Artist seeks to immerse viewers in a sunlit ocean

PORT TOWNSEND — In her large-scale project, “Being with Kelp,” opening this week at Northwind Art’s Jeanette Best Gallery, artist Shawna Marie Franklin invites people to a place they might not otherwise see in such depth.

As a professional ocean kayaker and a swimmer, Franklin was submerged in kelp, observing it, feeling it, even tasting it — daily. When her pro kayaking career ended, she was left in a void.

She stepped into it. A painter and printmaker, she created dozens of works with titles such as “Blue Mind,” “Counter-Current,” “Holdfast,” “Buoyancy” and “Under My Kayak.” Ranging in size from 3 by 3 feet to 4 by 6 feet, these works are installed beside smaller, framed “Kelp Series” monoprints, collagraphs and monotypes.

One of the largest paintings is titled “Marriage Proposal.” It depicts animals seen during Franklin and her husband Leon Somme’s circumnavigation of Vancouver Island, the kayak trip during which Somme asked Franklin to marry him.

Franklin’s one-woman show opens today at Jeanette Best Gallery, 701 Water St. Then the artist will come to Port Townsend from her home on Orcas Island for the Art Walk celebration this Saturday.

Northwind’s nonprofit gallery will be open from noon to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Mondays, plus 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. for Art Walk on the first Saturday of every month. “Being with Kelp” will stay on display through March 31, with Franklin giving a free artist talk in the gallery at 3 p.m. Feb. 23.

Traveling in a kayak, Franklin said, “You’re able to peer over the side and look down, and you’re seeing things you would never see when you’re walking on land.”

This is a place filled with color, light and inspiration — “a dreamlike world.”

Franklin’s artworks are “abstracted from reality, for sure,” the artist’s exploration of how the sea catches and bends the light from the sun. In her monoprints, a vortex of water and sunshine appears.

Franklin, who turns 60 this year, has lived many lives. She has worked as an apparel designer in London, a field biologist in northern California and Puerto Rico, and, for 18 years, as a coach and co-owner of a paddlesports school in the San Juan Islands.

She and her Somme operated Body Boat Blade International until 2019. Along the way, they embarked on major expeditions: They circumnavigated Iceland by sea kayak, paddling 1,600 nautical miles in 81 days. That was in 2003, and Franklin, who was turning 38 that year, was the first woman to complete that circuit.

She and Somme went on to circumnavigate the islands of Haida Gwaii in 2007 and Vancouver Island in 2012.

Somme later developed medical issues that prevented him from kayaking. Serious back problems kept him off the water, and the couple sold their business six years ago.

Franklin, who has loved art since her childhood in Minneapolis — her mother took her to art museums where she discovered painters and sculptors — began to reinvent herself.

“I don’t know when it hit me. But I realized: I can be an artist,” Franklin said.

Selling the company gave her the resources to pursue her art full time. She had harbored a passion for art for all those years, but for the most part kept it inside.

At first, taking herself seriously as a painter and printmaker was hard, Franklin admitted. She kept at it, attended Gage Academy in Seattle, studied with artists Terry L. Johnson and Klara Glosova, and earned a Botanical Art Society diploma. Franklin has since had solo shows on Orcas Island and partaken in group shows in California, Oregon and Colorado.

Art has become her new life.

“I couldn’t imagine being in another space,” she said.

In the “Being with Kelp” exhibition, Franklin has included pieces that give viewers the perspective of being in the ocean, looking up at the sky.

“A lot of experimentation happens on the canvas,” she said, adding her paintings and prints start from rough sketches, even crayon drawings. She builds from light to dark, layering transparent and opaque colors. The artist moves through a process of discovery; the shades underneath come through.

“I have to be open to letting it go where it wants to go,” Franklin said.

“I’m bringing one [piece] that I just finished; I just finished it last night,” she added.

“There’s a deep-down, belly-gut feeling when I put the brushes down.”