Oil paintings, ceramic art featured at First Saturday Art Walk

PORT TOWNSEND — Gallery-9 and the Port Townsend Gallery will be among the venues participating in the Art Walk from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday in downtown Port Townsend.

• Gallery-9, 1012 Water St., will feature the oil paintings and cloisonné jewelry of Linda Lundell and the ceramic art of Mike Middlestead during Saturday’s art walk.

Lundell’s art conveys the essence of nature. Her paintings capture the living abundance of a rain forest or the transparent quality of water.

Lundell holds a bachelor’s of fine arts degree from California State University at Long Beach and a master’s in fine art from the Rhode Island School of Design. She also has taught at several art schools in California.

Her technique is an impressionistic style of realistic oil painting, a piece which looks absolutely real from a distance, but up close, one gets lost in abstract dabs of color.

Her cloisonné jewelry are crafted heirloom that create replicas of hummingbirds, irises and other symbols of nature.

Her technique uses colored enamels in finely powered glazes and involves several firings then polishing them to a high gloss.

Middlestead, a 25-year Coast Guard veteran, is a ceramic artist who finds inspiration is the outdoors and in people connecting with art. He makes functional ware, such as bowls, mugs or oil decanters; artistic pieces, such as vases; and sculptures.

Middlestead discovered clay during an introductory art class at Peninsula College.

“I became a ceramic artist because of the feel of the clay,” he said. “I have a visceral response to the sheer tactile nature of working with clay. I love the feel of it in my hands and being able to create something amazing. Once I found clay, there was no turning back.”

He prefers to fire pottery using a Raku kiln, in which the piece is fired at a relatively low temperature, such as 1800 degrees, then moved to a container of combustible materials that ignite to create colors and patterns on the surface of the piece.

Lundell’s oil paintings and cloisonné jewelry and Middlestead’s ceramics will be on display from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Mondays throughout November.

For more information, visit www.gallery-9.com.

• The Port Townsend Gallery, 715 Water St., will host a reception for Sue Stanton and Phil Carrico from
5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Stanton and Carrico, the gallery’s featured artists for November, will exhibit “Woodn’t’ It Be Lovely” throughout the month.

Both artists use wood to create their work, but in radically different ways.

Stanton, who has worked with many different media, uses wood to create her three-dimensional art.

Born and raised in Colorado, Stanton featured the Rocky Mountains in much of her early work.

Stanton is self-taught and, in addition to her 3-D sculptures, also creates finely detailed pen and watercolor pieces.

Carrico, on the other hand, uses wood to create reduction prints.

Carrico earned a master’s of fine art from the University of Alaska-Fairbanks while teaching art in middle school.

His reduction block prints start with a sketch of his idea and a selection of the colors for the final print. He then carves a block of wood, removing wood from the areas that he wants to show as white on the final print.

After using the block to apply the lightest color to up to 12 prints, Carrico removes more wood from where he wants the lightest color to show through and applies the next lightest color.

The process is repeated, sometimes for as many as 15 colors over several months.

In the process, the block is destroyed and no more prints can be made.

The artwork of Stanton and Carrico will be featured from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily at the Port Townsend Gallery.

For more information, call the gallery at 360-379-8110 or visit www.porttownsend
gallery.com.

Other venues participating in Saturday’s art walk include Aurora Loop Gallery, 971 Aurora Loop; Bazaar Girls, 647 Washington St.; The CoLab, 237 Taylor St., second floor; GreenPod Gallery, 1531 W. Sims Way, Grover Gallery, 236 Taylor St.; Jefferson Museum of Art and History, 540 Water St.; KALMA, 926 Water St.; Little Wing Gallery, 924 Washington St.; Low Fence, Horse Sense Gallery, 57th Street, between Hill and Jackman streets; Mara’s Gallery; 839 Water St.; Jeanette Best Gallery, 701 Water St.; Pacific Traditions, 637 Water St.; Pendragon’s Labyrinth, 840 Water St.; Polk Street Salon, 213 Polk St.; The Artist Within, 929 Water St., underground; The Sunroom, 929 Water St., underground; and Zee Tai Collective, 918 Water St.

For more information, visit www.ptcreativedistrict.org/artwalk.