PORT TOWNSEND — The Museum of Art + History, Gallery-9, the Port Townsend Gallery and the Jeanette Best Gallery will be among the venues participating in the Art Walk from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday in downtown Port Townsend.
• Gallery-9, 1012 Water St., will feature the oil paintings of Gary Rainwater and the jewelry of Judi Komishane during the art walk.
Gary Rainwater is a self-taught artist who mainly works with oil paints but also creates wood carvings.
After retiring from a 22-year career as a Los Angeles firefighter, Rainwater rebuilt a Danish fishing boat, the S/V Ladyhawk, and sailed back to the Pacific Northwest, where he reconnected with his oil paints.
Rainwater works with the contrast of light and dark and is interested in a variety of subject materials including boats, nature and animals.
Many of his paintings capture the relationships of people to their environment.
Judith Komishane has been making jewelry for more than 15 years and often finds materials for her necklaces bracelets and earrings by combing through antique shops and other places during her travels.
“I strive to make a wide variety of styles, colors and price range to suit different people,” Komishane said. “I love that my jewelry has found a home in many different places. I especially like making custom pieces — it was fun to do one that included birthstones of a client’s three children and another that combined stones from old family jewelry to make a new piece.
“Lately I have rediscovered old pendants acquired early on and had put aside. In the past, I had made many ethnic pieces and my next focus will be in that direction.”
The artwork of Rainwater and Komishane will be on display at Gallery-9 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Mondays throughout September.
For more information, visit www.gallery-9.com.
• Port Townsend Gallery, 715 Water St., will host a reception for Beverly McNeil and Barbara Ewing from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday.
Attendees can meet the artists and view McNeil’s nature photography and Ewing’s ceramic art.
McNeil is presenting an exhibit of coleus leaves and leaf skeletons in honor of autumn leaves.
McNeil prefers to avoid using a computer to change her images.
In this series, she placed a floor lamp pointing upward toward a plate of glass with a sheet of colored vellum on top.
She then placed the leaf on top of the vellum and glass and took a snapshot.
“The end result, the photograph, is what you are seeing through her camera lens without any modifications from a computer,” McNeil said.
McNeil, who has been photographing nature for 30 years, grew up in Colorado, where she first started photographing wildflowers and birds.
She has photographed extensively in Costa Rica, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.
Ewing is known for her functional ceramic pieces, which she has been making for 37 years.
Ewing specializes in appetizer dishes, platters, bud and standard vases, bottles, sconces and, occasionally, lamps.
The various colored clay bodies often are glazed with bright and lively colors and enhanced by the impressions made by stamps, stencils and found objects.
She often adds clay buttons or strips of clay to her pieces.
“Clay is an amazing substance to work with and the glazes come in hundreds of formulations of earth’s minerals,” Ewing said. “Heat is the miracle that makes it all a success.”
The Port Townsend Gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.
For more information, call the gallery at 360-379-8110 or visit www.port townsendgallery.com.
• The Jeanette Best Gallery, 701 Water St., is displaying “Northwest Expressions,” a juried exhibit of works from artists from across Washington and Oregon.
Jurors Richard Jesse Watson and Jesse Joshua Watson selected 42 pieces from more than 600 entries and named four pieces for special recognition.
The Jurors’ Choice Prize went to “Center of Attention” by John Strohbehn of Sequim and the Merit Award winners were “Delusive Vortex” by Jordan Carter of Port Townsend, “Direct Line to Nature” by Joshua Phelps of Edmonds and “What Lies Beyond” by Aliza Sáraco-Polner of Port Hadlock.
Visitors are encouraged to vote for the People’s Choice Award throughout the exhibit’s run, which ends Sept. 29.
The gallery also continues to exhibit the recently updated “Showcase 2024,” celebrating the work of local artists.
The Showcase exhibit will be on display through the end of the year.
The Jeanette Best Gallery is open from noon to 5 p.m. daily.
For more information, visit www.northwindart.com.
• The Museum of Art + History, 540 Water St., will host a guided tour of “Paintbox Cornucopia” at 5 p.m. Saturday.
Painter Suzanne P. Lamon will lead a tour through the exhibit, a retrospective of her 50-year artistic journey.
Lamon will share insights into her creative process as well as the stories behind each piece.
There are limited spaces on the tour, so registration is required at https://www.simpletix.com/e/suzanne- p-lamon-gallery-walk-talk-tickets-178524.
“Paintbox Cornucopia” is on display at the Museum of Art + History from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays throughout the rest of the year.
