Artists will be on hand at several of the First Friday Gallery Cruise openings between 6 and 9 p.m. Turn to the next page for additional First Friday listings.
Take in miniatures at The Blue Heron
Blue Heron Gallery’s third annual December Miniature Show artistically demonstrates the familiar adage that good things do indeed come in small packages.
The exhibition, co-curated by Carol Schwennesen, a member of VALISE, and Blue Heron Gallery curator Janice Mallman, includes a long list of Vashon-based artists using a variety of mediums — painting, pottery, wood, tile, glass, sculpture, printmaking, mixed media, photography and fiber.
Jazz by Richard Person on trumpet and Jim Hob-son on piano will be performed at the opening, from 6 to 9 p.m.
According to organizers, more than 30 artists will be represented with one to five pieces of work. Artists showing in this year’s Miniature Show include Art Hansen, Julie Speidel, Mark Bennion, Mary Hosick, Will Dacus, Mary Lynn Buss, Kathy Johnson and Ray Pfortner.
Celebrate Indonesia at the Red Bike
The works of 12 talented high school students depicting the amazing wildlife that surrounds their homes in the Mount Tompotika area of Sulawesi, Indonesia, will adorn the walls of the Red Bicycle Bistro & Sushi through December.
The richly hued paintings make up the pages of a new calendar, “Our Heritage, Our Future,” a pride piece for the 12 students and a fundraiser for the Vashon-based nonprofit Alliance for Tompotka Conservation (or AlTo).
Last summer, Sandra Noel, a Vashon biologist and graphic artist, went to Sulawesi and gave a nine-day workshop for the 12 budding artists, their first formal training in how to draw fur, feathers, trees and leaves. Each artist depicted one of Sulawesi’s endangered wildlife species for use in the calendar.
AlTo director Marcy Summers, whose work with The Nature Conservancy gave impetus to the formation of AlTo in 2006, says the calendar is part of the organization’s efforts to use art to celebrate the region’s ecological richness and strengthen the community’s connection to their own natural heritage.
The calendars will be on sale at the First Friday event. They can also be found at the Vashon Bookshop, Books by the Way, Giraffe and Heron’s Nest.
Explore “Nothing” at Cafe Luna
Island photographer and film curator Peter Ray will show an exhibit of his photographs through December at Cafe Luna.
The name of the show, “Pictures of Nothing,” comes from the title of a book by art historian Kirk Varnedoe, Ray said. But the idea of “nothing” doesn’t mean that there are no images in the pictures. Instead, Ray said, the concept refers to the process by which he created the images.
“While my photographs all have things in them that are recognizable as something other than nothing,” said Ray, “there was no pre-conceived intent in the making of any of them. They were all found objects in a sense, or what a former photo instructor of mine … referred to as ‘readymades.’
“This, in turn,” Ray added, “was a term used by the French surrealist Marcel Duchamp to describe a series of objects (a bicycle wheel, a snow shovel, a urinal) that he redefined as art by giving them their own context and signing them using the pseudonym ‘R. Mutt.’”
The serendipitous informs Ray’s process. “All of the pictures represent an instant where the elements of light, shadow, form and color happened to be just right, and I happened to be there to see them,” he said.
