PORT TOWNSEND — Resident Bird, an exhibit featuring the art of John Hillmer, will be on display at Fort Worden, 200 Battery Way, today and Saturday.
The exhibit — which includes original paintings, prints and graphic experiments — is open from 5 to 8 tonight and noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, upstairs in the South Studio of Building 205.
The exhibit is organized by the Centrum Foundation, a nonprofit organization headquartered at Fort Worden that is a gathering place for artists and creative thinkers from around the world.
Hillmer is a former Centrum artist in residence at Fort Worden who now divides most of his time between homes in Bend, Ore., and Mexico.
“I had the big studio in Building 205, which I’m sure has been a kind of sacred space for many artists along the path,” Hillmer said.
“It was the beginning of a very special relationship, for which I’m most grateful.”
That relationship led Hillmer to teach youth programs at Centrum and design many iconic images for its jazz, acoustic blues and fiddle tunes festivals, according to a news release.
Hillmer studied and taught at the American School in Guadalajara, Mexico, where he earned a master’s degree in international education.
He has embarked on migratory routes ever since, with his new exhibit celebrating those journeys, according to the release.
Resident Bird contains colorful, playful images of fish, birds, Buddhas, Port Townsend Jazz and Acoustic Blues festival graphic experiments, and a large mural created by students in 1995 titled “Lovesick.”
The selected works are “all within the themes of music, myth and the energy of migration that defines — in one way or another — everyone’s life,” Hillmer said.
For more, visit http:// centrum.org/.
