PORT TOWNSEND — Downtown art galleries will stay open until 8 p.m. Saturday with special exhibits for the Saturday Art Walk.
Among them are Port Townsend Gallery, Gallery 9, Aurora Loop Gallery and Northwind Art.
The Port Townsend Gallery is featuring Kathy Tilley and Sue Stanton this month, and the artists will be on hand at the gallery, at 715 Water St., during the gallery walk from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday. Light refreshments will be served.
Tilley lives and paints on the Toandos Peninsula near Quilcene. She began creating art full-time after a career in social work. Born in Aberdeen, she spent her childhood in small fishing communities in Alaska and on the Washington coast.
She studied art in a two-year art program at Grays Harbor College with artist Eric Sandgren, and photography programs at Clover Park Technical College and Everett Community College.
A principal theme in her art is the desire to tell a story using the human figure, where the inner life of her subjects is left open to interpretation.
Stanton moved to Port Townsend in 2012 from Colorado after a career in primary education. Her love of children and their whimsical perspectives inspire her 3D work. Watercolor, pen and ink and acrylics are her mediums.
Her husband provides raw material for 3D work.
The Port Townsend Gallery is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., as well as by appointment. For more information, call 360-379-8110 or see www.porttownsend gallery.com.
Gallery 9, at 1012 Water St., is featuring Michael Hale’s acrylic paintings and Jon Geisbush’s wood turnings this month.
A native of the Pacific Northwest, Hale has been working on art since he could hold a pencil. He has studied at Washington State University, the Burnley School of Professional Art in Seattle and The Museum Art School in Portland, Ore. He is a Vietnam War veteran.
Hale started an architectural rendering business, first in the Northwest and then in the Phoenix area. Moving to Los Angeles in the early ’90s, Hale became a scenic artist for various movie and scenic production studios. He moved to Port Townsend in 2000.
“There was just too much of everything to paint here: the water, the mountains, the boats and, yes, that grand old architectural element of buildings … beautiful, red-bricked buildings.”
Geisbush is a native Washingtonian and a self-taught woodturner who picked it up after retiring from an engineering career. When he returned to Western Washington, his interest in woodturning increased with the availability of new sources of wood from local trees and interaction with other woodturners.
Gallery 9, home of the North Olympic Artist Cooperative, is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. six days a week. It is closed on Tuesdays.
For more information, see www.gallery-9.com
Aurora Loop Gallery’s May Show, “A Sense of Place,” showcases the work of two artists, Mary O’Shaughnessy and Chris Witkowski. The artists have reflected on what “place” means to them, and how it has informed their artwork.
A meet-and-greet at the gallery at 971 Aurora Loop is from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday.
Witkowski’s oil paintings are of vignettes around Port Townsend. She says that, for a small town, Port Townsend encompasses a wealth of distinct areas that can have the ability to trigger all the senses.
O’Shaughnessy’s work has to do with memories, and how they affect and infect the perceptions of life. She is working in collage form, using letterpress prints and mono printing to create depth in a two-dimensional form.
Aurora Loop is open from noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. For more information and directions, see Auroraloopgallery.com.
“Showcase in Bloom,” which opened this week at Northwind Art’s Jeanette Best Gallery, celebrates artists from Port Ludlow, Port Townsend, Port Angeles, Bainbridge Island and Sequim. Makers who work in clay, oils, photography, metal, textiles, watercolors and other media are among the 24 Showcase Artists.
“Showcase in Bloom” brings the newest works into the front room, at 701 Water St., through May 29. In addition, the first Saturday Art Walk in Port Townsend keeps the gallery doors open, with free refreshments, until 8 p.m.
The gallery’s hours are noon to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Mondays. More information about this and other Northwind Art activities can be found at https://northwindart.org.
