ArtSEA: Stretch the last days of summer with a NW arts road trip

It’s that time of year when many of us start feeling panicked about grasping the last days (and rays) of summer. But there’s still time to capture those seasonal vibes with a quick road trip north, where water views and excellent art await. Destination: arts and outdoors.

Seattleites can start close in, with a trip to Edmonds, where the Cascadia Art Museum has two top-notch shows featuring women artists of the mid-century. I wrote about one of the exhibits, A Legacy Rediscovered: Northwest Women Artists 1920-1970 (through Jan. 5, 2025) when it opened back in February. 

The newer show, Building a Dream: Z. Vanessa Helder and Artists of the Inland Northwest (through Sept. 29) zooms in on one of these artists, a woman widely renowned in her time.

While working as a painting teacher at the Spokane Arts Center, Helder (1904-1968) created a stunning series of 28 watercolors — with architectural lines and pastel hues — documenting the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam. 

Pair the exhibit with a walk along the nearby Edmonds waterfront and a stop at Sunset Beach, et voila, one last summer road trip accomplished. 

But wait, there’s more! Continue a bit farther north to Everett and you can hit the Schack Art Center, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

The current group show, NW Craft 2024 (through August 24), presented by the Northwest Designer Craftartists, is packed with heavy artistic hitters, including: ceramicist Patti Warashina, textile artist Bella Kim, ceramicist George Rodriguez, painter Natalie Niblack, sculptor Tip Toland, potter Reid Ozaki, quilter Julie Sevilla Drake and a glassblower named Dale Chihuly. This is an amazing slice of Northwest artists — and there are so many more on view in this energetic show.

This weekend marks Schack’s annual Fresh Paint arts festival (Aug. 17-18) in downtown Everett. But you can pair this stop any time with a walk on the Mill Port Trail, which takes you from the marina along the waterfront with views of Port Gardner Bay and nearby Jetty Island. 

Proceeding further north, we reach one of my favorite art-road-trip destinations: Mount Vernon, Edison and La Conner, where, if you manage your time wisely (aka slightly obsessively), you can see art in the trifecta of scenic towns and include a river walk on the way.

Perry and Carlson Gallery in Mount Vernon has recently expanded and now has room for both a group show of represented artists (one of whom is Todd Horton, featured in our new Art by Northwest video series) and solo shows.

Currently in the solo gallery is work by local artist and landscape architect Dodi Fredericks (through Aug. 31), whose abstract watercolors whisper hints of Northwest landscapes.

In tiny, arty Edison, visit i.e. gallery, where artist Allen Moe is showing Earth and Sky (through Sept. 1; artist talk Aug. 17 at 3 p.m.). I recently visited and can attest: These sculptural cement works are striking in person!

Moe makes castings of natural landscapes — from dried-out cacti in the Sonoran Desert to sand in Skagit Valley river beds — then coats them in graphite. Look long enough and the organic patterns emerging from deep black start to resemble something extraterrestrial. 

Just down the block at Smith and Vallee, I also enjoyed Lopez Island artist Jean Behnke’s Exploring Tranquility and Materiality (through Sept. 1), featuring her monotypes, playful wooden sculptures and bronzed wedges of lumber and “clam fossils.”

La Conner offers a couple art stops in addition to its beachy boardwalk along the Samish River. The Museum of Northwest Art is presenting two powerful shows by longtime Northwest artists.

Joseph Gregory Rossano: Portraits of the Divine (through Sept. 29) is the multimedia artist’s homage to extinct animals — and plea to preserve species. His pile of shorn “ivory” tusks (made of blown glass) is particularly arresting.

Also on view at MONA: William Morris: Early Rituals (through Sept. 29), which showcases the esteemed artist’s skill at forming glass into something that looks prehistoric and only just unearthed. See his antlers, skulls and burial urns — and don’t miss the bones lurking within.

Up the hill in La Conner is the Pacific Northwest Quilt and Fiber Museum, a new favorite stop of mine, housed in the historic Gaches Mansion (1891), which boasts a scenic view. While the building is old-fashioned (and beautifully restored), the current programming isn’t, thanks in part to new executive director Carla Funk, who is bringing in more contemporary interpretations of textile art. 

Take for example Oklahoma City fiber artist Kendall Ross (known as “I’d Knit That” on social media), whose show Having a Moment (through Oct. 6) feels like a Taylor Swift spin on textile art. For Ross it’s always sweater season, thanks to her inventively knitted confessional garments featuring texts that read like diary entries. 

“Don’t mind me I’m just having a moment …” one gigantic fuchsia sweater vest begins. “I’ve got too much time to think and I love to be disappointed.” It goes on for 11 more lines of self-doubt, marching all the way down the body of the oversized garment. 

These deeply personal thoughts take on new heft when hand-knit in wool for all to see — a sort of self-imposed scarlet letter (in all colors) that challenges the trivialization of knitting as a “domestic art” for women. 

Also at the museum: a boisterous show of contemporary quilts by Fidalgo Island textile artist Julie Sevilla Drake — who happens to be featured in Episode 3 of our new show, Art by Northwest (on broadcast Aug. 16 at 8:50 p.m.; streaming online starting Aug. 19). 

As you’ll see in the episode, Drake takes a colorist’s approach to textile art, hand-dying every piece of cotton to specific formulas. But while her dying process is meticulous, her designing process is intuitive as she improvises abstract shapes that come to her in dreams and daily walks through the woods. 

And don’t miss our previous episodes, featuring Port Townsend’s Tininha Silva, who weaves wall hangings from beach finds, and Skagit Valley’s Todd Horton, whose inventions allow trees and tides to do the drawing. Bonus: Each episode is like taking a summer arts road trip from the comfort of your couch.