February’s First Friday gallery cruise beckons
Published 8:34 am Thursday, February 5, 2026
Head out for a night of art, community and festive celebration of Vashon’s creative community this Friday.
Puget Sound Cooperative Credit Union
The credit union’s “5th Annual Heart Art Show” will exhibit paintings, photographs, ceramics, prints, fiber art and other works in recycled and natural materials from 6-8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6. The reception will include music by Catbird (Jim Burke and Mary Shackelford), snacks and desserts.
Participating artists include Allison Trundle; Barbara Wells; Donna Caulton; Richard Rogers; Wild Northwest Beauty Photography; Diane Carr; Anne Gordon; Mary Lawrence; Margi Amstrup; Hope Black; Barbara Gustafson; Barbara Waterbury, Quartermaster Press; Kevin McConnell; Sara Barry and James Burke.
Regular hours for the credit union, located at 9928 SW Bank Road, are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. Save the date of PSCCU’s 15th anniversary party from 2-5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28. The party will include the exhibit, food and live music by Loren Sinner & Friends.
Swiftwater Gallery
Swiftwater Gallery, a cooperative membership gallery featuring the works of more than 50 local artists, will celebrate its third anniversary of being in business from 5-8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6, at 17600 Vashon Highway SW. There will be cake.
During the evening, Swiftwater member Gretchen Hancock, widely known for her oil paintings of ferry boats, will demonstrate how to paint a still life.
VALISE Gallery
In February, VALISE will present “The Food/Fresh Leftovers Show,” a continuation of an exhibition of food-related show that opened in January. The gallery will also continue to collect donations for Vashon Food Bank.
Participating artists are George Wright, Robert Passig, Lenard Yen, Hita VonMende, Pascale Judet, Liz Maxfield, Rachel Lordkenaga, Bill Jarcho, Sharon Shaver, Jiji Saunders, Dot Cherch and Gregory Burnham.
Attend a First Friday reception for the show from 6-9 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6. Regular gallery hours are 1-6 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and sometimes on the occasional Sunday.
Vashon Heritage Museum
Curtain up! Light the lights! They’ve got nothing to hit but the heights!
From 5-8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6, Vashon Heritage Museum will launch a new special exhibition, “Vashon’s Drama Dock: 50 Years Creating Theatre Together.” The exhibit will include posters, performances, photos and indelible memories from the longtime and deeply beloved island theater company.
The opening reception will include food, drink and a live performance at 6:30 p.m. The museum is located at 10105 SW Bank Road. Visit vashonheritagemuseum.org for more information.
Vashon Center for the Arts
Vashon Center for the Arts will present two solo exhibitions that explore the expressive power of reclaimed materials and the enduring presence of the human and animal form, with an opening from 5-8 Friday, Feb. 6.
The two shows, “The Workings of Scott Fife” and “Marita Dingus: Faces Reclaimed,” are both grounded in process, material transformation, and lived experience, offering reflections on vulnerability, resilience, and connection.
“Scott Fife and Marita Dingus both work with materials that have been used, discarded, or overlooked,” said Lynann Politte, VCA’s gallery director. “What unites them is a shared commitment to making work that is honest about process and deeply attentive to lived experience.”
Fife, a Vashon–based artist, transforms cardboard — an everyday, disposable material — into sculptural figures and animals imbued with emotional depth and physical presence. Constructed from layered cardboard, screws, and visible fasteners, Fife’s work foregrounds process as meaning. Human portraits and animal sculptures will be exhibited together, flattening hierarchies between species and inviting viewers into relationships of shared attention, care, and vulnerability.
Marita Dingus, a Seattle-born African American feminist and environmental artist, will present sculptural works centered on the human face and figure, created from salvaged glass, metal, fabric, and found objects. Drawing on the history of the African diaspora, Dingus reclaims discarded materials as a metaphor for resilience, memory, and survival. Presented during Black History Month, her work prompts broader conversations on identity, material culture and historical continuity in American art.”
“Together, these exhibitions demonstrate how material reuse can function as a powerful artistic language — one that speaks to presence, persistence, and human connection across time and experience,” Politte said.
Both exhibitions will be on view until March 1. For more information, visit vashoncenterforthearts.org.
Vashon Senior Center
An exhibition of Jeff Good’s paintings, which opened in January, will have a second reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 6, at the Vashon Senior Center.
Good, who began painting in the 1970s while a student of architecture at the University of Kansas, has had his paintings exhibited nationally and internationally during the past 15 years.
Good’s favorite medium is watercolor because of “its transparency and fluidity and, most importantly, the pure pleasure of letting the pigment and water create effects on the paper in a very spontaneous and rapid manner,” he said.
Good retired as a principal of GFF Architects in 2016 and currently devotes his time to painting and practicing architecture in his studio on Vashon. Learn more and see his work at jefflgoodart.com, and plan to attend Good’s demonstration of watercolor painting from 2-4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 12, at Vashon Senior Center.
