SEQUIM — Feel free to “thump the chum,” Margaret Owens says, adding that her artwork is quite sturdy.
But these chum, aka dog salmon, look fierce. They’re baring their teeth, they’re swimming like mad, “they’re hellbent for recycling,” adds Owens, the Joyce artist who made these fish out of two weeks’ worth of newspaper.
Yes, she pressed wet Peninsula Daily News pulp into salmon-shaped plaster molds, let it dry, then extracted it and painted the chum onto a big canvas for “The Art of Sustainability,” the new exhibition at the Museum & Arts Center in Sequim.
Earth Day theme
Owens’ “Fish to Trees —Trees to Fish” is one of 66 works on display at the MAC, 175 W. Cedar St., during tonight’s First Friday Art Walk. The Earth Day-oriented show will stay up through April 30, and admission is free to the museum, which is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays. More information about “The Art of Sustainability” awaits at www.MACSequim.org.
Owens says the school of salmon represents Mother Nature’s knack for sustainability: The totemic fish, throughout life and death, nourish the rivers, forests, seas and people of the Northwest. Thus they recycle themselves, the artist says.
She knows from recycling, having been making fish sculptures from old newspaper for years now. Things have come full circle in another way, in the home she shares with her husband, Chuck Owens.
He made his living as a fisherman here, and now that he’s retired, “he’s a paper boy,” delivering the PDN, Owens said, leaning back into a big laugh.
Owens’ work is just one example of how artists define sustainability, said exhibition curator Renne Brock-Richmond. After installing the show last Tuesday, she marveled at what she calls a “mix of medium, mindfulness and very different messages.”
In “The Art of Sustainability,” there are tributes to organic farming in the Dungeness Valley; images of lavender and strawberry fields; jewelry made of found objects, photography celebrating women’s friendships, and dozens of other interpretations of healthy living. And there’s Linda Walnum’s African warrior doll, made of things she found lying around her house: a scrap of faux leopard fur, a twig for a spear, beads and yarn.
“It takes a village to raise a warrior,” Walnum quipped upon delivering her doll to the MAC last week.
“It takes all of us together to make a valuable member of the community,” added an inspired Brock-Richmond.
With another piece she contributed to the show, Walnum demonstrates the art of jewelry from odds and ends. She brought in a necklace made of pieces found long ago on the streets of San Francisco: washers, wire, a metal drain cap, an earring. It’s been around a while, she said, so “I thought I’d recycle it,” in the new show.
Finding the connection
Part of the fun of this exhibition is finding connections between the differing pieces, said Brock-Richmond. It feels to her like a connect-the-dots puzzle, one that reveals a picture of the diverse artistic community here.
“The Art of Sustainability” is one of many stops on the Sequim First Friday Art Walk map. From 5 p.m. till 8 p.m., a variety of other venues will stay open to display local artists’ work and serve refreshments. Among tonight’s exhibits:
■ Robert Reed’s fine art photography, along with music by Sarah Shea and Chez Jazz, fill the Sequim Library at 630 N. Sequim Ave.;
■ Fused-glass artist Jonathan Koeppe Patton and veteran painter Bob Stem are showing their creations in the newly renovated Blue Whole Gallery, 129 W. Washington St.;
■ Photographic art by Ken Beale is on display inside The Dove’s Nest, 139 W. Washington St.;
■ “Chef’s choice” snacks, local artists and their work await at the Sunshine Cafe, 135 W. Washington St.
For a free map of First Friday Art Walk galleries and to find out more about participating in the monthly event, visit www.SequimArtWalk.com.
