Galleries: Current Show
We represent will known Pacific Northwest artists, many of whom show nationally. We take special delight in featuring emerging artists who have become “gallery ready”. For these artists we offer a growth environment and an outlet for their talent. All work is juried and each show runs for approximately two months. Our shows are planned and scheduled up to two years in advance.
The artist invests many hours to build a body of work in excess of 20 pieces for a show. All work must be submitted “show ready”.
Once the artist has been juried and accepted for a show, the show committee is responsible for collecting and hanging the pieces, coordinating publicity with our regular mailing, and preparing and hosting the reception for the honored artist. The shows are funded through donations, proceeds from the sales gallery, and from our general funds.
New Show in September - October 2008 -- Michael Orwick and Barbara Hertel
Best of Oregon East & West Paintings
by Sue Orlaske from La Grande
Salt Fired Pots
by Ginger Steele from Cornelius
Artist Reception First Wednesday, July 2nd, 5.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.
Inspired by the beautiful surfaces and subtle colors of salt-fired pottery, Ginger Steele built her own salt kiln in 2004. After 10 years of creating highly decorated red earthenware pottery, she wanted to bring a quieter and more abstract sensibility to her work.
Each piece is individually shaped at the potter’s wheel or formed by hand, decorated with slips and glazes after a bisque fire, and then perched on tiny balls of refractory wadding before placement in the kiln. Look closely at the bottom of each vessel: It shows the mark of its passage through the fire and vapor.
With every firing there are new possibilities for learning; chance combinations of clay, slip and glaze that can be incorporated into the design of the next series of pots. The unpredictable collaboration of salt vapor and kiln position makes each pot unique and reveals extraordinary possibilities for color and imagery that are artistic nourishment for a working potter.
Drawing on vessel forms of many cultures and epochs — from traditional English country pottery to historic Chinese bronzes and American pewter wares — Ginger seeks to create beautiful and useful pots to submit to the defining atmosphere of the salt kiln.
These are pots for daily use; pots for preparing and serving food and drink, created for the comfortable rituals of daily life.
The forms and mood of Japanese ceramics, as well as Japanese textiles and domestic interiors, have been particularly influential in the decorative choices evident in her current ceramic work. The dappled shade and light of gardens and colors and textures of natural materials — stone, sand, wood, bamboo, grasses and leaves — all find their way into what the pottery is meant to be.
Ginger is a self-taught potter and craftswoman who is part of the American folk art tradition. She is active in the Oregon Potter’s Association, and is a pottery instructor at Valley Arts Center, a community art facility in Forest Grove. Educated as a botanist and horticulturist, Ginger owns and operates New Leaf Greenhouse Inc., Cornelius, which produces annual and perennial flowers
for the wholesale market and is an on-site garden center.
Sue Orlaske is from southwestern Michigan and has lived in Oregon since 1977. She has bachelor and master of science degrees in biology. She and her husband, Mitch Wolgamott, lived in Hillsboro and Gaston for many years and she owned a coffee bean and espresso business in Hillsboro from 1980 through 1993.
The couple moved to Summerville, near La Grande, in 1994. She often paints with skilled artists in northeastern Oregon, whom she considers to be her mentors.
At an early age, Sue regularly drew with pen and ink and now paints in oil, watercolor, and mixed media. Since her 20s, she has also been interested in photography.
She began pottery classes from Janet Buskirk at Valley Art in 1992, followed by various workshops and classes from other potters. She now typically hand builds vase forms and sagger fires them using a low-fired salt fuming process. Sue has displayed these forms in Valley Art’s gallery for many years.
She began oil painting just over two years ago — typically she uses pure pigments and intense colors for her landscapes — and now prefers to use painting knives for her oils, which give a looser look to her works.
Sue organizes art workshops at the newly revitalized Pleasant Grove Grange outside Summerville. Last fall she invited an artist friend, Lark Brandt, of Hillsboro, to teach batik watercolor on Nepalese daphne paper, a painting method invented by Lark’s late mother, Eunice Cottrell Brandt. The technique employs wax, gouache, watercolor and ink.
Sue and some of her local painting friends continue to explore this technique on other handmade papers made with mulberry, gampi, hemp, kozo, daphne and other Asian fibers. Some of Sue’s batik watercolors will be featured at this show.
Her themes often include abstract and representational natural elements — Eastern Oregon landscapes, critters and plants.
“I am strongly tied to nature and find strength in its timelessness and beauty,” Sue says. “I am also interested in the human connection to the land.”
Her home overlooks the Grande Ronde Valley, so she is inspired daily by the landscape around her — and by her border collie, “Buster, Prince of Dogs.”
Sue’s most recent clay work is being displayed at ArtsEast’s Honored Artists Show at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande through August 16. Mona Dinger and Steve Antell of La Grande are also featured.
More of her work can be seen on her Web site, www.OrlaskeArtWorks.com.
Ginger and Sue’s work will be at the gallery through August.
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