Showcase 2024

February 1- December 31, 2024
Open 12-5 PM Thursdays through Mondays
Jeanette Best Gallery
701 Water Street, Port Townsend, Washington

Northwind Art’s Showcase 2024 is the updated program celebrating regional artists working in an array of media — from oil paintings to mosaics to glass and fiber. This year, Showcase features rotating exhibits, emerging makers and returning artists. The variety will dazzle you!

 

   


Craig Britton

Craig Britton

A SELF-TAUGHT CRAFTSMAN of many trades, Craig Britton finds true joy in how things are made. Raised in a family of builders, he developed a deep appreciation for the handmade at an early age. He spent his young adult life working in various trades, cultivating a diverse set of skills and understanding.

Craig earned a business degree from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth; since then his thirst for learning has led him on a lifelong pursuit of knowledge. He finds inspiration in the natural world and in day-to-day life; his current body of work explores texture, materiality and the creation process.

In early 2019, Craig found his way to Washington’s San Juan Island, where he discovered a love for clay. He has been throwing pottery there ever since.

Vivian Chesterley

Vivian Chesterley

VIVIAN CHESTERLEY is a contemporary painter focusing on the light and atmosphere of the Salish Sea. Her deep connection to the natural world shines through in her art. She uses buttery, rich oil paint, palette knives, and brushes to create layers of color — sometimes blended, sometimes on top of other colors to evoke richness and depth.

“I grew up watching the sun’s light magically dance over the waters of Puget Sound, seeing incredible sunsets, and checking every morning to see whether the mountains were out,” writes Vivian, who lives on Bainbridge Island.

She seeks to create “places for the imagination to go … Secret places to just sit down for a minute and relax … Places of wonder … Bold places where you can feel the rain and hear the power of the surf.”

Kate Dwyer

Kate Dwyer

KATE DWYER of Port Townsend found her way to art down the garden path.

Instead of art school, her education came by way of working in, and then designing, gardens. She also traveled widely — in books and in the world — focusing on design, be it buildings, textiles, ceramics or paintings. Kate began making her fabric vessels after years of painting on glass and metal. One day in a fabric store, she was entranced by the materials yet frustrated by her inability or unwillingness to sew. She bought a few pieces of fabric, determined to make something without a needle.

“Papier maché is an easy craft ... a form, torn paper, glue. I adapted it to fabric and thread, using my painter’s eye for color, composition and line,” Kate writes. Her artistic influences include nature, of course, along with modern western art, graphic design and Japanese arts.

Kathy Fridstein

Kathy Fridstein

IT ALL BEGAN on family road trips across the western United States. These trips cemented young Kathy Fridstein's respect for the vast beauty and history of the American landscape. They also sparked her lifelong interest in using photography to explore the intimate relationship between ourselves and the environment.

Kathy received her master of fine arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and then began a 35-year career of teaching in the Pacific Northwest and showing her art around the country.

She moved to Port Townsend in 2018, where she often walks the beach. “I find it refreshing to watch the ocean’s tides come and go, depositing sea life and stones in different places each day,” she writes.

“I am in awe of the gravitational pull of the moon and sun, that creates these lovely, transitory, and ever-changing beach deposits.”

John Holm

John Holm

JOHN HOLM of Port Townsend aims not to paint only what he sees, but rather what the scene says to him. His work captures a certain harmony between the vastness and beauty of the natural world and our experience of this as human beings.

John is inspired by painters such as George Inness and the early California Tonalists. In this tradition, he uses a limited palette and less detail, which lends itself to scenes that are sometimes nostalgic, sometimes moody. He loves the atmospheric scenes of dusk and moonlight that invite calm and contemplation — the evening time that seems to push aside the busyness of the day.

“I have explored the mountains, plains, and beaches of the West,” John writes. “I recall the joys of crackling campfires and open spaces.”

Corinne Humphrey

Corinne Humphrey

CORINNE HUMPHREY muses: “Anyone can teach their dog to sit, stay or speak, but did you ever stop to think about what your dog could teach you?”

“I’ve always dabbled in photography and art with modest success,” the artist writes, “but it wasn’t until I adopted Rudy, a mutt from the local shelter, that images and universal ‘PAWsitive’ themes flooded my brain and became the inspiration for my paintings and children’s books.”

Corinne hopes her work serves as “essential DOGma for everyday joy!” and brings a smile to each person who sees it. She lives in Port Townsend with her current canine muse, Adobe, and volunteers at the Bunker, Northwind Art and PT Artscape’s teen art studio, as well as for other organizations that celebrate the wonder and importance of art.

Shelley Jaye

Shelley Jaye

SHELLEY JAYE is a mosaic artist, author and professor of geology, drawn to the Olympic Peninsula for its rugged beauty and active geologic setting.

After living a full life in the geologically ancient mid-Atlantic region of Virginia, she and her husband set off on a West Coast adventure to explore the geologically young landscape of the Olympic Peninsula. This new setting sparked a passion that allows Shelley to blend her love of the Earth and its materials in the form of mosaic art.

She can often be found near the water in her North Beach neighborhood of Port Townsend, foraging rocks. In her mosaics, Shelley enjoys putting their unique beauty on display. Each rock, she believes, tells a piece of Earth’s ever-changing story of existence.

Donna LaHue

Donna LaHue

A RECENT TRANSPLANT to the Olympic Peninsula, Donna LaHue lives in Port Angeles, where her studio overlooks the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Through her paintings, Donna explores the wild inhabitants and abstract landscapes that, for her, reflect the visuals and culture of the Northwest.

Focusing on familiar and iconic forms, she seeks to describe the essential character of a species, or the drama of place, in a clean and balanced composition. Shapes are distilled; detail only suggested.

In her paintings, Donna searches for a balance between hard-edged abstraction and a softer, more figurative representation.

Kelli MacConnell

Kelli MacConnell

KELLI MacCONNELL through-hiked the Appalachian Trail, trekked sections of the Pacific Crest Trail, and took various ramblings as a young woman. In 2006, she made her way to Oregon, where she studied art at Portland State University and discovered a passion for printmaking.

Kelli received her bachelor of fine arts degree in 2012, while showing her work in various settings. She now enjoys life in Chimacum as a full-time artist and mother.

“Why a print, why not a painting or drawing?,” some ask. Kelli not only savors the tactile process of carving and cutting printing blocks, but also finds exhilaration in the surprise factor, the mystery that unfolds with each print. She loves the slow, meditative process of carving away the nonessential, and the use of creative subtraction to form a delicate dance between positive and negative space.

Evan Miller

Evan Miller

This maker’s artistic endeavors started with woodworking in high school. This led to Evan Miller's interest in the automotive arts, specifically restoration, which helped him see shapes in new ways. Forming body panels and painting cars strongly influenced Evan’s ability to work with his hands.

After attending the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding, he began a career in the megayacht industry, working for Port Townsend’s Admiral Marine Works.

While honing his skills in the yacht industry for more than 20 years — in all phases of construction — he began to focus on the use of specialty veneers. Making art with veneer has opened his mind, Evan says, to seemingly endless artistic possibilities.

Leslie Newman

Leslie Newman

ABSTRACTION IS FREEDOM for Leslie Newman. “Without the constraints of representation, I explore space, form, line, and color, creating artwork that invites a long look,” writes the artist, who lives in Indianola. “I leave it to the viewer to dive in and discover their mood and meaning, and hope it provides escape from the frenetic state of today’s world.”

Leslie’s influences include Matisse’s cut-outs, mid-century art and design, and the works of Richard Diebenkorn, Joan Mitchell, Stuart Davis, and David Hockney.

“I look to art to inspire, surprise, and bring forth a wave of feeling that reminds us of our wondrous existence,” she adds.

“I feel it in my process of creating these works. I hope the viewers of my work share in this sense of wonder.”

Sandra Offutt

Sandra Offutt

SANDRA OFFUTT of Port Townsend began her art education studying painting under Florida artist George Earl Fox. After retiring from the U.S. foreign service, she embarked on self-guided art education: studying for years with Diane Ainsworth, Larisa Aukon, Camille Przewodek and Scott Gellatly.

Sandra developed her sense of composition during the three years she lived in Japan. Her sense of color comes from 40 years of living in and visiting Greece and Arizona. In both of these places, Sandra writes, the clear, unfiltered light through dry air gives power to colors.

Elizabeth Reutlinger

Elizabeth Reutlinger

ELIZABETH REUTLINGER, a native of Louisville, Kentucky, moved to Port Townsend in 1976. Her education includes a bachelor of fine arts degree in ceramics and jewelry design and a master’s in psychology. She began oil painting in 2008, always painting to music, usually gospel. As her process evolves, she experiments with various mediums and mark-making tools, using bamboo skewers, kitchen spatulas, palette knives — anything within reach that will create rich textures and layers of color. “The word ‘art’ originally comes from the Indo-European root ‘ar,’ meaning ‘join,’” writes Elizabeth, who now makes her home in Quilcene, in rural Jefferson County. “My hope is that the viewer will recognize the invitation to join me in these paintings, to create their own experience.”

Dennis Rogers

Dennis Rogers

DENNIS ROGERS’ work with kiln-formed glass includes two primary areas of exploration. The first is a traditional Italian technique of pulling strands of multicolored hot glass into long rods, known as canes. When cooled, the pieces are cut into small sections, which are then fused into larger work through a kiln-firing process.

Yet another process involves using crushed glass shards — called frit — to create a larger, fused piece. After fusing the components together, the glass is put through another kiln firing that forms it into a three-dimensional shape.

“I am drawn to geometric patterns and designs of an abstract nature,” writes Dennis, who makes his home on Bainbridge Island. “I derive a great deal of fulfillment from the creative process. It is extremely rewarding when someone else enjoys the work enough to bring it into their own home or to offer it as a gift.”

Egor Shokoladov

Egor Shokoladov

EGOR SHOKOLADOV creates graphic art via the printmaking technique called etching. Many of his images might be compared to a riddle or a mystery of some kind — one might “read” the story behind them similar to how one would read a story in a book.

“My creations often show my mood and psychological state at a given moment, ranging from ironic and humorous to serious and reflective,” Egor writes.

“In my art, I want to show personages and situations to which people can easily relate; I also hope to bring positive vibes into the world.”

The artist adds that his style “has a noticeable European shade, as I am a recent immigrant from Eastern Europe.”

Linda Tilley

Linda Tilley

LINDA TILLEY of Port Townsend ventures outdoors, lured by nature’s beauty, to work in plein air, where “The challenge of painting is intensified,” she writes. Colors, atmosphere and motion call to her, awakening “that ever-present artistic spirit that is a part of my soul.”

Linda adds that while it is exciting to respond to the callings of the natural world, she finds it exhilarating to investigate an abstract world, blurred from reality, to allow the viewer to form a personal interpretation of her painting.

“Whether my work allows the viewer to take the time to enjoy a frozen moment, or elicits an emotion within,” Linda adds, “the joy of painting and having someone respond to it are my rewards.”

 

Diane Walker

Diane Walker

PORT TOWNSEND ARTIST Diane Walker is also a playwright, photographer, and poet. Working primarily in acrylics, she creates fluid works that invite viewers into an open, imaginative and peaceful space.

These colorful semi-abstract paintings reflect the joy Diane finds in the forests and seas of the Pacific Northwest. Her tranquil abstracts have soothed patients in the halls of hospitals across the region, including Jefferson Healthcare in Port Townsend. Diane's award-winning work also has been featured in numerous art festivals and galleries around Washington state.

A member of Women Painters of Washington, Diane is also in the Santa Fe Gallery Association Artist Catalog.