Our Current & Upcoming Shows

We showcase Pacific Northwest artists whose work speaks to the vast beauty of the region. Our shows, like our gallery, feature their art in a client friendly atmosphere. While the mediums of the contemporary art we showcase vary widely, each work embodies a sense of adventure.

MARIA MICHAELSON

Free to the Public

03/01/2403/24/24

Maria Michaelson's prolific sculpture collection will show for an opening celebrating her signing with us as a gallery represented artist, on the supporting periphery will be an Art Hansen retrospective, all of the pieces of Hansen's we have plus some on loan from private collectors.

 An artist's note on the work in this show by Maria Michaelson:

This exhibition has come out of a series of synchronicities so interesting and surprising that I find it hard to put the events into words.

More than a year ago, I reached out to a poet and friend, Steph Reiss, about the idea of a poetry and art collaboration. I love her relationship with words, and the tender way that she expresses vulnerability. I find each of her poems, which I have only heard read aloud, to be a perfect and temporary jewel. We agreed to try to make work together, but life continued.

When I was asked to assemble work for this show, my debut exhibition at Waterworks Gallery, Steph immediately popped into my mind, and I called her again about a collaboration.

Later, on that exact day, and before she had a chance to respond, another poet friend, Danny Sherrard, reached out to me with the same request- Would I like to do a poetry and art collaboration? I was elated. His poetry contains so much power, so much imagery. The desire for collaboration between myself and poets, twice in a day, surprised me. I have never done a collaboration with a poet. In one day, I was embarking on two journeys with two incredible island poets.

I started creating the piece: “The Bellmaker of Sanjeska Dezela” based on Danny’s poem, of the same title, that very day. The imagery came through me strong and clear. We were channeling the same creative muse. We sent things back and forth and were both shocked about how we were creating seemingly from one brain. An example of the extraordinary and strange nature of this experience: The poem will eventually have 3 parts. In the second part of the poem (the writing of part 2 is not depicted in this show) the main character in the story moves through a forest bodiless. Danny asked me how I wanted to create an image of a figure without form. I told him I had started to make a sculpture of their face in a lantern of constellations. He looked at me with surprise and told me that that was part of the poem, and he hadn’t even written it down yet.

Meanwhile, I reached out to Steph again, wanting to create a collaboration with her as well. She is a softer spoken person, and so much if my work is about women’s experiences. It felt necessary to highlight her work, to take the time needed to channel her intimate and personal poetry. I felt it important to act as a microphone for her quietly powerful and extraordinary voice.

Steph loves the writing of the author and environmentalist, Terry Tempest Williams. I have heard her read Williams’ work during our local open mic night many times. By some random chance, in December, the art center I work for received an application for an artist residency from someone whose character reference was Terry Tempest Williams. I wrote to Williams about the character reference but afterwards, showed Steph our email exchange. She was very excited and gave me a book, called “When Women Were Birds” by Williams. It is an inspiring and powerful book holding themes very relevant to my work about women’s voices and stories.

For several years, I have been working on a series of ceramic figures of woman as specific bird species that I see in our pacific northwest home, and I was fully underway working on three figures of women as Birds for the show: the Varied Thrush, the Common Seagull, and the Golden Crowned Kinglet. I have also made sculptures of the Common Loon, the Kingfisher, and the Northern Flicker, all as figurative human sculptures. After so many other synchronistic moments in the process of creating this exhibition, the gift of a book titled so exactly about what I was already making was another incredible and odd surprise.

The work that I made with Steph are three wall hanging pieces. Fast Asleep on Night Trains, Oxygen without a Heart, and Pieces, were poems that she wrote. I created the wall hanging sculptures without adding color, she looked at them and considered which poetry they aligned with, and I glazed (colored) them based on the poem. Two of the three works of art contain the poem on the work, though muted and hard to read. The poem “Pieces” is stamped into a cedar plank by hand. The process of stamping reflects the content of the poem itself. I encourage you to read the poetry and look at the work together and consider how the art is created not in a vacuum, but as a sort of call and response.

When we follow our creative muses without question, no matter what surprising places it takes us, we are rewarded. This show has been a continual act of trusting the process and witnessing the unexplainable.

315 Argyle Ave.Friday Harbor, WA 98250

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Featuring:

Art Hansen (1929-2017)

Maria Michaelson

A Life Lived in Depth

Free to the Public

04/05/2404/27/24

Our Artists tackle the theme of a life lived in depth, literally, figuratively, in their compositions and subject matter, or in their specific portfolio. 

315 Argyle Ave.Friday Harbor, WA 98250

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Featuring:

Daniel Finn

Glenn Hendrick

Andy McConnell

Stephen McMillan

GLENN HENDRICK

Free to the Public

05/03/2405/24/24

Glenn's launch as a gallery represented artist! Her broad portfolio of work in different mediums with support by gallery veteran Nichole Dement, a blend of whimsical, mystical, and deep magick this show will enchant. 

315 Argyle Ave.Friday Harbor, WA 98250

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Featuring:

Nichole DeMent

Glenn Hendrick