. She has long been a printmaker & book artist, and a feltmaker for more than fifteen years. Her work is functional, whimsical and conceptual. “My work originates in a braid of interests in human / land relationships over time, material culture studies, and a continuous curiosity about the materials at hand.” Her pieces are both functional and sculptural, sometimes combining both aspects in a single piece, often with great whimsy. Her work has been exhibited regionally, and in group shows nationally. She has taught feltmaking for about 12 years, at various venues. She holds a BA from The Evergreen State College, an MLS from the University of Arizona, and a Certificate of Craft from Oregon College of Art & Craft. http://www.faithhagenhofer.comFaith invited:
Fern Renville , Seattle WA, feltmaker
Fern is a felt-maker living and working in Seattle. She was born in 1964 and is from South Dakota and is a member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate. She is a 1993 graduate of the Evergreen State College, a mother of two teenagers, and a religious naturalist who is interested in seeing contemporary theologians adapt their memes to the new evolutionary story of Creation. Fern invited:
JAMI HEINRICHER ,
SHAW OSHA , Olympia, WA, painter
Shaw Osha works mostly in painting but his imagery resides somewhere between a photograph that is taken and a painting that is made. He drawn to photographs or stories that evoke questions of conscience, nostalgia and intensity and think of them in the everyday terms of relationships, desire, uncertainty and vulnerability. Osha tends to use photographic documents (a specific context) as source material and then through painting or drawing the image, blurring and coalescing it, fragmenting and repeating it he tries to create an experience that is less specific and more aggregate and fluid. His works emphasize the continuous and unstable character of motion, "never present in position only ever in passing"(Brian Massumi). Shaw invited:
Laura Sharp Wilson Olympia, WA, painter
Laura Sharp Wilson is a painter who creates intense, flat, meticulous and surreal environments using acrylic and graphite on Unryu paper mounted on wood. Her work is inspired by the repetition and obsessiveness of surface textile design, Indian miniature paintings and Outsider artists like Adolph Wolfi. The clear mark making of Keith Harring is a big inspiration as is the “lumpish” style of the artists Phillip Guston, Jonathan Lasker and Carroll Dunham. Wilson has exhibited extensively over the past decade. In 2008 she was included in “This is My Nature” at the Nicolaysenn Art Museum in Casper, Wyoming and had a one person show at Friesen Gallery in Seattle. The artist will have a solo exhibition at McKenzie Fine Art in New York in March of this year. Laura invited:
JUDITH BAUMAN , Olympia, WA, printmaker
Judith Baumann, originally from Buffalo, NY, earned her BFA at Alfred University New York State School of Art + Design where she concentrated in Printmedia and Photography. She recently received her MFA in Printmedia at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. Judith currently facilitates the non-toxic printmaking studio at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, where she also teaches courses in serigraphy, lithography, letterpress, intaglio and relief printing. Her work, primarily addressing the intersection of advertising, digital media and printmaking, has been shown in Washington, DC, Chicago, Knoxville, and New York City.
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Trinda Love, a Washington native, earned her BA in Literature from UW, and in 2007, a Master’s of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at UWT. Love started her art career in 1969 with pen and ink and watercolor drawings, gradually progressing to large watercolors. After major life changes and foreign travel, Love pursued a path to the ministry, while also studying art and art history at Bellevue Community College. Love eventually set aside the pursuit of ministry and recommitted to life as an artist. In 1999, after a painting trip to France, Trinda Love switched over to thick, impasto, knife-painted oils on canvas, and hasn’t looked back. Love often works outdoors, en plein air, or from her original photographs. Love’s work has been exhibited in New York City, and in juried shows around the United States. Trinda invited:
Mindy Barker , Gig Harbor, WA - painter
Mindy Barker is a lifelong Washington State resident, born in Tacoma. After receiving her B.F.A. from Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA in 1990, Mindy has continued to produce and show her original artwork. She primarily works in media such as acrylic, ink, and photographs. Mindy invited:
ZACHARY MARVICK , Tacoma, WA, ink artist
Zachary invited:
MAUREEN McHUGH , Tacoma and Gig Harbor, WA
Maureen McHugh is the co-owner of the Mad Hat Tea Company and splits her time between Tacoma and Gig Harbor. She holds a lifetime of art education and she digs the art evolution. Her media generally involves India ink on various surfaces but she's been known to dabble in the giant pot of artistic mediums and she has a soft spot for glitter. Maureen invited:
Maria Jost , Tacoma, WA – two-dimensional mixed media
Maria has traipsed around in the jungles of Central America and Asia, the grasslands of Minnesota, and the forests of the Pacific Northwest, all under the guise of being a scientist. She was probably spending most of her time gazing interestedly at natural forms, lines and colors. She has recently started to create her own art more regularly, mostly working with a mixture of ink, watercolor and collage to pull natural images and ecological concepts onto paper. She does not expect the biologist living in her brain to leave any time soon. Currently Maria works at the Tacoma School of the Arts, hoping to foster the creation of more young scientist artists. Maria invited:
SARA ROUGEAU , Tacoma, WA, pen and ink artist
Sara Rougeau was born in Seattle and moved to Tacoma to attend the Tacoma School of the Arts, from which she graduated in 2006.
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Dorothy McCuistion received a B.A. in Fine Art from Humboldt State University, California and continued post-graduate studies over the years at several institutions. Post-B.A., she worked primarily in fiber arts and then had a successful career as an arts administrator in the public and non-profit sector from 1988-2004. She now pursues art making full-time and her most recent work is mixed media monotypes. She also paints with watercolor and acrylic. Dorothy sees her current work as simple narratives in which the observer is invited to create their own story. Dorothy invited:
JOHN McCUISTION , University Place, WA
John McCuistion feels that “through my work I am able to contribute to the long tradition of the artist as teacher, recorder and seer.” John has been working as a ceramic artist for over forty years and has been teaching at the University of Puget Sound since 1976, holding the rank of full Professor and is currently chair of the Art Department. He has received numerous awards over the years included the honor of Distinguished Professor from UPS in 1998, the Suzanne and George Ramie Prize at the Biennale Internationale De Ceramique D’Art, Vallauris, France in 1994 and a National Endowment for the Arts Craftsman Fellowship in 1979. McCuistion has exhibited in over 200 shows since 1968, his work has been featured in a variety of publications over the years is also held in many public and private collections. John invited:
OTTO YOUNGERS , Tacoma, WA – sculptor
Otto Youngers’ work “explores themes of war and brutality using the psychological power of sculptural forms.” His socio-political “commentary is matched by a brutal, rough carving style that fits the rugged weightiness of its tale,” states art critic Collette Chattopadhyay in her 2008 review of Youngers’ work. Youngers received his MFA in sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute and his BFA from the University of Kansas. When not exhibiting on the west coast, he can be found in Thailand. He lives and works in Tacoma Washington. www.ottoyounger.com. Otto invited:
AMY McBRIDE , Tacoma, WA - sculptor
Amy McBride is a sculptor who focuses on metals and mixed media and tends towards the narrative. She studied fine art at the University of Colorado and the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Amy invited:
JESSICA SPRING , Tacoma, WA, letterpress printmaker
Jessica Spring is the proprietor of Springtide Press in Tacoma, Washington where she designs, prints and binds unique artist books, broadsides and ephemera incorporating handmade paper and letterpress printing. Small finely crafted editions consider historical topics and popular culture from a unique perspective. Jessica has an MFA from Columbia College Chicago Center for Book and Paper Arts and teaches at Pacific Lutheran University and the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle. Jessica invited:
CHRIS SHARP , Tacoma, WA, painter/sign painter
Chris Sharp paints in mostly sign lettering enamels, acrylics, and oils. He can usually find words to describe his work with words he’s heard about painting before, but for the most part he sees all work as "practice". He has no ideas when making a painting, only a string of thoughts/pictures/letters to "try out". Once on the painting he sees what he’s made and more often then not he covers it to try something else. There is a fickle and spontaneous nature to the process.
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LeeAnn studied sculpture at Pierce College, Lewis and Clark College and earned her Masters of Fine Arts degree in sculpture, from Pratt Institute in New York. Stone was the answer to a long and explorative search for her artistic medium. The joy of discovering the mystery held within the stone motivates her work. Her initial cuts release the head from the stone. With the head identified, the lines of the body emergeEach piece is unique in character and composition. Upon exploring and touching the cool stone surface Perry hopes the viewer will experience a sense of serenity, joy and well-being. LeeAnn invited:
Deborah Greenwood , Tacoma, WA, mixed media/painter
Deborah Greenwood creates encaustic paintings and mixed media work in her Tacoma studio. She describes the impulse behind her art by saying: "I like to work with a variety of materials to achieve my ends. I am not only interested in the beauty of objects but how they communicate with one another when they are put in close proximity. I guess this could be described as an iconic mode of expression; it conjures up the unexpected. Therefore, I enjoy working with media that are unpredictable as they add to the feeling of mystery.” Debbi invited:
BOB VOGEL , Tacoma, WA, painter
Bob Vogel has shown his drawings in a number of selected exhibitions, including the Tacoma Art Museum “Self Portraits”, the Whatcom Museum of Art, the Washington University Mid-American Gallery, Pacific Lutheran University, and the Cameron National Drawing Invitational. When developing a drawing, he finds it important to maintain and show the process of drawing in the finished piece. This might include multiple contour lines, washes, smudges, erasures, and coffee stains. Vogel almost never goes into his studio without a cup of coffee in hand. Bob invited:
ELAYNE VOGEL , Tacoma, WA, painter
Elayne Vogel works primarily with encaustic paint and mixed media. She has also collaborated with artists making art for public sites in Tacoma and Seattle. Solo shows of her work have been held at the Linda Hodges Gallery in Seattle, the University of Washington Meany Art Gallery, and the Green River Community College Art Gallery. She has also shown in numerous group exhibitions, including the Seattle Art Museum, the Bellevue Art Museum, and the Foster White Gallery in Seattle. Vogel received a B.A. degree from the University of Michigan and a Masters of Fine Arts degree from the University of Washington. Elayne invited:
Lynn Di Nino , Tacoma, WA - sculptor
As a Tacoma resident of seven years now, DiNino says she “feels permanent, and can barely remember being born in Roswell New Mexico earlier last century. I’ve been a professional sculptor for over thirty years now, using my filthy dirty studio on the bottom floor of my house to make concrete animals in the wrong colors.” Lynn invited:
Claudia Riedener , Tacoma, WA, ceramic tile maker
Claudia Riedener is entirely self-taught in ceramics; the artist draws from her background in horticulture. Her strong connection to the natural world influences the work. Riedener has shown at NW Craft Center and Gallery, Seattle, ‘Concreativity’, Tacoma Public Library, City Peoples Nursery, Seattle, Artists In Heat, Enumclaw, Suitcase Sightings, Tacoma, Woolworth’s Windows Tacoma, Bassetti Crooked Arbor, Woodinville, ‘Dia de los Muertos Altar’, Tacoma Art Museum, The Art Stop Tacoma, BKB Tacoma, Two Vaults Tacoma, Borders Books Tacoma. Lark Press has featured her tile work in the 2008 publication 500 Tiles.
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Peter Serko is proof that one can reinvent oneself at almost any age. He’s been a family therapist, stay-at-home Dad, web designer, and recently came full circle to an old interest photography. With the emergence of digital photography Peter has discovered his voice as an artist. The immediacy of digital allows feedback that helps refine his artistic vision. While digital tools offer powerful image manipulation capabilities, Peter prefers to work with the tonal qualities of an image to convey his photographic ideas. Attention to light and shadow are hallmarks of his work. Peter enjoys photographing a variety of subjects including landscapes, architecture, cityscapes, and house interiors among other things. Peter invited:
Ruthanne Annaloro , Gig Harbor, photojournalist
West coast photojournalist Ruthanne Annaloro’s work is also published under the professional trade name of 1bluecanoe. Her work is a gateway to interesting outdoor images, often-lyrical landscapes and nautical themes. Artful use of color and composition are signature attributes; her photographs were used by more than one hundred publications in 2008. Ruthanne invited:
JANICE WAGNER, Gig Harbor WA - painter
Janice Wagner works primarily in oils in the style of classical realism passionate. She is also an arts educator in schools, and a mural painter. Wagner is deeply attracted by the beauty found in natural forms and collectable art objects, which she incorporates into her still life work. When she’s painting she is thinking of how to make the light dance through the canvas, crescendo at the focal point and end tastefully. In this sense, there’s a reason for every object and that is to support her visual concept. The amount of light on the objects, intensity of color, contrast of light and dark, thickness of paint, all support the concept, and draw the eye through the plane in a way that is hopefully interesting and beautiful. Janice invited:
Gary Jackson , Olalla, WA, sculptor
In 1982, after graduating with honors from a steel shipbuilding apprenticeship, Gary Jackson opened his sculpture fabricating studio, Sunburst Metalworks. Since then, he’s pursued his love of welded sculpture by creating all forms of artful structures. Although he specializes in wildlife sculpture (in relief or 3D) and fine, sculptural signage, Gary also creates unique functional items such as furniture and garden structures. He especially enjoys creating whimsical ‘ornery-metal’ objects from found materials. Visit his website at www.sunburstmetalworks.comGary invited:
TORREY JAMES LYSTRA , Gig Harbor, WA, painter
Torrey Lystra is an American born painter and draftsman. He seeks to translate many of his personal experiences into universal terms to help decipher the fundamental components of human existence. His history is marked by personal relationships with native sacred men and women, and his adventures in many natural environments. Painting is a sacred endeavor for Lystra, a means through which he hopes to gain insights into the meaning of all life.
Torrey invited:
ALAIN CLERC , Gig Harbor, WA, painter
Alain Clerc was born in France, moved to Berkeley, CA in 1973 and showed his work there. He Moved to Gig Harbor in 1999. Emotions and strong color field dominate his work, a new series in the making, titled “landscapes of the mind”. Clerc’s work reaches out past feelings, emotions, and ideas.
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