Seattle Art Blog - News, Discussion, and Events

First Wednesday

Wallingford Art Walk from 5:30-8pm. Info: 206.547.5177 or info@oasisinseattle.com   

First Thursday

Gallery Walks in Pioneer Square and the Seattle Art Museum area, 6-8pm. Downtown Museum and Seattle Asian Art Museum in Volunteer Park are free all day on First Thursdays. For maps check out www.firstthursdayseattle.com/

First Friday

Anacortes Galleries are open from 6-8pm.  Visit www.anacortesart.com.

Bainbridge Island Galleries are open from 5-8 or 9pm.

Bellingham Downtown Art Walk from 6-10 pm. For more information go to http://www.downtownbellingham.com/gallerywalk/

Belltown Seattle monthly art walk from 6-8pm. Call Carol d'Amelio at 206.443.6003 for more information.

Bremerton Gallery Walk, 5-8pm, in Downtown Bremerton.

Ellensburg Art Walk, 5-7:30pm., in Historic Downtown Ellensburg.

Fremont Art Walk, 6-9pm.  Visit www.fremontseattle.com.

Issaquah Art Walk 6-9pm in downtown Issaquah.

Sequim Art Walk, 5-8pm, downtown.

Vashon Island Gallery Cruise, 6-9pm.  Call Silverwood Gallery 206/463-1722.

First Saturday

Gig Harbor Art Walk, 1-5pm., along the waterfront

Langley on Whidbey Island Galleries extend their hours to 8pm.

Port Townsend Art Walk, 5:30-8:30.  Call Ancestral Spirits Gallery at 360/385-0078.

Quilcene Art Walk, 11am-6pm.  E-mail info@olympicartgallery.com.

April 1-30

26th Annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival.  Nothing shouts Spring as loudly as brilliant Daffodil and Tulip fields exploding with color.  This must-see spectacular which draws 1 million visitors each year includes lots of art and crafts as well.  Visit www.tulipfestival.org or call 360/428-5959.

April 3-5

Spring Best of the Northwest.  A marketplace of fine art and crafts.  Seattle Center, 10am.-6pm.  Visit www.bestnwcrafts.com.

If you don’t read Tyler Green’s Modern Art Notes, over at the Arts Journal site, you’ll miss some pretty interesting art news. He reported March 25 that new Experience Music Project director, Dr. Christina Orr-Cahall, was the director of the Corcoran Gallery who cancelled the controversial Mapplethorpe show in 1989 after a huge outpouring of political and public criticism. Read Green’s column and find out loads more.

Hmm. After I posted the first paragraph I went over to Regina Hackett’s new blog, Another Bouncing Ball , where she covered the Mapplethorpe incident a little more thoroughly.

Frankly, anyone under the age of 45 probably doesn’t have a clue about this 20-year old story and could care less. The art world has moved on, Mapplethorpe’s photographs only increased in value as a result of the publicity, and what is considered controversial has changed greatly.  Furthermore, Dr. Orr-Cahall paid a huge price by resigning her prestigious position a few months later. I hope she finds our town a little more broad minded than she found the politicians in Washington D. C. all those years ago.

During the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, La Conner’s Seaside Gallery, 112 Morris Street, will feature plein-air landscapes and photography by local artists Mark Bistranin, Steve Hill, and nature photographer, Mark Conley. The show runs from March 28 through May 31. Shown is Spring Blooms by Steve Hill.

Washington native, Teresa Saia, opens in a new show at Howard/Mandville Gallery, 120 Park Lane in Kirkland on Saturday, March 28 and closes on April 20. Saia’s work, inspired by both her travels abroad and at home, is widely-collected by both private and corporate collectors.  Shown is Quiet Reflections At the Medici Fountain .

Puyallup’s outdoor art gallery, Arts Downtown,  is unveiling ten new works to add to its Pioneer Park site on March 28 at noon in a special ceremony. The public is invited to vote on the new works, and the most popular will be purchased by the city.

Shown is Big Leg Momma by Leslie Ariel.

I have had a giant techno problem with comments on this web site. Now, after lots of tweaking they are enabled once again. Please feel free to post.

The Henry Art Gallery ,at the University of Washington, has announced the short list of candidates for The Brink, a new award for emerging artists in Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia. The finalists are Matt Browning (Seattle, WA), Alex Felton (Portland, OR), Aaron Flint Jameson (Portland, OR), Isaac Layman (Seattle, WA), Gareth Moore (Vancouver, BC), and Isabelle Pauwels (Vancouver, BC). The winner of The Brink will be announced at 8 PM on April 17 during the Henry’s spring Open House celebration.

"Two Women & Two Men Four Art" exhibit will run from March 25 - May 10 at C Art Gallery , located at 855 Hiawatha Place South in Seattle's Jackson Neighborhood Arts District.  The exhibit features works by three self taught artists; Theresa Cates from Little Rock Arkansas,  local self taught artist Robin Annette  and Portland artist Joachim Mcmillan.  Joining the exhibit is veteran Pacific Northwest Fine Artist Eric D. Salsibury.

Please don’t send press releases for the above. This blog is about the visual arts. If you have an exhibit associated with an art gallery or a museum, I am  more than happy to post it. Now, if  you have an art exhibit in concert with a poetry festival or whatever, I will post that too.

You can still read Regina Hackett’s saucy prose over at Arts Journal where she is writing an arts blog called Another Bouncing Ball. Incidentally, I read Arts Journal ,the leading aggregator of arts journalism on the internet, every single day. A one-man brass band named Doug McLennan is the hard-working founder and editor. He also writes a blog called diacritical.

Patricia Cameron Gallery , 234 Dexter North, celebrates spring with former SAM Betty Bowen Memorial Award winner Joan Stuart Ross and the widely-collected Suzanne Betz in an exhibition featuring mixed media. A special  reception takes place on March 26 from 5:30-8:30pm. The show runs through May 2. Shown is Levitation III by Joan Stuart Ross.

I’ve had a good many emails from you, my sweet readers, that you haven’t been able to post comments on the site. It seems our redesign in January somehow prevented the comments from going through. My web master is working on it. In the meantime, you can email me directly with any comments you might want to post, and I’ll post them as an article. My email  is seattleart@gmail.com .

On view until April 25 at Wall Space Gallery , 600 First Ave., Suite 322, is award-winning, fine art landscape photographer Mitch Dobrowner’s show “ Land Forms.” Formerly with Disney and Sony, Dobrowner captures his images using a digital workflow, and prints are produced using archival quality 100% cotton rag paper with pigment based inks. A special reception for the photographer will be held on April 3 from 6-8pm. Shown is Mount Index.

Steven Vroom ‘s Art Radio Seattle broadcasting from the beautiful studios of 911 Media Arts Center in “spring-like, but it is overcast, Seattle.”  Apparently the Rose family isn’t too happy with Brandeis University. Click on Steven Vroom to hear the rest of the story.

Alex Ohge, the former manager of Lawrimore Project , opens his very first show on March 21 from 6-10pm, in the Ohge Ltd. Gallery, next to Lawrimore at 831 Airport Way S., features new  paintings mixed media sculpture and ceramics from Tacoma artist and Soil  member, Nicholas Nyland. Nyland’s work can be seen in the collections of the City of Seattle, City of Enumclaw and in Kamiyama, Japan.