Our personal invitation: please come to downtown Winslow for this upcoming First Friday Artwalk event, in which we celebrate two diverse yet connected art forms - Shibori and Tokkuri - both of which involve a lot of skill and not a little chance to successfully produce. Shibori is traditionally a hand-dyeing technique applied to textiles; tokkuri are sake vessels, in this case created using the wood fire method of ceramic firing.
We'll offer you a glass of wine, a chat with friends, and a look at these two remarkable disciplines, presented in juxtaposition especially for this beautiful exhibition.
Additionally, in a special, simultaneous exhibit, The Island Gallery at Sotheby's presents
Spring Portraits, oil on canvas paintings by Port Hadlock artist Andrea K. Lawson, in an homage to the gentle season of spring and its attendant delights. For further details on times and locations, see the information below.
Shibori/Tokkuri
Virtuosity and
Chance in Two Art Forms
May 4 - June
30, 2018
Textile
artists:
Betsy Giberson, Ana Lisa Hedstrom, Mary
Jaeger, Amy Nguyen
Carol Lee Shanks, Joan Wortis
Ceramic
artists:
Judith Duff, Anthony Gaudino, Robin Hominiuk,
Mitch Iburg, Lucien Koonce
Ken Pincus, Akira Satake, Reid Schoonover, and Shiho Kanzaki
First Friday
Artwalk, May 4, 6-8 pm
In Concert:
The
Jenny Davis Jazz Duo
IMAGES SHOWN ABOVE, LEFT TO RIGHT:
Ana Lisa Hedstrom, Diamonds II. Shibori Collage
Akira
Satake, Tokkuri. Wood fired ceramic
Carol
Lee Shanks, Imprint Silhouette Ensemble. Nui
shibori on silk
Robin
Hominiuk, Tokkuri with cup. Wood fired ceramic
About the Show:
Artistic skill is exemplified in
both shibori textile art and wood fired ceramics.
Folding and stitching and manipulating
various cloth to resist dye, and using particular clay bodies to form pots,
utilizes skills honed over years.
Success is measured by the virtuosity of the
artist; yet the many variables of the dye pot and the wood burning kiln lend an
element of chance, a special magic to both pursuits. This is their strongest
appeal to artists and art enthusiasts alike.
This exhibition features these two art forms with contemporary examples
of shibori dyed cloth in various iterations and the bottle/tokkuri form often
used for sake, and offers the viewer a look at the fortuitous nature of both
ancient art processes.
Visit the Gallery in person, as well as our extensive
Website and Online Shop.
About the Artists:
Shibori:
Betsy Giberson
was born in Washington, D.C. and completed a BFA in Sculpture from the Rhode
Island School of Design.
Her background
and work in sculpture is reflected in her textile art which features shibori and
sculptural elements in collaged pieces with exposed seams.
She is exhibited at multiple venues
throughout the United States and makes her home is New Hampshire.
Her garments are exquisitely crafted of
crinkled silk crepe de chine, organza and noil. Surface decoration is achieved
with shape-resist, piece dying, and overdying.
Pieces are often enhanced with stamped
designs.
Ana Lisa
Hedstrom is known for her signature textiles based on contemporary
adaptations of Shibori. Her textiles are included in the collections of
major museums including the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt, the Museum of Art and
Design, and the De Young Museum in the United States, and the Takeda Kahei
Shoten and Aiichi Shibori Archive in Japan. Her work has been exhibited
and published internationally, including in Canada, China, Germany and
Thailand. Ana Lisa has taught and lectured at numerous international
Shibori conferences and schools, including in Australia, Chile, England, Japan,
India, Canada as well as the United States. Her awards include two NEA
grants and she is a fellow of the American Craft Council. She holds a BA
in Art from Mills College.
Mary Jaeger designs
sculpted and dyed accessories for women, focusing on quality and hand-made
details. Drawing on her years in Asia, she creates timeless,
well-constructed designs in unorthodox colors, patterns and striking textures –
a perfect blend of Eastern and contemporary Western ideas. Her signature
work includes shibori dyed tees and tucked wool wraps and other apparel, such
as scarves, coats, jackets, capes, hats and bags. As one of her longtime
customers puts it: “It’s classic with a surprising twist.”
Mary has studied at the University of Notre
Dame, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Fashion Institute of Technology,
and Nihon Senshoku Gakuen, Kyoto, Japan.
She has exhibited internationally and is the recipient of awards and
honors, her work is featured in numerous publications.
She is currently based in New York City.
Carol Lee Shanks’ 28-year career has been dedicated
to designing unique clothing and textile art
pieces. She has a great reverence for cloth, allowing it to be the foundation
of her inspiration, and personally
constructs each garment, one by one, building collections made from carefully
selected fine materials. Her dressing concept encompasses coordinated
silhouettes layered for style and comfort; her pieces are designed to be
collected piece by piece over many seasons. Carol has a
degree in Textile and Costume Design from the University of California at
Davis. She now works and exhibits her clothing and textile art from her
Berkeley, California studio. Her work is shown and sold in galleries throughout
the United States and has been included in international shows and fiber art
publications.
Joan Wortis
was born in NYC and has lived in various cities in the United States and around
the world. She has lived on Vashon Island for the last 24 years. Her
professional creative life began in the world of dance, went on to hand weaving
and weave design for industry before settling into monotype, collage and
manipulated textiles. Her work is influenced by her travels and intuitively by
her dance background. Her work has been exhibited in New York, Tokyo and across
the United States, including the Seattle Art Museum Gallery, Henry Art Gallery
and the Tacoma Art Museum.
Tokkuri:
Judith Duff, with
degrees in biology and painting from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, has
been a full time potter in North Carolina since 1991.
She has studied throughout the United States
and Japan and fires primarily with wood.
She has researched Japanese Shino clays and glazes, working with
well-known Japanese Shino potters, with the aim to duplicate them using local
materials.
Judith has both published
articles and been featured in numerous ceramics magazines. She has taught workshops
throughout the United States and in Japan, Germany and Italy, and has exhibited
her work nationally and internationally.
Anthony Gaudino, now living in Gig
Harbor, Washington, grew up in the Northwest exploring
the Olympic mountains
and drawing pictures of the natural beauty surrounding him. When he
began
studying ceramics at Tacoma Community College in 2001, he knew from that moment
that clay would always be in his life, and he now teaches ceramics at that
college.
In 2004 he travelled to Turkey
as part of a ceramic exchange and symposium which had a huge impact on his work
and life.
He is also heavily influenced
by Japanese, Korean and Chinese pottery. While he continues to work with gas
kilns he was instantly captured and intrigued by wood firing and the results
from unglazed wood fired pots. He fires and helps manage two anagama wood kilns
in the area. Anthony creates both functional and sculptural forms.
Anthony has exhibited at numerous galleries
in Seattle and the Northwest as well as internationally. He has conducted
workshops in China and South Korea, and won a special prize and award at the 6
th
Ceramics Symposium and International Art Exchange in Turkey.
Robin Hominiuk was born in Canada and
moved to the United States in 1998.
She
received her clay education via community education courses and several terms
at Mt. Hood Community College.
She
regularly attends workshops to keep a fresh perspective and learn new
techniques.
In addition to the beautiful
functional pots she produces from her studio kiln, she also creates pottery and
sculpture for wood firing.
These pots
are fired in huge kilns based on ancient Japanese traditions.
The pots are fired for 70 plus hours with a
committed group of potters and six to eight cords of wood.
Pottery fired in this intense method is
transformed by flame and ash; the colors and marks cannot be replicated or
produced in any other way. Robin’s work has been featured in numerous national
and international collections.
Mitch Iburg grew up in Wisconsin
and Iowa surrounded by nature, and is thus drawn to the powerful yet simple
combination of clay and fire and the naturalistic “landscapes” the wood-firing
process produces.
After graduating from
Iowa’s Coe College, he moved to Appomattox, Virginia as an Artist in Residence
at The Cub Creek Foundation to dig and process clay, learning its unique
properties, imperative knowledge when placing a piece in the kiln to best
capture the interaction between fire and earth. Although the majority of
Mitch’s work is unglazed, he offers shino-glazed tea bowls, and the connection
to Japanese wood fired objects is undeniable.
By using native clays, however, Mitch feels
that his pieces speak to “where he is” - they allow each piece to become uniquely
a part of its location or habitat, similar to the way wine from a particular
region owes its characteristic taste, body and flavor to the natural
environment in which it is produced.
Mitch
has personally designed and built anagama style wood-fired kilns.
He recently established his own studio in St.
Paul, Minnesota.
His work has been exhibited widely, both
nationally and internationally.
Lucien Koonce received
his Bachelor of Fine Arts from
East
Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina
and Master of Arts and Master of Fine Arts (both in ceramics) from the
University of Iowa.
In the past several
decades he has appeared in numerous exhibitions throughout the United States
and worldwide (
Australia, Taiwan,
Belgium, Singapore, and
Ireland),
as well as receiving a number of prestigious awards.
His work can be found in collections
throughout the world, both public and private.
He is the author of a number of articles.
Ken Pincus studied Arts and
Crafts/History and East Asian Studies, earning a BA from the University of
California, Santa Cruz.
He found a
source of inspiration in the ceramics of China, Japan and Korea and went on to study
pottery in the Tajimi region, Gifu Prefecture, Japan, in 1982, serving until
1987 as an apprentice to potter/artist Yoshihiko Yoshida.
In 1988 Ken returned to the US and soon
established Pincus Pottery Studio in Aloha, Oregon, eventually relocating to
his current studio in the hills of outer northwest Portland. There he built his
Skyline Kiln, a single-chamber wood-fire kiln designed to high-fire in about 36
hours. Skyline Kiln is fired two to three times a year; a separate gas kiln,
more frequently.
Akira Satake was born in Osaka,
Japan and has been living in the United States since 1983, currently residing
in North Carolina. He is widely sought after for workshops, lectures and
exhibitions both in the US (including the Smithsonian Craft Show, Philadelphia
Museum Show, and SOFA NY), and internationally in Australia, Indonesia,
Belgium, France, Spain and Israel. Akira is included in the collections
of the Mint Museum and the Phillips Collection. His awards include the
National Award for Excellence in Contemporary Clay awarded by the Philadelphia
Museum and his life and work have been featured in the PBS television series
A
Craftsman’s Legacy.
Reid Schoonover is
a ceramic artist and mixed-media sculptor, living and working in
Wisconsin.
He was educated at the
University of Wisconsin (BAE) and University of Montana (MFA).
He has been featured in many exhibitions
throughout the United States, including in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kentucky,
Montana, Illinois, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Washington and Washington, D.C.
Reid produces both functional and sculptural
forms and exclusively fires in wood fired kilns.
Shiho Kanzaki
is revered by a loyal, worldwide following.
His faith and passion for Azuchi-Momoyama
Period Shigaraki and Iga pottery inspired him to create many stunning
works, primarily large tsubo and tea ceremony utensils. Indeed, it has
been said that his pots are like jewels thrown down from the heavens.
Kanzaki continually blazed new trails in the ceramic art world.
Potters from all over the world traveled to
fire with him and learn his techniques, including a number of artists
represented by The Island Gallery.
Until
his recent passing, Kanzaki lived and worked in Shigaraki, Japan.
The Island Gallery at
Sotheby’s
 |
| Andrea K. Lawson, Self Portrait with Spring Bouquet in My Studio. Oil on canvas |
Spring Portraits
Andrea K. Lawson
May 4 - 31,
2018
First Friday
Artwalk, May 4, 6-8 pm
About the Show: The
Island Gallery is pleased to announce a special showing of works by Port
Hadlock artist Andrea K. Lawson at “The Island Gallery At Sotheby’s,” opening
on May 4th at Bainbridge Island’s First Friday Art Walk, 6-8 pm (240
Winslow Way East). Andrea’s works
celebrate spring, and the opportunity to bid farewell to clouds and drizzle,
and to welcome the burst of sunshine and accompanying floral display. In
this special show, Spring Portraits, Andrea offers a series of colorful,
expressive and very personal figurative work.
About the Artist:
Andrea K. Lawson
(Port Hadlock, Washington): Andrea was born in
Hollywood, California and received her BA from the University of California
Santa Cruz and her MFA from Parsons The New School of Design, New York City. Her prize winning paintings, drawings and
prints have been exhibited across the United States and Europe. A select list of Andrea’s solo and
juried exhibits include: The
Painting Center, New York, The Cape Museum of Fine Art, Massachussetts,
Gallery K, Los Angeles, Ronnebaekshholm Arts & Culture Centre,
Denmark, and Ecole Nationale Superieur
des Beaux Arts, Paris, France. In
Seattle and the Northwest: Washington
State Convention Center, The Corridor Gallery, Port Angeles Fine Art Center, Max Grover Gallery, Artisans
On Taylor and Northwind Arts
Center.
Using
expressive color and freely roving gestural line, I explore wild spaces as well
as
dense human spaces. I am intrigued by the
interaction between the two, such as electric lights twinkling in a wild
nightscape. Painting outdoors overlooking the Puget Sound, I paint abstract
landscapes with color that is not a copy but is a direct response to my emotion
and experience of the changing light on sky and water as the sun moves along
its path. Using sketches from dances, and photographs that I take at political
marches and parades, I paint the wild magic of community. I create paintings
about how human figures can be entangled in nature, struggling to be part of or
separate from their/our surrounding environment.
In light of recent political events, an
interesting part of Andrea’s life has been the influence of her
grandfather. Andrea says that her grandfather’s “story is a reminder to
all Americans to vigilantly fight for and preserve our freedom of speech and
civil rights.” Andrea remembers
visiting her grandparents and hearing the sound of typewriter
keys click-clacking from her Grandpa Jack’s office downstairs. Grandpa Jack was John Howard Lawson, the
experimental playwright, screenwriter and one of the Hollywood Ten. Inspired by European Theatre, vaudeville and
jazz, he wrote socially conscious, experimental plays in the twenties and
thirties which broke down the “fourth wall” (separation between audience and
stage). In the thirties, he brought his family to Hollywood to write for the
screen. His film titles include: Sahara,
Blockade and Algiers, starring
Hedy Lamarr and Humphrey Bogart. Cry
Beloved Country is known as one of the first films to portray a
non-stereotypical black character and to question Apartheid. Lawson was the first president of the Screen Writers
Guild and outspoken, standing up for writer’s rights and the rights of workers
everywhere. During the 1950s (a/k/a: the
McCarthy Era), Lawson was part of a group of ten well-known writers
who were imprisoned for refusing to name names to HUAC (the House on
Un-American Activities Committee.) These ten brave men stood up for freedom of
speech and went to jail for it.
My grandfather was
blacklisted and never worked again under his own name. This had a huge effect
on his life and career and family.
Event Location:
206-842-0842 / www.rsir.com
About The Island Gallery
Established in 2002, The Island Gallery features internationally recognized artists whose work takes
traditional art forms in exciting new
directions: studio furniture and sculpture; museum quality textile art and wearables; wood fired ceramics from the finest potters in
America; paintings and prints; and unique jewelry creations. Monthly exhibitions include
live musical concerts, featuring such genres as jazz, rock, folk, chamber music
and performance art. This, along with
its reputation for excellence, makes The Island Gallery a destination spot on beautiful Bainbridge Island, a short ferry ride from Seattle, and steps
from the new Bainbridge Island Museum of Art.
In 2017 we celebrated 15 years of collaboration with unique and talented
artists from near and far.
Contact Us/Visit/Event Location:
The Island Gallery, 400 Winslow Way
E, #120, Bainbridge Island, Washington.
Underground
parking is available at The Winslow off Ericksen Avenue.
Web site: www.theislandgallery.net
Shop: www.theislandgallery.net/shop
Blog:
www.theislandgallery-artblog.blogspot.com
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http://www.facebook.com/The-Island-Gallery-114673935258715/
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SUMMER HOURS
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– 6:00 pm
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