Current Exhibition

March 20 - May 15

Strait Art 2011

Slivers of Silver

Every spring the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center mounts an exhibition called Strait Art that provides a rich sampling of what artists in Juan de Fuca country are up to. Unlike the Center’s other multi-artist shows that explore a common theme or its solo shows that study the accomplishments of a single artist in depth, the organizing principle of Strait Art is simply the artist’s residency on the North Olympic Peninsula.

However, this year in anticipation of the Center’s 25th “silver anniversary” coming in November, we asked applicants to Strait Art 2011 to consider the notion of Slivers of Silver when choosing which of their works to submit. The outcome is that silver weaves through the gallery in both obvious and subtle ways.

Although it represents a region the Strait Art series has never proposed or argued for any particular style or aesthetic that might be interpreted as strictly regional. The fluid mobility of American culture has long diluted most pockets of regionalism. The age of instant interconnectivity and information overload has further channeled artists’ interests and influences across a much broader spectrum.

Apart from artists who are so awed by the intrinsic beauty of this home landscape that it becomes a fetish in itself, Peninsula artists like artists everywhere struggle with form and content to make a broad range of observations, ideas and emotions visible. It is indeed the artist’s understanding and skilled handling of the interrelationships between form and content, which gives their works a depth of interest that sustains repeated viewings.

“Exhibitions are always defined by a combination of curatorial objectives and the spatial limitations of the Webster House,” explained Center director and resident curator Jake Seniuk. “Forty-four artists were selected from a pool of sixty-seven applicants from Clallam and Jefferson Counties. They represent a broad sampling of aesthetics, media and techniques. Above all works were chosen for the resonances they inspire between such dichotomies as acts of rendering versus the draw of abstraction, the actual versus the virtual, and newcomers to the entourage versus veterans of past exhibition."

If there is a “sliver of silver” with wide local import this year it is represented in the overflow cataract seen arcing off the Glines Canyon Dam as depicted in Peter Malarkey’s (Port Angeles) painting, Upper Dam (Waterfall). The removal of the Elwha Dams beginning this summer is a monumental and controversial undertaking that casts an international spotlight on the Olympic Peninsula, and is destined to deepen our understanding of the benefits and pitfalls of habitat restoration. Malarkey balances a classic composition with subtle painterliness that leaves his brushstrokes plainly evident, imbuing the work with a restrained tinge of Romanticism that makes the structure seem massive yet simultaneously ephemeral, ready to dissolve back into the natural order.

Other paintings range from Ianthe Moul’s (Port Angeles) abstraction of silvery streaks emerging from a lava-like field of glowing red to Torrey Jakubcin’s (Port Angeles) kite’s tail of precise trianglar flags ringing a fireworks stand and snapping dissonant jolts of color against the silver clouds of the rain swollen Northwest sky.

Camera work is well represented in such pieces as Sequim photographer/pilot Dave Woodcock’s low flying view of the waves and beach at Graveyard Spit, printed on aluminum panels that show through from below to give the silver surf a true metallic luster. Brian Schroder (Port Angeles) tightly frames the chalk-toned swirling ramps of a skate park into a gleaming distillation of architectural forms and Jack Galloway’s (Port Angeles) study of thin veils of crenulated ice is mandala-like in its intricacy

Artists using recycling as a theme, material or process constitute a major current in the show. For his Roadside Ethnography photo series Michael Berman (Port Ludlow) walked along a country highway near his house, one mile out and one mile back on each side of the road. Along the way he photographed every bit of flotsam jettisoned from passing cars — crushed cans, cigarette packs, milkshake cups, and much more. Arranged in a checkerboard grid of tightly cropped mug shots (pun intended) the dense grouping suggests a continuous field of refuse like the fabled Texas-sized Pacific Trash Vortex floating north of Hawaii.

Margaret Owens’ (Joyce) cast pulp menagerie of fish is made from the recycled Peninsula Daily News with flashes of added silver leaf and Gray Lucier’s (Port Angeles) mobile is comprised of carefully balanced thrift store vintage silverware.

Susan Hazard’s (Port Townsend) satiric Weekend Warrior is a life-size jump-suited figure rising from a silvery janitor's cart. Comprised of found objects he sports an old time punch-clock for a ticking "head" and is loaded down with tools for work and play.

A sculptural orb that is a product of high refinement is David Eisenhour’s (Port Hadlock) bronze Pea, which glows with a lustrous silver nitrate patina.

The craft world is represented by textile wizard Judith Bird (Port Townsend) with her rainbow tunic Stitched in Silver, Theresa Killgore’s (Port Angeles) elaborate necklace festooned with miniature icons, and Janine Hegy’s (Port Angeles) carved limestone tile inset with a roll printed silver butterfly.

The exhibition strays into the cyber world, as well, with Randall Page’s (Port Angeles) hard edge fractal photography and Renee Emiko Brock-Richmond’s (Sequim) video tour of her Second Life domain, a virtual environment where avatars of participants interact for real business and pleasure (Brock-Richmond will also present a lecture on Second Life on April 15 @ 7pm).

There is much, much more with additional work from the following artists: Port Angeles — David Haight, Tammy Hall, Mathew Hargreaves, Pamela Hastings, Barbara Houshmand, Richard Kohler, Anna Wiancko-Chasman, Kevin Willson •(Sequim —Barb Boerigter, Gabrielle Glasen, Jean Heessels-Petit, Mike McCollum, Pablo McLoud, Jenny Steelquist, Tom Trindle • Port Townsend — Kate Dwyer , Jeff Eichen,Rachel Gaspers, Lauren Hunter, Newel Hunter, Kim Kopp, Counsel Langley, Margie McDonald, Harold Nelson, Sandra Offut, Mare Tietjen, Yvonne Wakefiled • Nordland — Lisa Gilley