PORT TOWNSEND — A variety of artwork will be on view during the First Saturday Art Walk in Port Townsend this weekend.
The monthly event will be from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, mostly in the downtown area.
Among the galleries that will stay open late are Gallery-9, the Port Townsend Gallery and the Jefferson County Historical Society’s Museum of Art + History.
• Gallery 9, 1012 Water St., will feature oil paintings by Susan Martin Spar and sculptures and ceramic tiles created by Sarah Fitch from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Martin Spar will exhibit a retrospective of her work, including some of her earlier classical pieces as well as some expressionist work and mixed media.
“The work, for me, boils down to a strong drive to create what I have an emotional attachment to, and to strive to impart some of that emotion into my work so that the viewer can share it,” Martin Spar said. “However, my work isn’t about unrestrained emotion and expression. It’s about feeling that is focused and tempered by the knowledge and command of my materials and craft, which in turn allows me to bring a vision to life on a canvas or paper.”
Fitch, a self-taught artist, makes bas-relief stoneware ceramic tiles and sculptures that can be described as earthy folk art with a whimsical and spiritual nature.
Her tiles are created one at a time and are stoneware-fired to 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit to make them more durable.
Gallery-9 is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.
For more information, visit www.gallery-9.com.
• The Jefferson County Historical Society’s Museum of Art + History will remain open until 7 p.m. to allow the public to view two new exhibitions during Saturday’s Art Walk.
The Ferguson Gallery will exhibit “A Practice of Noticing —1995-2025,” a retrospective display of Kim Kopps’ artwork.
The exhibition, which opened Thursday, will feature works in many different media from Kopps’ more than 35-year art practice.
The Wilson Gallery will open a community-curated show, “The History of Home: Now.”
The exhibit will feature infographics designed by the Housing Solutions Network and work curated by Eden Bloom from their Curating Empathy project that launched with Jefferson County Public Health earlier this year.
Curating Empathy utilizes photographs, narratives and objects to highlight the housing crisis in the community through the lens of the unhoused and the agencies that support them.
Both exhibits will be on display from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays for the rest of the year.
For more information, email info@jchsmuseum.com, visit www.jchs museum.org.
• The Port Townsend Gallery, 715 Water St., will host a reception for Tom Saknit and Martha Collins from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Saknit, a photographer, and Collins, a wood artist, will be featured at the gallery throughout September.
Saknit will exhibit 10 more pieces of redacted photography from his Pacific Rim suite.
His work leaves only the main elements of a photograph intact. The rest of the picture is reduced to black and white lines.
The new additions are set in Kyoto and Tokyo, Japan, as well as Hong Kong and Vietnam.
“My grandfather was a world traveler back when that was something special,” Saknit said. “I remember sitting on the floor in his crowded living room with 25 or more family members, watching his carefully curated carousel tray slideshows in his darkened living room. We listened in wonder and awe to his stories of people, places and adventures, which we had only seen in magazines. I have no doubt that instilled in me a wanderlust, a profound desire to experience other cultures, sites and views.”
Collins was trained as a cabinetmaker before he decided to use wood as an artistic medium.
She uses the colors and grain patterns of hardwoods and natural or dyed veneers to make intricate bowls, jewelry and tableware.
Collins uses sustainably harvested hardwoods from around the world and dyed maple veneer to create a block of striped material. The block is then sliced or mitered, rearranged and re-laminated before the new block is put on a lathe and turned into a bowl or bracelet.
The artwork of Collins and Saknit will be on display from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily at the Port Townsend Gallery.
For more information, call 360-379-8110 or visit www.porttownsendgallery.com.
Sculptures by Susan Fitch will be on display at Gallery 9 in Port Townsend this weekend.
