PORT TOWNSEND — Divas, dahlias and “Girls Chopping Wood” all figure in the free Gallery Walk around Port Townsend this Saturday evening. Here’s a sampling of the venues to bring artists and art lovers together, with refreshments, from 5:30 p.m. till about 8 p.m. Saturday.
■ The Northwind Arts Center, 2409 Jefferson St., has its new show, “Threshold,” up and showcasing the work of Karen Page and Ken Lundemo. Page uses whatever she has lying around: paper, pictures, charms, beads, rubber stamps, yarn. She doesn’t know what her art will look like when it’s finished, she says. “I never anticipate what will happen. That is the joy of the creative process for me … I facilitate the materials, [and] the creative juices boil.”
Lundemo, a sculptor, welder and carver from Seabeck, uses local and imported wood and stone to create images of women and wildlife. “The female form has been a favorite, and I’ve done drawing and sculpture on the subject for 50 years,” Lundemo notes.
■ The Simon Mace Gallery, 236 Taylor St., presents its November show “Thoughts of Home.” Painters David Ridgway, Suzanne DeCuir and Frank Renlie along with ceramic sculptor Sue Roberts pay tribute to childhood homes, dream homes, home towns and beyond.
■ Gallery 9, at 2112 Water St., has unveiled “The Drama of Light,” a show starring painter Sandra Smith-Poling and jeweler Michael Kenney. While Smith-Poling plays with early morning light and shadow, Kenney makes adornments with banded fluorite, a rare material from China, and with opals and other stones that bend and reflect light.
■ The Blue Raincoat Gallery, 940 Water St. above the Bead Shop, hosts “Of Divas & Dahlias,” a display of Denise Gargano’s dahlia paintings and photographs of Port Townsend area scenes, plus classic female portraits by art deco era painter Tamara de Lempicka. These works portray women as adventurers, mothers — and the uninhibited diva, all smoldering with dramatic shadows, light and color.
Gargano herself will be at the gallery from 5 p.m. till 7 p.m. Saturday.
■ The Red Raven Gallery, 922 Water St., presents “Biophilia,” an array of wildly colorful paintings by Amy Weber and Redd Walitzki. Their works, with names such as “To Make Sense of the Immense” and “The Brightness Becomes,” stay on display throughout November.
■ Artisans on Taylor, 911 Water St., hosts the show titled “Girls Chopping Wood,” featuring objects made from and about wood. Creators Mare Tietjen, Karen Rudd and Margie McDonald invite visitors to dress in lumberjack apparel — flannel and Carharrts — for the costume contest.
Tietjen uses “historic wood” from boats and houses; Rudd builds large-scale tree stumps from corrugated cardboard and McDonald makes sculptures from stuff found in junkyards, boatyards and front yards.
All three Port Townsend women will be on hand Saturday evening to chat about chopping.
■ The Port Townsend Gallery, 715 Water St., has a new show titled “Seeking the Subject” featuring wildlife and landscape photographer Stephen Cunliffe and painter Kathy Francis.
As a plein aire painter, Francis works to capture the light and colors of a specific place, while Cunliffe seeks the gestures of animals, the light refracted through clouds and other natural wonders. Both artists will be on hand Saturday evening.
■ The Max Grover Gallery, 630 Water St. adjacent to Sideshow Variety, is displaying large-scale paintings by Frank Samuelson, a longtime local resident and maker of many public art installations across Washington state. The acrylics now at Max Grover show the artist’s feeling of connection to Port Townsend, where he had his first art lesson 51 years ago.
■ The Jefferson Museum of Art & History, 540 Water St., is open with free admission during Saturday’s Gallery Walk. Current exhibits are “Port Townsend Goes Hollywood,” a show focusing on Port Townsend’s historic theaters, movies filmed in Port Townsend and local residents involved in filmmaking, and “Contemporary Expressions of the Northwest: Fine Art from the Robert and Nora Porter Collection.”
