Articles

That’s When I know I Am Home

When I was younger, I don’t think I could have imagined myself saying, “I don’t want to travel again for a very long time.” The story I told myself then was that I wanted to travel forever.

And I have been traveling, one city after another, to teach master classes, though a few years back I decided to return to calling them dance workshops. Something about the word master has always embarrassed me.

But no matter what our class is called, as soon as the music begins, a certain feeling comes over me: that I was always meant to do this. Add this to getting to visit towns and cities I might not get to see otherwise and it says everything about what I enjoy most about my work.

But even when I’m enjoying myself, there’s a lot of comparing that goes on. I don’t mean I compare my class to anyone else’s. I’m talking about comparisons of a different nature.

In fact, comparing is pretty much all I do for the first day or so, especially when I take a walk through a new neighborhood and compare someone else’s life to the one I left behind with its doors and windows locked. I look around and I am charmed as much by the farm houses outside of Wenatchee as I am by the beach bungalows in Papeete.

And this is good. It’s all part of the traveling cycle, the complex set of questions that crop up in unknown terrain. Our inner appraisal of choices made and ones still yet to make. I can even drive myself a little crazy with all the comparing that goes on as I imagine myself living one life after another after another.

Not to worry. As the days pass, I realize there are amazing houses and terrible restaurants wherever you go.

And it all happens so fast (in hindsight) and then the tedious airport again, the tedious ferry wait again, before I pull my suitcase up the walkway that leads to my building where, now wait just a minute, doesn’t my home look fantastic?

I unlock my door, step in, and the life, the one I’ve worked so hard for, rights itself. I warm to my things. We grow cozy together. Their familiarity connects me. To me. And that’s when I know I am home. That’s when I know.

At some point, the refrigerator door will close behind me, and there it is, the sound I know so well, the sound only my refrigerator makes. I open the door and let it close again, wahoosh, just to hear it again. And I doubt, I seriously doubt, that I can pull off traveling again next month.

I wrote this back in July.

By mid-August, my travel bag was packed. I admit I was a little restless: restless to teach, restless to return to that part of myself. So. Off I went.

Only to Whidbey Island. Not far, but new to me. And the students were great, the students are always great. I treasure every class in hopes of inspiring them to find a way to dance forever. “Just look at me,” I say. I try to confirm how dance is a huge part of who we are by choosing both my words and choreography carefully. I told students in Oak Harbor how the night before I dreamt—it wasn’t a dream really, more of a must-say nudging my half-sleep—how it’s always been them I was meant to nurture. That’s why I love to teach them, and why I love to dance with them. In Langley, I shared how eager they are, how alive, is dance’s greatest gift to me. Even if that sounds too schmaltzy or whatever.  

Even so, it isn’t travel I need now, but my own bed, and I don’t want to travel again (I swear) for a very long time.

Mary Lou Sanelli

Mary Lou Sanelli’s latest title, An Island Called Bainbridge: People, Places, 

Conversations is to be released in the fall of 2026. Save the Date: She is celebrating this new title with a launch party at Eagle Harbor Book Company on October 8, 6:30 p.m.; at Elliott Bay Book Company on October 13, 7 p.m.; Third Place Books/Ravenna on October 29, 7 p.m.; and signing copies at Magnolia’s Bookstore on October 3, 11 am to 2 pm.  For more information visit www.marylousanelli.com.

Convergence & Divergence: The Family Aesthetic

San Juan Islands Museum of Art • Friday Harbor, Washington

Families are a funny thing. You assume that you share a common vision because that makes life easier and more productive. And, in retrospect, you can always knit together a thread. Curator Meg Partridge, daughter and granddaughter of three well-established artists, found a thin through-line to the works of her grandmother, Imogen Cunningham, her grandfather, Roi Partridge, and her father, Rondal Partridge. For better or worse, this line does hold, and makes for a very engaging, compact exhibition.

By far, the best known and most respected of the three artists is Imogen Cunningham (1883–1976). Briefly, she was born in Portland, Oregon, and raised in Seattle, where her father made her a darkroom in a woodshed. She attended the University of Washington, where she studied Chemistry, as Photography was not yet a thing there. She worked at a Seattle-based studio for Edward Curtis, learning more about the business and art of photography. By 1910, she had established her own photo studio in Seattle and exhibited nationally. In 1915, she married Roy (“Call me Roi”) Partridge (1888–1984), who had been studying printmaking, etching in particular, in Europe. Upon his return to the Northwest, his plein air fine-line renderings of the mountains and flora of the Cascades drew national interest. During one outing, Imogen made a photograph of Roi bathing in the mountain waters. “The Bather” was published in the Christmas issue of The Town Crier and further established her renown and daring. By 1917, the couple moved to the Bay Area, where the family grew to five with twins, Rondal and Padraic, joining older brother Gryffyd. Roi began teaching at Mills College in 1920. Imogen was at home with three young children and began her study of botanicals in her backyard garden, famously noting, “I had three children in two years, and what could I do?”

became part of the daily routine and exploration for Imogen—not only as models (foreshadowing the work of Sally Mann), but as studio mates. Rondal (1917–2015) appears to have been most interested, learning by his mother’s side. By the time he was a teenager, he was technically adept and soon worked for family friends, photographers Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams. Rondal absorbed their commitment to environmental concerns and our shared humanity.

And then, off they went. By 1934, Imogen and Roi were divorced. He taught for over twenty-five years at Mills, and she continued her upward spiral in the photography world. Imogen made her photos with large (and sometimes very large) format cameras, many times hauling around a heavy wooden camera on a tripod and viewing the subject from under the stereotypical black cloth. How she achieved the nuanced, introspective portraits of noted art luminaries such as Frida Kahlo, Ansel Adams, and Martha Graham is nothing short of miraculous.*

Rondal was a freelance photographer for West Coast architects but found his own voice through more observational works.

All this brings me back to the exhibition. The show condenses many pictures into a small space. It is overhung, with more breathing space needed. However, it also reads like a family album, stacked high with a photo of grandfather, next to pictures of the kids, next to friends, next to “trips we took.” It is hard to appreciate the subtleties of Roi’s finely textured prints and the quietness of Imogen’s flowers with this much on the wall. However, again, the compactness played to the show’s advantage with the well-demarcated groupings, such as “Shared Vision,” where the three artists are compared and contrasted through botanicals or landscapes.

Imogen’s work is crisply shown through new estate prints, with a good selection of her more famous and lesser-known images. The portraits of Frida Kahlo and Martha Graham and the closely cropped botanicals should be appreciated by all. A new image for me is the witty 1953 picture, “Nuns at a Calder Show.” The delicate modulation of line in Roi’s early work is seen here, especially in the almost drypoint-looking “Willow Pond 1”and “Willow Pond 2.” I am less familiar with Rondal’s work but found him to be a very astute observer of his teachers and parents. I saw Lange’s influence in portraiture, in Adams in landscape views, but also a bit of Diane Arbus in “Pave it and Paint it Green, Yosemite” and Duane Michals in “Airplane Bathroom.”

This is the first time that these three artists have been shown together and is the largest exhibition of Cunningham’s photography since her retrospective organized by the Getty Museum in 2022. I truly appreciate the thoughtful text and insights brought by granddaughter Meg, a local from Lopez Island. In an exhibition section called “Tools & Techniques,” there is a pasteboard film box with a handwritten note from Imogen, “Retouch to make her look like a Movie Star.” With what could have been a cluttered mess, Meg has made it shine.

*For a sense of scale of the diminutive Imogen, search for the photo “Imogen and Twinka at Yosemite,” by Judy Dater, when Imogen was 90. Twinka is the daughter of the late great painter Wayne Thiebaud, but I digress.

Milton Freewater

Milton Freewater is an arts writer living in Seattle, Washington.

San Juan Islands Museum of Art, located at 540 Spring Street in Friday Harbor, Washington, is open Friday to Monday from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. For more information, visit www.sjima.org.

The Art of Seeing

Cascadia Art Museum • Edmonds, WA

From September 23, 2026 through January 10, 2027, visitors to Cascadia Art Museum in Edmonds, Washington have the opportunity to learn about the life and work of Zoë Dusanne (1884–1972), a Seattle gallerist and prominent art collector in the mid-twentieth century. The exhibition features work by artists represented by Dusanne, as well as a few artworks documented as being shown in her gallery through photographic evidence and personal narratives, in addition to ephemera and artifacts from her life, such as a marionette created during her time working at the Federal Theatre W.P.A. Marionette Theatre Workshop. The exhibition is built through the extensive family and artist relationships of the museum’s curator, David Martin. Under his care, the works of well-known artists such as Paul Horiuchi and Kenjiro Nomura, as well as artists that may not be known to museum visitors, like Carl Holty and Louise Lewis Gilbert, are on display in the museum to demonstrate Dusanne’s gallery program. The result is a thorough visual documentation of a gallerist who had a profound impact on the lives and careers of twentieth-century artists in Seattle; her legacy is not as well understood as it should be. 

The exhibition, “The Art of Seeing,” opens in conjunction with a significant publication about Dusanne by writers and researchers Beth Ann Whittaker and Richelle Munkhoff, the founders of Plain Sight Archive. The book fills a crucial missing piece in understanding the life and legacy of Dusanne, and therefore supports the mission of Plain Sight Archive, which is “to build an innovative relational archive that illuminates and connects traditionally obscured figures and creative communities. Our vision includes foregrounding narratives that highlight expansive representation in the arts, now and for the future.” The coordination of both an exhibition and book release this September is truly a significant moment in the art historical discourse in the Northwest. While the contemporary art market continues to fluctuate and the Seattle art scene grows and evolves, it is important to acknowledge the legacy of female gallerists who were central to the artistic community in the city and broader region.

Both the book and exhibition provide key details of Dusanne’s biography, which is woven into the history of the city of Seattle during a period of post-War upheaval and transformation. Dusanne lived in various locations around the Unites States in her early years, but she finally returned to Seattle in 1942 after nearly 15 years in New York; she opened her art gallery in her home eight years later in 1950. This is where the gallery remained until her home was destroyed to make way for Interstate 5, along with many other homes and businesses largely owned by communities of color and immigrants. On a related note, you can learn more about this moment in Seattle history through an exhibition developed by students at the University of Washington College of Build Environments titled “CITY ERASED: Mapping Seattle’s Highway Cut.” The exhibition was on display in May 2026, but more information can be found online.

Dusanne focused on modern artistic movements, and brought prominent artists in the New York artistic community together with Seattle-based artists. Unsurprisingly, abstract art played an important role in Dusanne’s gallery program. “Quiet Motion and Blue,” an oil-on-canvas painting created in 1961 by John Matsudaira looms large in the galleries at 60 x 80 inches. The contrasting colors of yellow and blue dominate the canvas as Matsudaira creates both tension and motion with black lines and swaths of brilliant color, with a particular focus on the center of the painting where the vibrant blue creates a landing place for the eye. The movement of the paint on the canvas is incredible to see in person, and visitors may remember the painting from Matsudaira’s solo exhibition at Cascadia Art Museum in 2016 titled “Against the Moon: The Art of John Matsudaira.” 

While Matsudaira brings your attention to the center of the canvas, fellow abstract painter Al Everett draws the eye all over the picture plane with sweeping brushstrokes of red, blue, white, and green paint. Appropriately titled “Passion,” this collage and oil-on-canvas piece is also be hard to avoid at 48 x 48 inches. Together, the groupings of abstract paintings illustrate the emotion, philosophy, and interest of Dusanne and her circle of artists and clients. 

It feels appropriate to end a feature about this incredible woman with words from David Martin, the exhibition curator who also operated a gallery in Seattle. Martin details his connection to and admiration for Dusanne in a statement for the exhibition, and in that statement he recalls the opportunity “to meet some of the artists that she represented such as George Tsutakawa, Paul Horiuchi, and especially John Matsudaira who often regaled me with stories of the Dusanne gallery and her exuberant personality. I loved the fact that she would dye her hair lavender or other colors to go with her couture outfits and had dogs and even a pet tortoise that had free reign in her gallery.”

Chloé Dye Sherpe

Chloé Dye Sherpe is an art professional and curator based in Washington State.

“The Art of Seeing” is on view September 23 to January 10, 2027, Wednesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Cascadia Art Museum, located at 190 Sunset Avenue South in Edmonds, Washington. For more information, visit www.cascadiaartmuseum.org.

Hib Sabin’s Final Exhibition

Stonington Gallery • Seattle, Washington

The show running September 3-26th at the Stonington Gallery has an unusually blunt title: “Hib Sabin’s Final Exhibition.” It’s a statement so simple and direct you wonder if you missed something. Sabin’s Final exhibition? Really? Say it ain’t so! 

Sabin’s relationship with the Stonington Gallery has lasted nearly a quarter of a century, in which time he’s had fifteen solo shows. That’s a remarkable rate of production for any artist, and that rate has not fallen off with age. In fact, Sabin’s previous solo show at Stonington was just last year. Its title, “Raven and the Cast of Characters Bid You A Fond Farewell,” foreshadowed the finality of this September’s show. To echo one of Sabin’s favorite poets, Dylan Thomas, the sculptor appears to be going gently into that good night, contemplating the life cycle with curiosity and acceptance. Or at least that’s the impression one gets from the artwork itself.

Now 91, Sabin’s longevity is in the model of Agnes Martin and Georgia O’Keeffe, two artists who remained artistically active into their 90s. They did that not by constant reinvention but by continually refining approaches they’d established decades earlier. Sabin, Martin, and O’Keeffe also have something else in common: each artist uprooted to Northern New Mexico in mid-life, and took their creativity in entirely new directions. It was in Santa Fe that Sabin took up whittling and then carving; his medium of choice was the native juniper that thrives in the high-desert landscape. It’s as if the land itself spoke through these artists. 

Sabin’s work resonates so well at the Stonington in part due to Sabin’s deep interest in world mythologies and shamanism. In particular he responds to the mythic figures present in Indigenous Northwest Coast artwork, and in oral traditions, Raven being the prime example. The influence of some Inuit artists is visible in his work, too, with its economy of form, strong silhouettes, and minimal detail.

Sabin has in the past immersed himself in diverse Indigenous communities around the globe, studying (and practicing) shamanistic procedures with the Hadza people of Tanzania, with Indigenous Australian peoples, and with curanderos in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. Having spent years as an art historian in academic settings, Sabin has an experiential and intellectual grasp of how archetypal figures arise in widely different periods and places. In Ancient Greece, Raven is allied to the god Apollo, and in Norse mythology to the god Odin, who is usually depicted with two ravens. Sabin himself sometimes pairs ravens together in his work: in “Raven Spirit Rising,” he painted one raven black and the other white; in “The Offering” he depicts one raven alive and one dead. In “White Raven Dreams of His Brother” one raven is carved inside the other (whether that counts as two ravens or one is a nice ambiguity).

Owls too make frequent appearances in Sabin’s world. One of the stronger pieces in the new show, “Dreamers,” is unusual in that it pairs a raven with an owl in opposite ends of a boat, each turned away from the other. More often the owl stands in solitude. It seems relevant that several Northwest coastal nations consider the owl to be a conveyor of ancestral messages. In “Still of the Night,” Sabin presents an owl craning its neck and tilting its head ever so slightly, as if to get better reception for an in-coming message. Whether the message is from an ancestor or from some predator or potential mate is uncertain.

Other winged creatures, both birds and bats, become the focus on rarer occasion. There’s the raptor-as-vessel in “Small Vessel for Fleeting Thoughts and Hawk Vision.” In “Coming Home,” a bald eagle enfolds an older gentleman in its dark wings, as to say an abiding spirit attends the bodily self, and perhaps survives it.

One last visual motif to highlight is the row boat present throughout Sabin’s work. When figures occupy the boat, the suggestion is that they are passengers on a voyage. As such they are neither here nor there but rather betwixt and between realms. But in pieces such as “Small Vessel for Old Memories and Raven Dreams II,” the animal merges into or even becomes the vessel itself. Here again the imagery has a mythic, timeless quality. For as long as humans have constructed boats, they have carved animal forms into the bow, as if to wish for the animal’s guidance and hunting prowess. Nautical odysseys promise profound spiritual transformation—it has always been so, from the incredibly ancient Australian Aboriginal Dreamtime stories right up through Christopher Nolan’s latest film. 

Each figure Sabin carves is imbued with individuality, and to take them as mere stand-ins for an archetype or other abstraction is to miss an important personal quality. This artist may depict spirit animals but it’s always the human condition he’s exploring. Many collectors see their own condition reflected in Sabin’s carvings. And we trust that this sort of seeing and connecting will continue to occur, even if this really is, in the end, Sabin’s final exhibition.

Tom McDonald

Tom McDonald is a writer and musician living on Bainbridge Island, Washington.

Stonington Gallery, located at 125 South Jackson Street in Seattle, Washington, is open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Saturday from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. “Hib Sabin’s Final Exhibtion” is on view through September 26. For more information, please visit www.stoningtongallery.com

Fall Exhibitions

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art

“Object Lessons” (through September 20)

This major exhibit of art by Carletta Carrington Wilson includes pieces from “Mingus Series” (2008), “Book of the Bound” (2012), the multi-part “Letter to a Laundress” (2018), and recent works such as “No Way Out” (2026). The artist filled the multistory window of the museum with a towering multi-media piece, “Utopia.” In the top floor Beacon Gallery, “Utopia” appears again, this time spelled out in small kitsch figures. It offers cheerful irony while echoing the large window outside.

In this space the long poem “Lessons of Possession” begins: “To make sense of the possessive tense it is crucial to understand that the object of an object is to be had held kept adhered to by right of possession…” The lesson is a heartfelt statement about slavery. 

In the main gallery, Wilson creates a dazzling effect with multicolored fabrics, but as we approach the individual works we see there is much more at stake than aesthetics.

There are six examples from the “Book of the Bound” series (2011). Wilson’s collaged book covers become a song to those who could not fill these books with their own stories. One of the covers is made of bones attached with lace, others emphasize cotton, many are adorned with beautiful fabrics but closed with chains. Wilson uses fabric to draw connections between trade, money, and the “thread-bare body”—the wealth of the traders was based on the bodies of the enslaved. 

The fabrics throughout the exhibit are decorative, but painted with words that speak to the slave trade. Because European slavers often traded fine fabrics like silk and velvet in exchange for bodies, Wilson believes the stories of  the enslaved remain in the cloth.

Wilson’s “Letter to a Laundress” (2018) is a poem in the form of a letter to her great-great-grandmother, and the piece dominates the space with photographs from the 1930s, each mounted on fabric and suspended from a clothesline. Written on the photographs are descriptions of steps in doing laundry and one word in large type: Wash, Soak, Starch, Wring, Boil, Pin, Rub, Scrub, Hang, Press. The WPA photographs of laundresses reveal the different backgrounds of the women—some are wearing rags, others are in dresses and heels. As she worked on the project, Wilson became deeply aware of the connection between the hanging of laundry and the hanging people.

In addition the show includes very recent work such as “No Way Out.” An ironing board covered with black fabric and bearing a vertical row of red Xs is paired with two irons painted with red hand marks. It is powerful statement on its own and even more so as a follow-up to the laundresses. The Xs represent the signature of illiterate people but may also be a reference to writing in blood. The title and shrouded ironing board honors the women who ironed.

“Indigenous Craft” (through November 3)

Curated by the prominent Suquamish tribal leader Robin Little Wing Sigo in collaboration with BIMA, this lovely exhibition demonstrates the strength of contemporary Indigenous art and craft in many media. We are so fortunate in the Salish Sea region to live among generations of active Indigenous artists, many working in traditional and ceremonial forms, others focusing on contemporary practices and materials.

Weaving in terms of blankets, hats, and baskets, includes innovative work such as Betty Pasco’s radiating raffia design from a center made of sweetgrass with seed pods left intact. A more extreme innovator is Joe Feddersen who contributes woven waxed linen baskets, with specific designs woven in black. With titles like “Parking Lot,” “Roll Call,” and “Aggressive Attitude,” his work is both witty and provocative.

We see masks of all types in this show. Among works by Larry “Ulaaq” Ahvakana are extraordinary bird masks with spreading wings, such as “Giant Puffin,” and “Inua/Spirit Mask that Eats the Walrus.” Jennifer Angiak Wood takes experimentation further in a mask like “Destruction, Weapons of War” with its tortured face. Her “Spiritual Cycles” and “Song for the Moon” are both composed of diverse materials. The former divides in half, and the latter has eyes looking at the moon and a mouth open as if singing. The well-known Ed Archie NoiseCat has two scary coyote masks and a bear on display.

David Boxley presents a traditional bentwood box with a formline eagle design. Dan Friday gives us stunning glass fish in all colors including salmon and orca. The show includes two serigraphs by Marvin Oliver including one of Raven on top of the moon. 

Preston Singletary presents two pieces from his recent Traver Gallery exhibition, “A Clockwork Raven,” namely “Emerald City” and “Shadow Man.” Each refers to stories that Singletary told in “A Clockwork Raven.” “Emerald City” refers to Seattle where Raven has an adventure underground with “Shadow Man.” In “Earth Prayer,” which predates the other pieces, Raven stands on a log hoping his earth prayer can save the world from greed and materialism.

Don’t miss these exhibits, they are sure to expand your thinking in every direction.

Susan Noyes Platt

Susan Noyes Platt writes for local, national, and international publications and her website www.artandpoliticsnow.com.

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, located at 550 Winslow Way East on Bainbridge Island, Washington, is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.biartmuseum.org.

Miners Dancing

Mark Tobey, Dancing Miners

They leave their feet

to jump out of the canvas

in tandem cubism

squares, and rectangles

of light dance in harmony,

the man’s beard, a shovel,

the woman’s mane, a waterfall

in splashes of blue.

Their hands intertwine

no rope to hold on--

like whistle punks with

steam, the light shines

from them in skeletal

radiance like two pickaxes

locked in combat.

Michael Magee

Michael Magee is a poet and playwright whose poems and plays have been published and produced here and in England. His most recent book is Crowed (MoonPath Press 2026). Previous books include Shiny Things and Budapest After Dark. His work appears in Verse Daily, Cirque, and Open Book. He lives in Tacoma. 

For information, visit https://moonpathpress.com/MichaelMagee.htm or email mmpoetry@gmail.com.

I Heart Art Fairs

Assembly Art Fair • July 22-26 • West Canal Yards

There is a short modern history of art fairs here in Seattle, beginning in 1962 with the exhibition at the World’s Fair. This was the first major opportunity for Seattle to show off, albeit with few artworks, what local artists were doing relative to the world stage. Technically, it was not an art fair, but it did have art in a fair (although so does the Puyallup Fair…but I digress). 

From 1986 to 1988, Rodney Stuart held the Pacific Northwest Art Fair in the old Seattle Design Building on Western Avenue. It was ably done with mainly regional galleries. I remember it being very active and fun, with a “Let’s throw a party!” vibe. From 1992 to 1997, Irene Mahler presented ArtFair/Seattle, a grander event at the downtown Westin Hotel. She engaged with the community more, and brought in artists to make prints to raise funds and to celebrate the event, notably a very nice, large-scale print by Fay Jones, printed by Marcia Bartholme. This time, the art world and local big-ticket collectors took more notice. There were national galleries in attendance, and even Larry Gagosian showed up in 1995. Then The Affordable Art Fair made an attempt in 2013, but suffered from an unfortunate location and very uneven quality of artworks. And lest we forget, there is the Bellevue Arts and Crafts Fair, reappearing annually since 1947. It has left the mothership of the Bellevue Arts Museum, and is now the Bellevue Arts Fair Weekend, so I wish it well. It brings in thousands of visitors annually to sip and nosh whilst admiring the wares.

In 2015, a new art fair was born fully formed, thanks to the vision and financial backing of art collector Paul Allen. The Seattle Art Fair was an immediate success, both with the press and the public. The New York Times covered it as a regional cultural event. International powerhouse galleries sat shoulder to shoulder with our local galleries. There were lines around the block to get in, the art glitterati flew in, movie stars were sighted, and there was free shrimp. There were big-ticket artworks for us to look at and for the local High-Net-Worth individuals to buy. After Paul Allen’s death, the NYC galleries dropped off quickly. Then the pandemic shut the Fair down, only for the Fair to reemerge two years later under the ownership of Art Market Productions. The Fair never seemed to find its groove after that, with slowly sinking sales and dwindling higher-profile galleries. One criticism heard by many galleries was that the “VIP Collector Experience” was no longer.

Addressing the observation that the serious art collector had no place to go, The Assembly Art Fair has its inaugural offering July 22 through July 26. Running concurrently with the Seattle Art Fair, this fair is being developed by two Seattle galleries: Traver Gallery and Greg Kucera Gallery. Their intent is to better attend to the collectors through a more conversational setting—rooms instead of booths and artworks presented in a curated fashion—akin to seeing the work in the galleries themselves. In order to accomplish this, Assembly will be held in the beautifully redesigned West Canal Yards, trading in square footage for a more personal and inspiring environment. Formerly a frozen fish warehouse, the space now boasts a soaring atrium, canal-side access…and there is even parking. Traver Gallery director Sarah Traver notes, “Seattle’s collector community has grown substantially, and there is a clear appetite for an event that prioritizes curatorial depth over scale. Assembly is grounded in the idea that fewer, more considered presentations, set within a striking architectural space, create the conditions for true discovery and deeper engagement.” 

This all seems like a very ambitious enterprise, but it does seem to reflect a prevailing attitude towards art fairs in general. There are a growing number of smaller fairs nationally that are drawing crowds and high praise from collectors and the public alike. There will, of course, continue to be the extravagant, uber-rich fairs in the major art hubs throughout the world, and there is a place for them at the hog trough of contemporary art. However, not everyone wants all of the snooty pre-func brunches, stifling academic programs, esoteric artists talking with enigmatic curators, and parties that we are not invited to. I applaud the efforts to return art to the interested, rather than just the moneyed. 

By aligning Assembly with Seattle Art Fair, it speaks highly to a shared interest in the well-being of the Seattle art world. Carol Clifford, co-owner of Greg Kucera Gallery, emphasizes that the timing of the launch is indeed intentional. “Our goal is to contribute to the city’s cultural vitality while establishing a vibrant arts destination for both locals and visitors. We have received an overwhelmingly positive response from galleries, collectors, curators, and artists.”

Above all, I want to see good art. Yes, that criterion is slippery. I want to see original thought, expressed in whatever media is best fitting the intention. I welcome the self-taught, the less academic, the more emotive, the witty, the minimal, the storyteller, and the awkward, rambunctious, and strange. I want to be able to afford it, but not by buying cheap goods. I want something to invest myself in, to support the artists and the galleries. As author Annie Ernaux wrote in The Years, “To save something from the time where we will never be again.”  

Now, go buy some art.

Milton Freewater

Milton Freewater is an arts writer living in Seattle, Washington.

Assembly Art Fair, located at 1100 W Ewing Street in Seattle, Washington, occurs July 22-26. For more information, visit https://www.assemblyartfair.com.

Speaking in the Venacular

Imagine watching an artist riding her bike through the streets of Seattle. Tools like hammers, wire, and nails are safely stowed in a bag on the back of the bike for easy access if they are needed for art-making during the day. Upon noticing a discarded cigar box, the rider stops to examine it before placing it with the tools in her bag. After work, she rides back to her studio to review the “junk” gathered throughout the day. Stories and patterns emerge as she strategically organizes the various objects into a type of quilt. There are multiple layers of meaning present in each artwork. They may reflect events from earlier in the day or represent a famous political figure she admires. The objects also signify a moment of time and place from where they were gathered, but more on that later in this feature. For decades, Seattle artist Ross Palmer Beecher has been gathering, creating, and commenting on the world around her and how artists like herself are woven into the fabric of the community. For the first time, Ross Palmer Beecher’s expansive career is on view in a museum exhibition. Ross Palmer Beecher: Speaking in the Vernacular is a major survey of this artist’s career and her dedication to the community in which she lives, as demonstrated by her decade’s long role at the Bailey-Boushay House and their art therapy program.

Beecher’s multimedia quilts are a fixture in both public and private collections throughout the region, and thankfully this ambitious exhibition includes loans from many of these collections. Exhibition curator Christian Waguespack has gathered an impressive checklist of  pieces to illustrate the breadth of Beecher’s work and the various topics that interested her over the decades. What is immediately obvious is the artist’s use of Americana imagery and quilt patterns, such as log cabin and parlor fan quilt patterns. Beecher described her process in an ArtsWA American Masterworks short film in 2013 (the video is still available on YouTube) and she described how the political turmoil of the 1960s impacted both her childhood and future artistic decisions. Art is a way for Beecher to process the news, both good and bad, and to share those layers of emotions with the world. It is interesting to imagine what news or situation Beecher may have encountered to inspire “Twisted Truck Safety Diamond Quilt (with Levelers),” for example. Words like “Flammable” and “Poison” are twisted and dissected within the assemblage of oil paint, wire, tin, and aluminum. It is feasible to consider that Beecher came upon a discarded pile of warning signs, and this is also an artistic object that documents a discovery of materials in a particular location. 

In Beecher’s words, “I love cutting things in half!” The artist made this statement in the previously mentioned American Masterworks short film, and the passion is evident in her work. As an example, “Downton Abbey Quilt” is included in the exhibition and features tea pot spouts surrounded by silk neck ties. The exhibition’s curatorial statements make connections between Beecher’s work and various artistic movements that appear to be inspirations for the artist, such as “outsider art” and sculptures or assemblages created by Joseph Cornell and Robert Rauschenberg. What is continually fascinating for me is Beecher’s constant reference to traditionally domestic spaces, activities, and objects—and references to sacred ones too. Quilts, teapots, keys, and dolls are familiar in Beecher’s work, but utilized and imagined in unexpected ways. The artist has recreated a pointed Gothic window with wired copper, parts of cigar boxes, and other found objects in “Teapot Bare Window Quilt” from 2019. Measuring 72 x 24 x 7 inches, it is incredibly impressive and overpowering in person, like the intent of the Gothic architecture from the twelfth through sixteenth centuries. A copper object, perhaps another tea pot or kettle, has the appearance of being smashed or flattened at the top of the window, and a pattern of hexagonal copper and resin plates replicate the effect of stained glass. Door handles without doorknobs also adorn the surface of the picture plane, but it is unclear if we are entering or exiting Beecher’s imagined place. Nevertheless, viewers have been given access to the artist’s daily life and regimented process. 

Ross Palmer Beecher encourages us to all take note of our surroundings and use art to process the challenging moments in our life and world. The exhibition is a testament to her dedication to process, community, and creating really good art. 

Chloé Dye Sherpe

Chloé Dye Sherpe is an art professional and curator based in Washington State.

“Ross Palmer Beccher: Speaking in the Venacular” is on view through September 20, Sunday and Monday from 12 to 5 p.m. and Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Museum of Northwest Art, located at 121 South First Avenue in La Conner, Washington. For more information, visit www.monamuseum.org.

Three Newer Spots in Pioneer Square

With so many new shops, galleries, and venues arising in Pioneer Square, why profile just three? Well, three is a magic number. But also, these particular spaces each embody a contemporary spirit while advancing age-old traditions — a fitting theme for the Seattle neighborhood most connected to history and creativity.

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Ideas about antiquarian bookstores are dated. At Long Brothers (at the corner of Jackson and Occidental) you find not just the collected works of William Shakespeare, but ephemera from Seattle’s punk/new wave underground (each ‘zine or gig poster in a protective pouch) and lovingly curated pulp fiction from the 1940s and 1950s. You even find a sleek bar serving wine, beer, and pizza. Sleepy, dusty, and faded this shop is not.

Thick tomes from by-gone eras pack the shelves, sure enough. Here are leatherbound volumes with marbled endpapers and gilt lettering on their spines. They are cultural artifacts, not just reading material. There are books and manuscripts on any subject you can name, though Pacific Northwest Americana seems like the strong suit here. 

Modern literature is another focus. Many of the volumes are first editions, some signed and inscribed, usually in their original dust jackets. A few are true rarities, like the recent arrival “Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (Uncorrected Proof in Clamshell Box).” Recently published books are available too, including those that may seem ordinary now but which could become collectors’ items in time.

Art lovers won’t want to overlook the paintings, drawings, and antique maps and charts for sale, or the wide range of portfolios, monographs, and exhibition catalogs on artists as varied as Toulouse-Lautrec, Jacob Lawrence, and Annie Leibovitz. And speaking of art, Long Brothers doesn’t just stay open for First Thursday Art Walks, they bring in bands and DJs. (One DJ spins vintage 78 rpm records, which should get even the antiquarian purists dancing.)

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Ever since the Prohibition era, Pioneer Square has been a jazz hub. The scene drew legends from Jelly Roll Morton to John Coltrane, and spawned a few stars of its own, like Ray Charles, Quincy Jones, and Ernestine Anderson. Here in the 21st century, the neighborhood said goodbye to fixtures like the New Orleans Creole restaurant, Bud’s Jazz Records, and the OK Hotel (where Bill Frisell played his first show in Seattle in 1989). So we are fortunate to now have the Seattle Jazz Fellowship, located in the underground space at 103 S. Main St. 

Seattle Jazz Fellowship is not your typical jazz club: all shows are all-ages, and they start early in the evening. No tickets in advance (entry is by donation), no pricey dinners: just show up. And bring your ears: You’ll find local luminaries on the bandstand most nights—D’Vonne Lewis, Gail Pettis, and Julian Priester each played there in recent weeks. You might catch KNKX’s Abe Beeson DJing a set to start the night, or an open jam session in full swing. New and emerging artists are showcased too, like the mercurial Kelsey Mines, and players currently in local high school and college-level jazz programs.

Engagement with the larger community is another priority for Seattle Jazz Fellowship. It teamed with the Salt Harvest restaurant in the nearby Populus Hotel to serve up “Jazz Brunch” on the first and third Sunday of each month. And the Fellowship orchestrates Jazz Night in Pioneer Square, when over a dozen venues stay open late to feature live jazz. The essential mission for Seattle Jazz Fellowship is to cultivate young local talent—exactly what’s needed to keep the jazz tradition vital. For its schedule, visit seattlejazzfellowship.org. Support live jazz.

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When a mature tree falls in the forest, it may become a nurse log, giving purchase to new life. The scenario came to mind on a visit to Gallery No.85, at 85 Yesler Way. The new gallery has sprouted up in the space that the Davidson Galleries moved to in 2023 (before closing for good with Sam Davidson’s retirement). Gallery No.85 can rightfully claim to have lineage and rejuvenation on its side. 

Just when the Davidson Galleries was wrapping up as a business, a new-comer to the Seattle arts scene saw an opportunity arising. Elizabeth Hawley brings youthful energy, bright ideas, and the means to see those ideas through as owner/director of Gallery No.85. She is retaining some members of the Davidson staff, with their expertise and dedication to works on paper and printmaking. Hawley has also retained some familiar names from Davidson’s stellar roster: one example is Lockwood Dennis (1937-2012). Dennis’s woodblock prints of Pioneer Square captured the essence of the historic neighborhood. Though some of the structures Dennis used as scenic backdrops are gone—the Viaduct, the Kingdome—the artworks themselves are indelible. It’s reassuring that this artist’s prints remain in expert hands in a part of town he depicted over and over.

So, what’s changed, then? Gallery No.85 plans to deal exclusively with new work by contemporary artists. It is 

Let’s Get Lost

LIC Gallery • Seattle, Washington

Seattle has a new art gallery! It’s called LIC, which is an acronym for the phrase Lost in Composition, or the name that owner Paul Drinkwine gave to the blog he started during the pandemic when he was suffering from art withdrawal. But that acronym stands for other things. For instance, if your idea of a good time is becoming lost in contemplation of some beautiful art on a perfect summer day, this is the place to do it.

LIC is located on Alaskan Way, directly opposite Colman Dock, the Seattle ferry terminal, where you can watch the parade of people strolling by to enjoy the shops, restaurants and views of Elliott Bay. And it’s next door to the cool new Sub Pop waterfront store. In fact, the first time I visited LIC, several people popped in after shopping for music merch to check out the gallery’s current exhibit, “Grunge to Glamour.” 

The show features paintings by hyperrealist Chris Klein, an artist whose career Drinkwine has been following for several years. When Klein’s work first came to his attention, the artist was making large paintings of smashed-up cars, crushed and mangled together in junkyards; two of those are in “Grunge to Glamour.” And then—as artists do—he shifted his focus from mechanical chaos to glamour and elegance, and began pulling costumes from wardrobe shops located in theatres, opera house, film studios, and concert halls; Klein arranged them on rolling racks, and painted them as they might look backstage, waiting to be occupied by actors and performers before the curtain rises. They’re no longer merely costumes; they’ve become vibrant color studies of characters in search of a play.

This new direction was inspired by Klein’s long career working as a scenic artist for films and theatrical productions. Born in England, he now lives in Canada, where he has worked as the head of scenic art at the Stratford Festival and the National Arts Centre. He also created backdrops and scenic artwork for theatre productions on Broadway and on London’s West End, for several major Hollywood films, and for a few Cirque du Soleil productions. The luminosity, reflected light, rich textures, and slightly surreal colors of theatre and film sets inhabit and animate all Klein’s paintings.

In addition to what I like to call the large rolling-rack stories, this show features some smaller paintings of individual costumes, over-the-top masks and props, and crumpled swathes of iridescent fabric created by British designers such as Vivienne Westwood and Dame Zandra Rhodes. There’s a delightful painting that perfectly captures the rock-star insouciance of a jacket worn by Queen guitarist Brian May during a 2002 concert on the rooftop of Buckingham Palace and then dropped on the floor of the dressing room when the show was over. At least that’s my theory. 

Another favorite of mine is a striking image of a relaxed but very self-assured Balenciaga bag that caught the artist’s eye from a shop window and will catch yours the moment you walk in LIC’s front door. Although these are all inanimate objects—there are no people in sight—they are so infused with the spirit of the real and fictional personalities they were designed for or worn by that they feel like portraits. Or maybe they’re landscapes of pop culture. 

Drinkwine (yes, that really is his name) grew up in the Pacific Northwest where he worked for a while in the technology sector before he started collecting art; he quickly became active in the art community here. During the COVID-19 years when he was feeling isolated from in-person encounters with the real thing, he launched a social media campaign to promote his favorite artists and their work. That project morphed into the blog that became LIC Gallery. 

LIC represents the work of two dozen artists from the Pacific Northwest and around the world. The unifying idea behind his approach to curation and collection is diversity, both in subject matter as well as in the people who produce it, which is why this group includes emerging artists as well as established masters. Paul’s taste leans toward contemporary work—especially hyperrealism that’s served with a twist—and anything that offers an original take on current affairs. He embraces the challenge of curating, designing and hanging every exhibit, and that dedication is evident here. Although this space is small, he manages to take advantage of every inch while allowing the art enough space to breathe.

Finally, if you’re lucky, you might be there on a day when Paul’s two French bulldog puppies are on duty, greeting visitors and chasing each other around the gallery. Being dogs, they’re only willing to work part-time, so if you want to catch them on your visit, you should probably call ahead to check.

Kathy Cain

Kathleen Cain was a journalist and a creative director at the legendary Heckler Associates for many years before starting her own communications consulting firm. Find her writings at www.postalley.org.

LIC Gallery, located at 908 Alaskan Way, Suite B, is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For information, visit https://lostincomposition.com.