"Marriage Proposal" by Shawna Marie Franklin: part of the Being with Kelp exhibition at Jeanette Best Gallery
"THE BRIDGE! THE CURRENTS! The excitement! Look where you want to go! Deep diggity dig ... feeling alive! It's all there."
So writes ocean kayaker Shawna Marie Franklin about "Deception Pass," one of the oil paintings in her one-woman show. Titled Being with Kelp, it's a luminous view above and below the surface of the sea, as celebrated by this artist and athlete.
Deception Pass, 31 miles north of Port Townsend, is among the places Franklin paddled during her career as a professional kayaker.
Being with Kelp, Franklin says, is a major project inspired by her daily work on the ocean, where kelp was her companion.
ONE OF THE LARGEST pieces, the six-by-four-foot "Marriage Proposal," blends plants and animals Franklin and her husband, Leon Somme, observed as they circumnavigated Vancouver Island by kayak in 2012. This was the trip when Somme asked Franklin to be his wife.
After a languid, meandering day of paddling, the pair landed on a beach of white sand and shells.
"I'm happy and content, and feel so loved," she recalls.
"I cannot imagine my life without him. I would have married him the first day I met him."
Somme and Franklin have shared many an adventure. They circumnavigated Iceland, a journey of 1,600 miles, in 2003; Franklin was the first woman to do this in a sea kayak. Four years later the pair paddled around the Haida Gwaii.
Out there, Franklin says, "you become part of the natural world, rather than seeing it as a backdrop."
The artist revels in this world, and frees herself to paint it in abstract ways. Her piece titled "Realm" is inspired by kelp of course, while it is also a kind of supernatural vision.
"MY PRIZED POSSESSION as a kid was my new 64-color box of crayons. My prized possession as an adult is my kayak that allows me to witness nature's box of crayons," Franklin writes.
Franklin and Somme brought her artworks to Port Townsend in late January for her show, which stays on view through March 31.
"You can see the love in these paintings, and the intimacy," said Northwind Art volunteer Martha Pfanschmidt. On the Being with Kelp exhibition's opening day, Jan. 30, she marveled at pieces such as "Realm," "Buoyancy," and "Holdfast," which Franklin painted after snorkeling in the sea.
"Moving across the bottom," she said, "I am mesmerized by the fragmented prisms of light."
Visit again soon!
This season, we're featuring short articles about Northwind Art's exhibiting and teaching artists on this page, titled A Closer Look. We invite you back to this space to learn more about the brilliant makers in our midst.