PORT TOWNSEND — A variety of artwork will be on view during the First Saturday Gallery Walk in Port Townsend.
The monthly walk is from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., mostly in the downtown area.
Among the galleries staying open late for the walk are Gallery-9, Port Townsend Gallery, Northwind Art’s Jeanette Best Gallery and the Jefferson County Historical Society Museum of Art & History.
Gallery-9
Gallery-9, the home of the North Olympic Artist Cooperative at 1012 Water St., will feature the silk batiks and oil paintings by Carolyn Doe and the wood relief carvings of Linda and Larry Gonzales.
“I started working in batik on silk fabric over 30 years ago, ” said Doe, a self-taught silk batik artist and oil painter.
She uses pure beeswax and silk dyes to create images of nature on silk fabric, then the images are stretched and framed under glass.
Her current works are framed silk batiks, with scenes of nature and birds, and oil paints of trees.
Her oil paintings are done with palette knives and show wide horizons with stately trees or the quick pose of a small bird on a slender branch.
She tries to capture both simplicity and depth in her work.
“I’m not one to say a lot about my art. It comes from a feeling place, something I can’t put to words. I want those who are drawn to my art to experience their own feelings and thoughts around it.”
Doe’s work is on display on Gallery-9’s main floor and online at www.carolyn doe.com.
Linda and Larry Gonzales create wood relief carvings of nature found in the marine world of the Olympic Peninsula, such as whales, octopi, sea stars, seascapes and mammals.
Larry grew up on a farm in Colorado, where he became interested in metal sculpturing while welding farm equipment.
He later taught himself stain glass and wood marquetry and then focused on wood sculpting.
Linda was born and raised in Colorado, where she was a kindergarten teacher for 25 years.
During that time, she learned to make dream catchers out of rhizomes from trees and sinew and inuksuks, a type of stone statue created by the Inuit.
When they moved to Washington, Larry took up relief carving and Linda helped to design the pieces and color them.
The artists prefer local woods such as red and yellow cedar, birch, maple, alder and madrone fashioned into images of Pacific Northwest forests and marine life.
Their business is called By the Sea.
Gallery-9 is open six days a week with winter hours from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., except for the first Saturday of the month, when it is open until 8 p.m.
The gallery is closed Tuesdays.
For more information, call 360-379-8881 or visit www.gallery-9.com.
Port Townsend Gallery
The Port Townsend Gallery, at 715 Water St., will feature the exhibit “Water in our Lives” during March.
The exhibit includes many examples of boats, lighthouses, marine creatures, waves, fishing, beaches and shore scenes.
Phil Carrico is displaying his original reduction woodcuts and linoleum prints.
The process, which originated in China, consists of reducing, or cutting, a wood or linoleum block down as each color is applied.
Carrico applies up to 16 colors to a design utilizing that process.
The process destroys the block through the nature of the process, resulting in a piece of artwork that cannot be duplicated.
Featured in his display is “El Fin,” which shows the presence of orca in local waters.
Also, the beauty of a puffin is featured in “If Feathers Don’t Ruffle, Nothing Flies.”
Nature photographer Beverly McNeil’s work is also on display. Her work includes an image of a sea star clinging to a rock at low tide, titled “Clinging to Life.”
McNeil hopes that her images will encourage people to love and care for our natural world.
The gallery artists will be available from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday during the Art Walk. Light refreshments will be served.
The Port Townsend Gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily and by appointment.
For more information, call 360-379-8110 or visit www.porttownsendgallery.com.
Jeanette Best Gallery
Northwind Art’s Jeanette Best Gallery, at 701 Water St., will feature the opening of “A Warm Embrace” from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday during Art Walk.
The exhibit features the work of five women from across the country and around the globe and ranges from abstract paintings to wood mosaics.
The exhibit, which is on display through April 28, features the work of Soo Hong, an abstract painter from South Korea; Jody Joldersma, a Seattle-based mixed-media artist; Naoka Morisawa, a mosaic artist born in Tokyo, Japan, who works in wood and paper; Neha Panicker, a painter from India; and Xin Xin, a painter who was born in Beijing, China, and grew up in Seattle.
The Jeanette Best Gallery is open from noon to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Mondays.
For more information about “A Warm Embrace” and other Northwind Art activities, visit www.north windart.org.
JCHS museum
The Jefferson County Historical Society Museum of Art & History will open two new exhibits on Saturday.
The museum, located at 540 Water St., will waive entry fees from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and will host a free reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. during Art Walk.
The first exhibit, “Tessa Hulls: Feeding Ghosts,” featuring excerpts from Tessa Hulls’ new graphic novel, “Feeding Ghosts,” is on display Saturday through July 7.
A second exhibit, “Jeanne K. Simmons: Photographs, Artifacts, and Intimate Works,” will run from Saturday through June 30.
Simmons will be on hand during the reception and models will bring some of the objects in her images to life as walking artwork.
Simmons’ interdisciplinary art reflects her deeply held belief that humans and the natural world are inseparable.
Her artwork often showcases women integrated into natural settings, surrounded by meticulously organized foraged materials and sometimes includes local women, such as Nicole Larson, Alison Kaplan, Velda Thomas, Katrina Wolfe and Mahina Gelderloos, as models.
For more information, call the society at 360-385-1003 or visit www.jchsmuseum.org.
Others said to be open for First Saturday hours include Earthenworks Gallery, 702 Water St.; Forest Gems Gallery, 807 Washington St.; Pacific Traditions, 637 Water St.; Little Wing Gallery, 924 Washington St., and Grover Gallery, 236 Taylor St.
Carolyn Doe’s “Places Where the Light Gets In” is on view at Gallery 9.
Phil Carrico’s woodcut “El Fin” is on display at Port Townsend Gallery.
