The new year has barely begun, but Vashon’s art scene is already playing catch-up, with a gallery cruise scheduled for this second Friday of the month.
Typically, Vashon’s gallery cruises take place on the first Friday of the month, but according to multiple sources, many gallery and shop owners felt that Friday, Jan. 3, sat too close to the holidays to bring out much of a crowd.
Still, a few art spots around town did open shows last Friday, and these exhibits will continue to be shown throughout the month.
Here’s a look at the shows that have already opened, plus the ones that will bow on Friday. Most receptions are planned from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday, Jan. 10.
Opened Friday, Jan. 3
Café Luna
Acrylics by Kathy Larsdotter are on display.
Camp Colvos
Paper art by Bennett Hu is being exhibited.
Gather
Works by various local artists fill the gallery.
Relish
Works by Joy Thai Mann are on display.
Opening Friday, Jan. 10
In addition to art openings, music will be heard at gallery cruise stops. Seattle musician and artist Tennis Whiting will play at the Sugar Shack, Catbird will play at Vashon Bookshop, and Pat Reardon will take the stage at Vashon Brewing Community Pub.
The Hardware Store Restaurant Gallery
The gallery will show “Here, There and Everywhere,” the work of Marjorie Denise Ingalls. The artist, who was born in 1937 and died in 2019, was the mother of well-known Vashon oil painter Pam Ingalls. According to Pam, her mother was a lifelong artist but had never had her own gallery show.
“Melinda Powers and I planned the show last summer, not imagining that my mom would pass away on Dec. 23, just weeks before the show would open,” Pam said. “This has now become a tribute show for her.”
Marjorie was known for her 53-year career creating colorful artwork for tour maps of Seattle and other cities around the world, including Rome, London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Hong Kong, San Francisco and Honolulu. Her Hardware Store Restaurant Gallery exhibit will include digital images of prints she created for her maps, and feature live guitar music by Daryl Redeker.
Margaret in the Hallway
A show of work by Margaret Tylczak called “New Year. New Dogs” will be on display.
SAW (Starving Artist Works)
Assorted artists, working in different media, will show work.
Sugar Shack
Whiting Tennis, Seattle artist and musician, will perform.
VALISE Gallery
The artists’ cooperative gallery will exhibit “Doodles and Detritus,” featuring colorful work by Robert Passig and Bill Jarcho.
Passig recently returned to the United States after many years of living and teaching art in South Asia. He has worked mostly as an installation artist with annual installations in Vilnius, Lithuania, and recently in North Macedonia. Since coming back to Vashon, he has re-focused on painting. His new works show discarded images heaped together in large works that juxtapose dark subjects with vivid colors.
Robert Passig’s “Damn! They take everything from you” will be in a duo show of his work, with Bill Jarcho, at VALISE Gallery (Courtesy Photo).
Jarcho has worked for almost 40 years in a variety of related art forms. He is best known for his animated films and early work with MTV and Nickelodeon and for creating and performing his giant puppets for festivals, events and Vashon’s own Backbone Campaign. He also is the director of The Conscious Cartoons International Animation Festival. His VALISE show features what Jarcho calls “abstractulations” — whimsical animated-looking paintings, 3-D boxes and sculptures.
Vashon Center for the Arts
In a series of narrative photos, “Rodin’s Photographer,” Vashon photographer Jenn Reidel takes on the role of the unknown photographer who worked with French sculptor Auguste Rodin in the late 1800s. Within a conceptual theme — presented as Reidel’s reinterpretations of this turn of the century artist’s photographs — the show will be accompanied by wall text relating real and imagined excerpts from letters and diaries, historical reference and poetry.
The idea for this show was sparked at the Maryhill Museum of Art, where Reidel was inspired by Rodin’s sculpture and even more captivated by the photos of his entourage of artists, poets, and dancers. Who could be the unknown photographer who is attributed to some of the photos of his sculptures, Reidel wondered?
The exhibit will also include bronze sculptures by Michael Magrath, director of Magrath Sculpture Atelier at the Gage Art Academy, and its opening reception will include the performance of two original dance works by Abby Enson and Arlette Moody. Enson will portray Rodin’s muse, Loie Fuller, and Arlette Moody will channel famed dancer Isadora Duncan. The dances will be performed, with an accompaniment of music and light by Christopher Overstreet, at 6:30 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. Friday, Jan. 10, in VCA’s atrium.
VCA’s gift shop will also be filled with “Warm & Fuzzy” — a collection of handcrafted scarves, shawls, socks, and hats by Vashon fiber artists. Additionally, the Bill Rives photography show, “Wild Places,” will continue to be shown in VCA’s atrium. The selections for the show come primarily from the Glacier Bay wilderness in Alaska, the Osa Peninsula tropical rainforest of Costa Rica, the wilds of Zambia and the Sonoran Desert, all places Bill has explored on foot and by kayak with his camera.
Vashon Senior Center
A show running through February, “Watercolor Creators,” will feature the work of Geri Peterson’s watercolor painting students. Some students participate in a group painting, others painted alone. In her classes, Peterson demonstrates a technique, then works one-on-one with students while ideas are shared and techniques tried out in a relaxed environment.
Geri Peterson’s art students will have a show of work at the Senior Center on Bank Road. Pictured here, from left to right, are Sue Weston, Weslie Rodgers, Geri Peterson, Linda Fox, Inge King and Will Lockwood (Courtesy Photo).
The opening reception will take place from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Senior Center on Bank Road. Artists include Sue Weston, Wesley Rodgers, Linda Fox, Inge King and Will Lockwood.
