First Friday Art Walk – July 1, 2022

Winslow Way and surrounding area, Downtown Bainbridge Island
First Friday of every month, 6-8 PM

Spend an evening experiencing all that downtown Bainbridge has to offer. Many galleries, shops and businesses will be participating this month showcasing the art of our talented creative community. Afterwards, stop by one of our many restaurants for cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, or dinner.

Enjoy an evening with a stroll through downtown visiting your favorite businesses and restaurants, shopping for gifts or items for yourself and your home. The walk begins on Winslow Way (near the ferry terminal) from 6pm to 8pm, see below for a taste of what some of our local businesses are doing:

Scrappy Art Lab – Kid Drop From 6-8pm, space is limited, book online at scrappyartlab.com. Located at 123 Bjune Dr SE Ste 109, Bainbridge Island, WA

First Fridays Childcare – Presented by Bainbridge Island Child Care Centers at Bainbridge Island Child Care Centers, Bainbridge Island WA – Buy tickets here.

KiDiMu – Create at KiDiMu for Art Walk on Friday, June 1st from 3pm – 7pm, FREE! KiDiMu invites kids, and kids at heart, to come create art and play. This month they will be making firework marble art! FREE! Buy tickets here. The museum is located at 301 Ravine Ln NE, Bainbridge Island, WA

Jeffrey Moose Gallery  Painter and paper marbler Len Eisenhood will exhibit a series of tree themed works for the month of July. The gallery is located at 181 Winslow Way East, Suite F.

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (BIMA) – Eva Funderburgh: Mythical Worlds Exhibition – through August 28. Mythical Worlds features Seattle-based artist Eva Funderburgh in her first solo art museum exhibition! Funderburgh’s exhibition includes wood-fired ceramic and bronze sculptures that reflect Funderburgh’s world of mythical beasts. Funderburgh’s creations mix both control and relinquishment of earth and fire while revealing complex primal instincts, familiar gestures, and dreamlike narratives. For additional information and details on the festival, click here. BIMA is located at the corner of Hwy 305 and Winslow Way.

Bergh Images Fine Art Photography Much to celebrate next month, including the Fourth of July, National Dive Bar Day (July 9), and National Hammock Day (July 22), so Bergh Images is having a month-long sale commencing at the upcoming Art Walk on July 1.  All custom-matted prints are 25% off, while any single metal, acrylic, or canvas print is 10% off.  Wine, small bites, and live music (courtesy of their neighbor Furnish Bainbridge) will be provided, along with the usual drawing for two complimentary 18×24 matted prints ($120 value).  The gallery will also be featuring prints of the evocative images highlighted in owner/photographer Andy Bergh’s upcoming monthly article (“Island Images”) in Currents, the amazing website of Arts & Humanities Bainbridge (https://www.bainbridgecurrents.com/).

Bainbridge Arts & Crafts (BAC) will be featuring a live performance by The Walker Trio from 6-8pm for First Friday, July 1! The Walker Trio is comprised of Gary Walker on acoustic guitar and vocals, Mary Boyum on cello and vocals, and Chele Shepard on accordion, fiddle, melodica and vocals. Gary’s unique voice, strumming and finger style guitar, combined with Chele on accordion and fiddle and Mary on cello, join to create a fresh take on some familiar songs. Influenced by Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt, Lyle Lovett, Patty Griffith, and a slew of other artists, they play a combination of cover songs and original material. Gary, Mary, and Chele, have played at many local venues on the Kitsap Peninsula, and have performed on stage at various West Coast music festivals. The pairing of acoustic guitar, cello, accordion, fiddle, and melodica and unique vocal styles will sooth your soul.

BAC is located 257 Winslow Way E, Bainbridge Island, WA

In addition, BAC will be featuring the work of artists Morgan Brig, Raymond Gendreau, and Ken Smith. See below for their artist statements.

Morgan Brig – I’m a big believer in magic in all its forms, whether it is the magic that makes the vegetable garden grow leaps and bounds in the summer, or the magic of some unseen hand giving guidance when we least expect it. These two figures are simply the messengers, decked out in alchemy, plant and heavenly body symbols and the power of our imagination.

Raymond Gendreau -Digital technology has taken much of the magic and serendipity out of the traditional photographic process. For the last few years, I have taken great pleasure in exploring the world of cyanotypes, a 19th century printing process. Invented by Sir John Hershel in 1842, its artistic applications were used by many but most successfully by Anna Atkins (1799-1871) considered the first photographic artist to publish a book illustrated with photographic images. Coating a piece of paper with a photo-sensitive solution, contacting a negative image, and exposing it to sunlight harkens back to photography’s earliest days. The creation of a negative using modern inkjet printers means one is not limited to a large format camera to achieve the desired image. The beautiful blue color, wide tonal range and stability adds to the appeal of this process. The twelve images presented are part of a series I like to call “Northwest Blue”. The images were created close to home either during a walk through my neighborhood or a short drive from home.

Ken Smith – At first, I was making pictures of flowers. But later, I recognized that I was making metaphorical images of forms and innate human feeling. To realize this was a breakthrough for my work. Viewers may begin by seeing flowers and grasses, but once they stop using the mind for identification of titles, they too may see the feeling imbued within the work.

My work is influenced by Asian aesthetics and philosophy. Though I feel there are many complexities inside my imagery, I struggle with the contradiction that comes in paring my work down to the simplest form, as though a seventeen-syllable haiku.

My creative life began as a freelance writer, and commercial & editorial photographer. Now, I have been concentrating on limited-editioned fine-art, and my most extensive body of work is in the still life genre. I also work with the landscape, and the female form. I print my work in black & white and color, using both traditional photographic processes & archival pigment ink on fine cotton printmaking papers. In recent years I have begun a natural flowering of my work using mixed media.

My work has been exhibited internationally…is in museum, corporate, and private collections in the United States, Europe, Latin America and Japan. I live and work from my studio & home in the forested foothills of the North Cascade Mountains in northcentral Washington State – closely surrounded by nature which stimulates my spirit and influences my artwork.

Windermere Bainbridge will be featuring artist Lily Bobek, a native New Yorker, attended Binghamton University in New York where she graduated with a BFA. She paints from her studio on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Her paintings are inspired by nature and depict her unique and colorful perspective of life.

********************

For up-to-date information on events, visit the Bainbridge Island Downtown Association’s online calendar at: https://bainbridgedowntown.org/events/art-walk/

Fob Fridays – many local businesses downtown are participants in Fob Fridays (Bainbridge Island Senior/Community Center members receive 10% on Fridays with their BISCC fob).

Bainbridge Island Downtown Association (BIDA) coordinates the First Friday Art Walk, as well as many other events, click here for a full list of ongoing events.

*Images and logos used with permission

To subscribe to The Island Wanderer Blog, click here.