July Featured Artists
Port Townsend Gallery features the artwork of acrylic painter Jeanette Best and bone carver Victor Judd during the month of July.
Jeanette Best
“Metalliferous Florescence” acrylic,
by Jeanette Best
Painter Jeanette Best views art as a process, a constant puzzle that needs solving. She uses each line, each shape or color to create a new statement that eventually reaches a visual resolution. Best works mainly in acrylics, but enjoys exploring new media, and sees her involvement with the Northwind Arts Center (she serves as chairman of the board for the Northwind Arts Alliance) as an ideal way to learn about new techniques, new artists, and new methods of perception.
Best admits that her art goes off in many tangents, but feels that her study of sumi painting, with its emphasis on line, is a constant. Her new works do, indeed, emphasize line yet diverge into wildly organic shapes that glow with a rich metallic patina. The artist achieves these lush, textured canvases by playing with acrylic mediums, dry metallic pigments, as well as iridescent and interference pigments.
As with all her exhibits, the prices are reasonable. The artist explains: "I like to paint and then I like to have my paintings find good homes so I can paint more."
Victor Judd
Victor Judd first became intrigued with bone carving while traveling in New Zealand in 1998. The ancient Polynesian art is seen mostly in the form of necklaces that are worn as talismans, and the designs combine symbols to represent a wish for protection, good luck, or bounty. Rather than buying a tourist-quality necklace, Judd learned to carve his own at a workshop in Christchurch. He fell in love with the whole process: the feel of the bones, the meanings behind the designs, the challenge of taking a raw bone
and converting it into a beautiful, sculptural amulet that seemed to have its own special energy.
“Double Whale Tail” bone carving,
by Victor Judd
In New Zealand, native Maori artists use whalebone for their carving. To them, a whale is a sacred creature provided by the sea spirits. Since whalebone is not accessible here, Judd uses buffalo bone. He likes the similarity between the total use of the whale |
by Maoris and the total use of the buffalo by the American Plains Indian. Judd spends hours in the carving process, using a handsaw or a rotary power tool, small files, and several grits of sandpaper torn into little strips. Occasionally, Judd inlays paua shell, mammoth tusk, amber, or wood. He strings his necklaces with waxed cotton and often embellishes with various purchased beads.
“Shadows 1” photograph,
by Victor Judd
In addition to showing his bone carvings this month, Judd is unveiling a new book of his photography entitled “Only In Port Townsend: Light and Images of Port Townsend and the Wooden Boat Festival.” The artists explains that after moving to Port Townsend, he was “enchanted with the quality of the light on the Peninsula. It is luminous and rich with a golden glow. Nature (and the people of the region) provides me with an ever-changing choice of subjects for photographic study.” He describes his book as “a snapshot of what I see, day-to-day, living on this intriguing peninsula.”
Come and meet our featured artists at a reception during Gallery Walk, Saturday, July 4th, from 5:30-8pm. Light refreshments will be served.
Summer New and
Summer Old
ARTWORK SALE
The Port Townsend Gallery will have a special sale from July 19 through July 26. Prices will be reduced on many pieces of original artwork throughout the store and in the courtyard.
Previous Months' Newsletters
715 Water St. Port Townsend
OPEN daily at 10 AM
(360) 379-8110 |
