Don your walking shoes, button up your jacket and enjoy the artistic bounty of late summer this Friday evening.
The monthly first-Friday Gallery Cruise will offer up some of the best Vashon has to offer — works by beloved, longtime artists, creations by those just starting out, innovative installations and exhibits rich in diversity, creativity and artistic vision.
Unless otherwise noted, the galleries will be open from 6 to 9 p.m. And at nearly every venue, the artists will be on hand to talk about their work, which will be on display through the month of September.
Café Luna will display oil paintings by local artist Pam Penning, who says she fell in love with Vashon in the 1940s while visiting Camp Sealth each summer as a child. Her exhibit, called “Exploring my World,” will include oil paintings of scenes from Vashon and a series of scenes from ferry boats. Penning studied art at Colorado College and graduated from the University of Washington with a BA in art. She taught art in the Seattle Public Schools for several years before retiring to raise a family.
Ted Kutscherwill be featured in an exhibit at Silverwood Gallery in Burton this month.
Kutscher, who shows exclusively with Silverwood, is known for capturing day-to-day life and the stories they inspire — from locales as diverse as Vashon Island, the San Juans, Paris and Mexico.
In the past several years, he has concentrated on his figurative work through courses at the Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, where he recently became a member of the board of directors.
The exhibit of Kutscher’s latest work, together with new copper repousse by artist/sculpture Ivonne Escobar de Kommer, opens at noon on Friday, with a reception for the artists from 6 to 9 p.m.
“Geo sapiens II, Geology and Art,” will be the featured exhibit at Two Wall Gallery for September.
About 35 geoscientists from around the world will be represented in this show — a sequel to Geo sapiens I, held last November, and the largest, most comprehensive collection of art works done solely by earth scientists and students of geology.
Their works will be in many media, including oil, watercolor, pencil, stone sculpture and mosaic panels, stained glass, photography and even calligraphy. Exhibitors, many of whom will be at the opening, hail from across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Eastern Europe.
According to curator Greg Wessel, these geoscientists-turned-artists rely upon their experience in the field and familiarity with the natural world to express connections with geology and the Earth and to show reverence for the nature and structure of our planet.
At VALISE Gallery, new works by two old friends will be on display. Vashon artist and VALISE member Terri Fletcher will create an installation in the gallery of vintage dinner napkins that have been dyed and printed and hand-stitched with recipes from a 19th century handwritten cook book. Dishes from the book will be served at the opening.
Ceramic artist Rebecca Roberts, Fletcher’s longtime friend from Austin, Texas, will show her new sculptural bowls, tools and wall forms. Roberts will also conduct a hands-on clay experience at the gallery at 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 5. According to Roberts, the clay experience will offer up a community opportunity to explore touching the earth in a new way and learning a bit about the nature of clay. Participants will use one of the most intimate forming methods and share the results with each other. This is a contemplative experience appropriate for teens and adults.
Vashon Community Care will display watercolors, monoprints and silk paintings by Suzanna Leigh — a collection culled from a decade of her artwork on Vashon. The show focuses on the process of developing images over time. Some images, for instance, took more than 10 years to develop and have incarnations in a variety of media and styles. Sketches, photos and research that inspired and informed the finished work will also be on display.
The Vashon Senior Center on Bank Road will exhibit a display of photographs that local artist Signe Drake calls “anything and everything.”
Drake, a Seattle native who now lives on Vashon, graduated with a degree in commercial photography from Seattle Central Community College and has also taken classes at the Photo Center Northwest. She says she loves photography “and will enthusiastically take pictures of just about anything.”
Also showing at Vashon venues
Sue Nebeker and the American Hero Quilts will continue at Blooms & Things through September. The store decided to extend the display for a month as the public response has been huge.
Paintings by Mary Lawrence, a 12-year-old student of Carol Schwennesen, will adorn the walls of Bob’s Bakery.
The Hardware Store Restaurant will feature a quilt show by Mary Jacobs and friends.
The Heron’s Nest will feature photography by Jim Burke and textiles — beanies, hybrid felt scarves, wool, silk and Shibori-dyed chiffon scarves — by Patricia Toovey.
Barbara Gustafson’s handwoven Colonial-style baskets will be on display at the Vashon Bookshop. There will also be an open mic literary reading by the girls in Merna Hecht’s summer writing workshop. See page 10 for more information.
Young artists, ages 6 to 10, will display works in clay with a farm theme at the Vashon Bookshop Hallway Gallery. The show “Sunflower” will include farm animal face plates and sunflower wall sculptures — works created at a clay camp taught by Liz Lewis.
At the Vashon-Maury Island Heritage Museum, where an exhibit of photographs by Oliver S. Van Olinda continues, Islanders can meet curator Ray Pfortner.
The Vashon Tea Shop will display photographs by Debbie Paulsen in an exhibit called “Underneath the Western Skies.”
Oil paintings of birds by Lolo (aka Lora Robertson) will be featured at Wings Galley, located at the new Wings Birdseed Co. next to Vashon Island Bicycles on S.W. 178th.
