PORT TOWNSEND — Photos of outdoor life, county fairs and wooden boat building are featured in three of the venues on the Port Townsend Art Walk on Saturday.
The Tyler Street Coffee House may not spring to mind as an art venue, but Pat Neal has a good reason for hanging his photos there:
“They’ve got really good pie,” he said.
Neal writes a Commentary column for the Peninsula Daily News, and has explored every inch of the Olympic Peninsula.
This is the first exhibit of his work.
“This exhibit of my work represents a 35-year retrospective of both black-and-white photographs that I have taken on the Olympic Peninsula as a historian or while guiding the rivers of the rain forest,” he said.
“Many fine cameras were destroyed in the assembly of this exhibit. I hope you like it.”
First efforts
Humorist Neal explained his first forays into art in his prologue to the exhibit that appeared in the PDN Wednesday:
“As a youth I was impressed with the linear geometry of vertical cedar posts connected with parallel strands of barbed metal wire.
“To me it was an intrusive barricade that represented a contrived division of open space and mirrored the boundaries that can rob us of our dreams. It made me wonder what as on the other side.
“I titled this piece of farm sculpture “A Fence.”
Meet the artist and maybe try a piece of pie Saturday from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
“Fairs, Festivals and Parades” is being staged by the Jefferson County Historical Society at the historic Port Townsend City Council Chambers, 540 Water St.
The images were selected from more than 20,000 historical images culled from the historical society archives.
They include photos of past Jefferson County Fairs, Rhododendron Festivals, the Victorian Festival and more, from the early 1900s through the 1950s.
Mike Bosold launches his “Young Shipwrights, Limited Edition” medium format photography show at the Bishop Hotel with a nautical storytelling session from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., accompanied by guitarist Peter Toyne.
His retrospective features Port Townsend’s boats and boatmakers in an archival quality medium.
Bosold’s show marks his return to Port Townsend after traveling to study and film the culture of wooden boat building and use in the western hemisphere and Eurasia.
Bosold said of his work: “The intricate symbiotic nature of ship builders, the trees they shape, carve and fasten together, is a different world than the meterology of global warming and the science of sustainable yield.
“To place the grain of a tree trunk in a keel, against the strength of a 50 foot wave, is still remarkable today . . . These wood sculptures and those who create them will forever echo the human interest to live in harmony with the sea.”
Port Townsend Art Walk, 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday includes:
• Port Townsend Gallery, 715 Water St., Glass artist Michael Barley and photographer Will Kalb.
• Ancestral Spirits Gallery,701 Water St., authentic Native American art.
• Artisans on Taylor, 236 Taylor St.
• Gallery 9, 1012 Water St.
• Lorna Smith Pottery, 833 Water St., local folk art.
• Lundell’s EcoArt Gallery, 802 Washington St.
• Max Grover Gallery, 820 Water St.
• Northwind Arts Center, 2409 Jefferson St., Watercolor show with seven artists.
• Pacific Traditions Gallery, 637 Water St., traditional art of the Native community of the Olympic Peninsula.
• Port Townsend Gallery, 715 Water St.
• Vagabond Arts, 234 Taylor St.
• William’s Gallery, 914 Water St.
