PORT TOWNSEND — Photographic images of nature, paintings of Fort Worden, watercolors and pottery are among the works of art to be highlighted during the Port Townsend Gallery Walk on Saturday.
The monthly walk, in which many galleries feature the artists whose work is on display, will be from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Here are stops on the tour.
• Port Townsend Gallery, 715 Water St., will feature the award-winning black-and-white nature photography of Stephen Cunliffe and the nature-inspired pottery of Diane Gale during the month of November.
The two artists will be at the gallery during Gallery Walk on Saturday.
Cunliffe moved to the Olympic Peninsula 12 years ago.
“Where else could you be so close to the enormous variety of nature?” he asked, listing the “forests, mountains, oceans, rivers and beaches, with all the diversity of wildlife that they contain.”
In 2009, Cunliffe won the Canon Nature Photographer of the Year.
He donates the proceeds of his sales to the Jefferson Land Trust and the Port Townsend Marine Science Center.
“I am able to create value with my photography, and I give that value straight back to the conservation of nature,” Cunliffe said.
Gale, a potter for more than 25 years, is grounded in classical American and Japanese techniques. In 2009 she was selected to participate in a juried residency in Tokoname, Japan, and received intensive training on throwing techniques, Japanese culture and woodfiring.
Her work is in private collections and is now on exhibit at the Washington State Convention Center.
Gale will show work from her gas kiln. Also available, to complement Cunliffe’s black-and-white photography, will be her “Winter Trees” line of ceramics, inspired by nature.
The Port Townsend Gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
For more information, call 360-379-8110 or go to www.porttownsendgallery.com.
• Elevated Ice Cream, 627/631 Water St., will present Fort Worden Perspectives through November.
Artist Claude Manning will be at the shop from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday.
His oil paintings feature many of the iconic sights of Fort Worden State Park.
“I live nearby and walk there virtually every day with my wife and our dog,” Manning said. “Like many local residents, we have come to love the natural and historic wonders of Fort Worden.”
Manning, who serves on the board of the all-volunteer Friends of Fort Worden State Park, will donate 20 percent of the proceeds of sales of his Fort Worden paintings to the Friends of Fort Worden to support their ongoing projects and programs.
The show also will include a small selection of portraits and other works.
Elevated Ice Cream Co. & Candy Shop is open from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday an Saturday.
• Gallery 9, 1012 Water St., features the watercolors of Sandra Smith-Poling during November.
The artist will discuss her art during Gallery Walk from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday.
Smith-Poling has paintings in galleries and private collections worldwide, and has had many paintings in juried shows.
She provided the artwork for the 2004 Wooden Boat Festival poster, which portrayed a rendition of a 1933 painting of the Arthur Foss towing the Wawona.
Sandra Smith-Poling aims to capture the spirit of Port Townsend in her watercolors.
“I strive to obtain the maximum effect with the first stroke of my brush, and to capture what my eye and mind see and feel in a scene,” she said.
Gallery 9 is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day.
For more information, see gallery-9.com or call 360-379-8881.
• Northwind Arts Center, 701 Water St., will present artists Sally Warren and Wanda Mawhinney during the Gallery Walk Saturday.
Warren also will give an Art Talk at 1 p.m. Sunday.
Mawhinney is the featured artist of the month at the Northwind Artist Showcase.
The Artist Showcase, now in its fifth year, exhibits the work of 36 artists from across the Northwest. Artwork is presented in a curated show that is changed monthly.
Mawhinney, a contemporary abstract painter. moved to Port Ludlow from Tucson in 2005.
She was a member of the Port Townsend Gallery for seven years, managed the Port Ludlow Artists’ League Gallery for four years and has been League President for two years.
Currently she is the chair of the Exhibit Committee for Northwind Arts Center.
Mawhinney switched from acrylics to oils a few years ago; her newest passion is using oil and cold wax on board.
“I’m often amazed and delighted at the final results,” she said.
Warren’s exhibit, “Convenience Store,” was prompted by the 2016 presidential election, she said.
“Americans had been delivered an impossible outcome by people who felt overlooked,” she said.
“As a voter who had believed that my political choices are all about taking care of those same people, this was a paradigm shift. I felt angry at the betrayal, but also guilty about my own lack of understanding.”
On a road trip to visit family, she stopped at a convenience store and found a pile of trash outside.
“Without knowing why, I felt drawn to pick up the mess,” Warren said.
“In my studio I took the stance of an outsider, an archaeologist maybe, laying out the fragments in order to understand a strange culture.
“The trash went from abject scraps to colorful individuals in a composition. I went from being disgusted by the waste and the unhealthy choices to uncomfortably complicit in my attraction to color and sparkle.
“We treat our planet as a convenience store, and we are stripping the shelves bare,” Warren said.
“Politically and personally, where there is money to be made, we turn a blind eye to the consequences. Like the rats in the experiments, we keep going back to the sugar.”
The exhibits will be on view through Nov. 25.
• Port Townsend School of the Arts, 236 Taylor St., hosts faculty and regional artists in a month-long showcase of wearable art pieces in the school’s downtown Art Experience space.
As part of this theme, Port Townsend School of the Arts (PTSA) will feature a wearable art trunk show on Small Business Nov. 24.
Participating faculty artists Margie McDonald, Nonie Gaines and Donna Lark have taught at PTSA since its inception, and along with Teri Nomura, have been winning participants in Port Townsend’s legendary Wearable Art show in May every year.
Many of PTSA’s artist-teachers will be at the present during Gallery Walk to talk about their work and the classes they offer.
Regular gallery hours are noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday or by appointment.
• Jefferson County Historical Society, 540 Water St., offers free admission to the Jefferson Museum of Art and History during the gallery walk.
Free admission will be offered from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday.
For more information, see jchsmuseum.org.
Work by Sandra Smith-Poling will be featured at Gallery 9 in Port Townsend on Saturday.
“Adak Abandoned” by Stephen Cunliffe will be on exhibit at the Port Townsend Gallery during the Gallery Walk on Saturday.
“Memory (Vaulted)” is among the work by Claude Manning that will be on display at Elevated Ice Cream during the Port Townsend Gallery Walk on Saturday.
