Anne Schreivogl has evolved into an artist with stature and a growing fan base in an amazingly short time. Her whimsical notions in paint are a refreshing antidote to Northwest gloom and belie a serious study of color.

What is also perhaps not apparent is that behind such sensual delight is an artist with humanitarian intentions.

Anne has committed to delivering 40 paintings to Japanese citizens who continue to be displace by the March 11th, 2011 tsunami. She will hand deliver this work exactly one year after the desaster.

You can view Anne’s new work and support her endeavor. See this heartfelt work. Purchase one of the paintings in the gallery and help send Anne on her way to Japan with the 40 cherry blossom paintings she created especially for the people who are still living in temporary housing, awaiting relief. (Many of the paintings are 5 x 5 inches and are only $200!)

Some examples from the show:

Hope #3
5 x 5" $200

Hope #2
5 x 5″ $200

Forest Folly
30 x 30″ $1,800

Spring Dance
12 x 12″ $550

 What is also perhaps not apparent is that behind such sensual delight is an artist with humanitarian intentions.

 Anne has committed to delivering 40 paintings to Japanese citizens who continue to be displace by the March 11th, 2011 tsunami.  She will hand deliver this work exactly one year after the desaster.

 You can view Anne’s new work and support her endeavor.  See this heartfelt work.  Purchase one of the paintings in the gallery and help send Anne on her way to Japan with the 40 cherry blossom paintings she created especially for the people who are still living in temporary housing, awaiting relief.   (Many of the paintings are 5 x 5 inches and are only $200!)

 Some examples from the show:

Hope #3
5 x 5" $200

Hope #2
5 x 5″ $200

Forest Folly
30 x 30″ $1,800

Spring Dance
12 x 12″ $550

"Yonder IV" by Maggie Wilder o/c 13x13.5 $550 SOLD

Theodora Jonsson and Maggie Wilder are showing together again with an intriguing mix of paintings and sculpture exploring the theme of “source.” Theodora’s work with whale bones and sonic frequencies is an inquiry into our origins.  Wilder’s paintings keep looking up toward the headwaters from which a river flows, asking a similar question of water.  Where are the origins of a phenomenon that is circular?  Come and wonder! 

An opening celebration will be held Saturday, September 10th, 4 – 7pm.  Light refreshments & lively conversation provided.

Some images from the show:

"Yonder II" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 16x23 $800

"Yonder I" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 10x10.25 $425 SOLD

"Gush" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 35x23 $1,250

"Navigation Inverse" by Theodora Jonsson
Etched Sandcast Glass $1,650

"Seeking Source" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 35 x 24 $1,250 SOLD

"Vanishing Light" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 35x23 $1,250 SOLD

“Swaying Nets” by Maggie Wilder
o/c 13.5×71 $1,800 SOLD

"River Jar with Salmon" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 23.5 x 35 $1,250

"My Mother as Kwan Yin" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 35 x 23 $1,250

"Moon Drift" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 14 x 22 $775

Theodora Jonsson's Minke Whale Call
Record Cast Glass $1,650

"Arial Tide" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 13x35 $1,000 SOLD

"Following the Light" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 35 x 24 $1,250 SOLD

"Yonder IV" by Maggie Wilder o/c 13x13.5 $550

Theodora Jonsson and Maggie Wilder are showing together again with an intriguing mix of paintings and sculpture exploring the theme of “source.” Theodora’s work with whale bones and sonic frequencies is an inquiry into our origins.  Wilder’s paintings keep looking up toward the headwaters from which a river flows, asking a similar question of water.  Where are the origins of a phenomenon that is circular?  Come and wonder! 

An opening celebration will be held Saturday, September 10th, 4 – 7pm.  Light refreshments & lively conversation provided.

Some images from the show:

"Yonder II" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 16x23 $800

"Yonder I" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 10x10.25 $425 SOLD

"Gush" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 35x23 $1,250

"Navigation Inverse" by Theodora Jonsson
Etched Sandcast Glass $1,650

"Seeking Source" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 35 x 24 $1,250 SOLD

"Vanishing Light" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 35x23 $1,250 SOLD

“Swaying Nets” by Maggie Wilder
o/c 13.5×71 $1,800 SOLD

"River Jar with Salmon" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 23.5 x 35 $1,250

"My Mother as Kwan Yin" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 35 x 23 $1,250

"Moon Drift" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 14 x 22 $775

Theodora Jonsson's Minke Whale Call
Record Cast Glass $1,650

"Arial Tide" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 13x35 $1,000 SOLD

"Following the Light" by Maggie Wilder
o/c 35 x 24 $1,250 SOLD

Mary Randlett has been making photographs for over sixty years and is the Northwest’s premier landscape photographer. Equally impressive is her collection of artist portraits of the Northwest artists who were her friends and colleagues.  This collection of silver gelatin prints on view at Gallery Cygnus includes her latest darkroom work.

Cathy Stevens has also been professionally documenting the Northwest art scene for decades.  Included in this show is the subsequent generation of artists, mostly of the Skagit Valley.  Cathy’s work includes black & white silver gelatin prints, as well as digital versions, and some affordable 5 x 7 portraits of the Skagit Valley’s most widely shown artists.

Guy Anderson
Silver Gelatin Print by Cathy Stevens

John Simon
Silver Gelatin Print by Cathy Stevens

Ann Morris
Silver Gelatin Print Mary Randlett

Maggie Wilder
Silver Gelatin Print by Cathy Stevens

Clayton James
Silver Gelatin Print by Mary Randlett

Charlie Krafft
Silver Gelatin Print by Mary Randlett

Elizabeth Tapper:  Formally speaking, both line and color create mass.  Think Rothko, think Rembrandt.  With Rembrandt, his paintings were well-tended fields of dense line, and with Rothko there was only well tended fields of color.  Kathleen’s painting “Burst #4” reminds of us of a dandelion somewhat, but the “object” (dandelion) is completely reliant on the variegated shades of brilliant yellows and greens that surround it.  In the other floral paintings the mass of color field is predominant with just hints of line at the edges of mass.  It’s brilliant.

MW:  Yes, I noticed when I gaze at the paintings, the distinction between the form and color field begins to blur and finally, I’m not perceiving form at all, but more absorbing the total energetic field.

I am intrigued that McCarty made a leap into printmaking, and I love comparing the prints to the paintings.  They’re made completely differently, and the result is the prints are this crisp delineation of object.  Yet what stands out in both mediums is the buoyancy of life forms.  As a master printmaker, what are you seeing in her prints?

ET:  Her serigraphs on wood and paper are nearly flawless.  I admire process that is skillful.  Every medium has its voice, its persona.  I enjoyed the artist’s “separation” of color fields (the painting) and the clarity of the line (the prints).  Each held the image and complimented the other.  The flatness of silkscreen technique seems to emphasize the quality of the line in the prints.  In the paintings, the surface gives us hints into the work of the hand holding the brush. And this feeling, of course, is completely absent in the world of computer-generated imagery.

MW:  What’s interesting to me about all the work in this exhibit, certainly including Steve Immerman’s glass pieces, is that you really cannot get a sense of the power of the work by seeing it on an electronic screen.  I realize the irony that readers will be on our website reading this, where we’ve posted images of the show. I so hope people will come see this work and bask in the radiant color in person.  The scale of the paintings makes the work a small scale environment.  And the glass pieces, are small worlds, volumes of color and form that are incisive specimens of what could be origins of life. None of it can be imagined from a flattened picture, electronic or otherwise.

Chromaphilia is on display through August 28^th at Gallery Cygnus.  Hours are 12-5pm, Friday, Saturday & Sunday.

Please come see the fabulous color works of Kathleen McCarty and Steve Immerman.  This show is truly a feast for the senses.  We’ll be celebrating Chromaphilia (it’s legal!) between 3 – 5 p.m., Saturday, July 2nd with dessert for palate and eye.  Show continues through August 28th.

The work of both these artists seem to enter our experience from the eye to the heart, bypassing critical thinking or even recognition, allowing moments of a pure sensational joy.

Steve Immerman's "Exposure #11"

Kathleen McCarty was formally schooled at the Chicago Art Institute,  traveled abroad in her studies, and settled in the Pacific Northwest to establish a painting practice focusing on motion & color, inspired by living in the forest.

Kathleen McCarty's "Burst #4"

Her current work is inspired by the life of flowers.  The paintings seem to be made of frequencies just on the edge of visibility.  With sustained viewing, they seem to expand the visible spectrum, sensitizing the view’s ability to (perhaps) see auras.

Her prints follow the buoyant life of flowers also, but employ the

Kathleen McCarty's "Falling"

crisp edge of knife work to take us into a world where we breathe not air, but color.

Steve Immerman has been a glass artist for 25 years, balancing his life as  surgeon, artist, scientist, sensualist.  The refined geometrics of this series called “Exposures” are

Steve Immerman's "Exposure #10"

hermetic worlds, containing pattern and light not unlike small aquariums.  His sense of color feels almost like a flavor on the tongue, and a delicious one at that.

Steve immerman's "Exposure #20"

Steve Immerman's "Exposure #26a"

CONVERSATIONS WITH ELIZABETH TAPPER

Maggie Wilder: There’s been a steady stream of visitors here at Gallery Cygnus to see this exhibit, “Searching for Soul”, the portrait work of Mary Randlett and Cathy Stevens. And I’ve noticed that many people have an emotional response upon coming through our door. It’s bigger than any one photograph. I’m not sure what that’s about, but I felt it too, when I walked in the day after Peggy hung this show. What did you feel just now, coming in?

Elizabeth Tapper: In this culture of America, we’re inundated with images of celebrity; people we think we know, but really don’t. It’s all highly manufactured with a consumer in mind. That’s completely absent here. Instead, I feel a presence of human dignity. And also, an intimacy. And, perhaps, a vulnerability. And there seems to be a conversation happening in this very peopled space of your gallery.

MW: We very much wanted to create a multigenerational artist portrait show that began with Mary Randlett’s photographs of Tobey and Graves, Clayton and Barbara James, and create an inclusive lineage of folks who’ve been called to work here in Skagit Valley. Cathy Stevens had documented some of the subsequent generation, and took on even more studio visits to help us produce this show. I am moved by the representation overall of a community that has held me personally, as an artist. There’s a kinship. These people mean something to me. I have heard some of their voices in my studio, and I can hear them now, in this room.

ET: It’s an interesting perspective, this view I have from being eighty. When you get to be an elder, you take time to reflect. You want to see more deeply, beyond the surfaces of things. It is a search for what is held beneath the reflected light.

What’s interesting is not one of these photographs says “this is what an artist looks like.” And that’s how we know that there’s also an artist behind the camera, as well as in front of it. These are not clichés. The photographer is exploring something, something elusive.

MW: Mary Randlett knew her subjects well, yet there is a respectful distance in her photos. No “in your face” close-ups. She does very little manipulation in the darkroom.

Cathy told me that the way she works is to visit her subject in their studio. That invitation into a private space is perhaps what makes for that feeling of intimacy and vulnerability. She spends time with them, and when she sees something that seems at the heart of this person, a gesture, an expression, she asks them to revisit that moment, and that’s when a photograph happens. It’s not a candid shot. And yet something is revealed.

ET: And that’s just the beginning. There’s an artist, there’s a tool, then a subject. But art doesn’t happen until choices are made: why this shot, and not another? When to manipulate the photograph. What’s being revealed in the photograph.

A real artist can take a mundane subject and create an interest in it. But it happens because of their deep curiosity.

MW: I wonder what can be revealed in 1/6oth of a second of reflected light, on a piece of photosensitive paper with not much surface?

ET: Most of the people we meet, we know first face to face. Later we learn more: their interests, ideas, experiences. With artists, it’s often the other way around. In this exhibit, we may know the work first, and now we see the artist’s face. What the photographers have given us is not just a face, but the language of their bodies, and an environment, in many cases their studios. Studios are usually very private spaces.

MW: Someone famously said “a good face has something behind it.” Is there anything about the face of an artist that speaks to us? Or is there something about this particular community of local artists that people are recognizing? Mary Randlett and Cathy Stevens obviously thought there was something worth investigating and recording.

ET: When it comes to making art, it’s not the tool, or the subject, but what the artist does with that tool. What makes it worth viewing is a revitalization of something familiar, something that the soul knows to be true.

You’re invited to celebrate Clayton James’ 93rd birthday and latest
paintings at Gallery Cygnus, Saturday, February 5th, from 1pm to 5pm.
Cake and champagne provided!

Show will continue through February 27th.
Gallery hours: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, 11 am – 5 pm.

Dodge Valley
24 x 32 Oil on Board $1725 (sold)

Game Range
14 x 18 Oil on Board $960 (sold)

Moment
24 x 32 Oil on Board $1950 AVAILABLE

Passing Storm
24 x 33 Oil on Board $1725 (sold)

Sisters
24 x 44 Oil on Board $2050 (sold)

Snowfield
25 x 33 Oil on Board $2050 AVAILABLE

Turbulence
25 x 35 Oil on Board $1800 (sold)

Unexpected
25 x 33 Oil on Board $2050 AVAILABLE

Up River
13 x 17 Oil on Board $900 (sold)

Momentarily I
14 x 18" Oil on Board $1120 AVAILABLE

Yellow Bar
sold

Momentarily II
12 x 20" Oil on Board $1120 AVAILABLE