Artists Return for Library Birthday

Second Story Gallery will invite back some favorite artists in May as it helps the Camas Public Library celebrate the 10th anniversary of its renovation.  Returning artists will bring 30 new works to a show titled 30 Into 10.  

The reunion is meant to showcase the high caliber of art seen in the gallery since its inception.  At the same time, it will bring patrons up to date with what some of their favorite local artists are currently creating as part of the 10th anniversary festivities.

 

The Gallery was created in the library shortly after the doors were opened on the expanded building that is known as the heart of the community.  The upstairs space was specifically designed to serve as an art gallery and has been outfitted with a professional hanging system and lighting that is similar to world-class museums.  It  serves as a foyer for two community meeting rooms with monthly exhibits produced by an all-volunteer Board of Governors.

The May show will offer a wide range of art, from nature photography to abstract work, watercolors, oil painting, and pottery.  Photographers who will bring new pieces are Sandy Caldwell, Mari Coryell, Joel Emanuel, Ray Klein, Kirsten Muskat, Reinhold Schable and Lois Settlemeyer.  Painters are Carol Bietsch, Sally Lemon, Linda McCulloch, Corinne McWilliams, Judith Sanders-Wood, Katey Sandy, Barbara VanNostern and Tom Wheeler.  

Also represented will be Dave and Boni Deal, Camas potters who have had a raku triptych permanently installed on the main floor of the library building since the doors opened to the new addition in 2003.

The show will continue through May 31 at 625 NE 4th Avenue in Camas.  The gallery is open during regular library hours, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. 

Here and There

 

Not-so-watery watercolors will fill Second Story Gallery in April, as Patti Chilbeck Meuler presents her unique painting combined with torn-paper collage. 

Chilbeck Meuler is a signature member of the Northwest Watercolor Society and has shown her work in juried regional and national competitions.  She says she was a “watercolor purist” for many years, sticking with transparent paint and considering the use of opaque media as admitting “failure.”  Then she met gouache--ground pigments that are still water-based but with a thickened, paste-like appearance.  She says she fell in love with playing the flat, solid areas against the transparent ones.  She found herself combining abstraction with realism in a style that is colorful and modern.

“My next great love was making collages from painted tissue paper and then embellishing them with whatever seemed necessary,” she says.  A life-long resident of Ridgefield, she says living in the woods has led to a new fascination with tree trunks.  “In those paintings, I want the viewer to not just think about going into a painting but to actually be in the painting,” she explains.

Chilbeck Meuler thinks painting is a happy experience and wants her viewers to find some joy, a few jokes and some smiles in her work.  Patrons can see for themselves during April at Second Story Gallery, located upstairs in the Camas Public Library.  The gallery is open during regular library hours, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. The reception and show are free and open to the public.

First Friday

Artist's Reception

with music by

Caryn Jamieson

Friday, April 5

5-8 p.m.

  

The Second Story Gallery is participating in the Downtown Camas Association's  Discover Camas Photo Scavenger Hunt on April 5. Pick up your event passport at one of the following locations:

Camas Antiques, Lizzabeth A, Ballard and Call, Navidi's, Caffe

Piccolo, Bead Paradise and others. Prepare to be pleasantly surprised

at what treasures you will discover!

Mostly Flowers

Sheila Martinson will fill Second Story Gallery with blooms during the month of March.  Her watercolor show, Mostly Flowers, will be unveiled at a First Friday reception March 1 from 5 to 8 p.m. and will continue through March 30.

According to Martinson, she cheerfully went about a 33-year career as a geneticist with the USDA Forest Service with no idea she could paint. A resident of Vancouver since 1978, she says her creative outlet was floral and garden design in the real world. A close friend noticed Martinson’s color sense and suggested that she pick up a brush. Martinson says she’s willing to try anything once but met with only sporadic success and many missed night courses in watercolor due to her heavy travel schedule.

Retirement proved the winning ticket, as Martinson says she was finally successful in learning watercolor painting through the Clark College Mature Learning Program. She has since embarked upon a love affair with watercolors. She confides, "I love the way the watercolor washes are so transparent and luminous. I especially enjoy the magical effect of the water, which is the wild card in watercolor painting."

Martinson is currently serving as president of the Board of Governors of Second Story Gallery and also has served two years as the President of the Southwest Washington Watercolor Association.

Artist's Reception

with music by 

Tom Mann

5 to 8 p.m.

March 1

 The Second Story Gallery is located upstairs in the Camas Public Library in downtown Camas at 625 NE 4th Avenue. The March 1 artist’s reception will feature music by contemporary country performer Tom Mann.  In addition, the gallery is open to the public during regular library hours, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.

Journey into Art Quilting

A group of 16 fabric artists, a colorful subset of the Clark County Quilters, will

display vibrant wall hangings and three-dimensional fabric sculpture during the

month of February at Second Story Gallery. 

 "Fairy Dust in the Wind" by Dianne Kane

The handwork artists include Beth Heurlin, Geri Kromminga, Eileen Davis Elliott, Donna Aase, Kathy Baumann, Lorna Crawford, Louise Deatherage, Abbie Dick, Dianne Kane, Maxine Kinne, Barbara Neill, Virginia O'Donnell, elinor peace bailey, Judith Phelps, Jane Walgren and Beverly Woodard.  

They formed the Art Quilt Group in 2005 as a way of exploring the more artistic side of the quilting hobby.  

“The goal was to push us beyond our personal comfort zones and encourage us to create using new and innovative techniques,” said Dianne Kane, who resides in Camas.

She confided that the group has a “no rules” understanding.  The members also tackle challenges where they attempt a new technique, design or color combination.  One involved the Old Masters of oil painting, another involved altered clothing.  

“Our challenges have been terrific stretches and learning opportunities for us.,” said Kane.  “The results are quite diverse.  It seems to be a different member each time who wows us with her results.”

Aptly called “Our Journey into Art Quilting,” the show is the latest chapter in a library tradition of displaying quilts during February.

The women will be on hand to discuss their non-traditional craft at a public reception on  Friday, Feb. 1, from 5 to 8 p.m.

Please join us at the

Artists' Opening Reception

Friday, February 1

5-8pm

The show continues through Saturday, February 23 at Second Story Gallery, upstairs in the Camas Public Library in downtown Camas at 625 NE 4th Avenue.  The gallery is open during regular library hours, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.

Sue Clancy Celebrates Life in the Northwest

A newcomer to the Northwest is filling Second Story Gallery in January with insights into her new home. Sue Clancy thinks Northwesterners enjoy the simple things “like walks in the woods, fishing on the river, good food, the arts, dogs, books and coffee!” She says her artwork is about story-telling and these “little enjoyments” led in a roundabout way to her show “Petite Pleasures.”

Clancy’s show follows on the heels of an exhibit by paper artists at 23Sandy Gallery in Portland. She has participated in national and international exhibits and has had recent one-woman shows at the Oklahoma State Capitol, the Joseph Gierek Fine Art Gallery in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Access-Meed Gallery, Miami Dade College, Miami Florida. Her artwork, both two-dimensional and three-dimensional, has been exhibited and purchased by institutions such as the Wexford Ireland Arts Center in Wexford, Ireland, The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in Boulder, Colorado, and exhibit spaces in Wisconsin, California, Arizona and elsewhere.

Clancy says she has decided she’ll create the art and let her audience decide what labels to apply to it and “puzzle out what it means.” She offers the hint that her titles are clues. “I'm often asked ‘Why animal characters?’” she confides, to which she replies "why not?"

“Petite Pleasures” will be unveiled at a reception for the artist, free and open to the public, as part of the Downtown Camas Association’s First Friday from 5 to 8 p.m. on January 4th. The show will continue through Jan. 28 upstairs in the Camas Public Library during regular library hours, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.

Don't miss this wonderful exhibit - see you on the 4th

Artist's Reception

with music by 

Laura Caldwell and Al Carness

5 to 8 p.m.

January 4

Presenting Karyn Mastrude

Karyn Mastrude, the December artist at Second Story Gallery, says she started drawing
as well as singing “immediately out of the gate.” She claims she entered the world with a
vibrato-filled wail of joy and the need to express herself, crediting her musician father and
all-round creative-type mother for “those kind of oars in my boat.”

With creative forces driving her on, Mastrude originally chose music, singing and touring
professionally through her teens and twenties. It was only two years ago that she picked
up a brush for the first time. The results will be on display at the gallery, upstairs in the
Camas Public Library, during the month of December. Mastrude will be on hand at the
First Friday reception Dec. 7, from 5 to 8 p.m. This unveiling is free and open to the public,
at 625 NE Fourth Ave.

Mastrude has sought out bold, abstract artists for her inspiration but says she is a self-taught artist who is completely at home “sitting in the middle of the floor on a canvas drop-cloth, covered in paint smudges.” She quickly developed a style of her own, she says. “I use the typical mediums in my work, including acrylic and glazes--and some not so typical mediums like glitter and glue.

Karyn’s show, “The Art of Balance and Tranquility,” will reveal the Camas artist’s eye for fluidity and movement that she says is characteristic of abstract art. The show is open during regular library hours, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, through Dec. 29.

The Art of Balance & Tranquility

First Friday Reception

Dec. 7, 5 to 8 p.m.

Aksenova is November Artist

Larisa Aksenova draws on an early career as a geologist and hydrologist in Russia to create mostly abstract paintings that she will display in Camas in November.  After graduating as an engineer from Moscow State University, she spent 10 years in the field, where she says the seeds of her art were sewn.  The result, “The World Through my Eyes,” will be on display through Nov. 30 at the Second Story Gallery, upstairs in the Camas Public Library.

“From the snow-filled forests and the ice-covered mountains of Siberia, to the heat and golden sands of the desert, these places left a permanent impression on me,” explains Larisa.  She said that, after moving to the United States, she tried work as a computer programmer, accountant and hairdresser, “all the while never forgetting the glorious sights I saw as a geologist.”  Those sights now inspire her art.

“I submerged myself in the world of drawing, watercolors and acrylics,” she said, crediting classes at Clark College for the first steps in her new life.  Realism, she says, led her to want new challenges.  “This is where I found a love for modern art and abstract art.”

“My attraction to abstract art comes from the fact that people can look at the same painting but each person will come away seeing and feeling something different,” according to Larisa.  “The meaning is in the eye of the beholder, always provoking thought, conversation and strong emotions.”

“I would like people to fee something significant when viewing my work and my goal is to incorporate how the use of color and form affect human emotion,” says the artist.

The public will be able to view Larisa’s acrylics and watercolors at Second Story Gallery, 625 NE Fourth Ave., Camas.  The show is open during regular library hours.

Join Us at the

 Artist's  reception 

 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2