Stonington Gallery will be open normal hours during the holiday season, with two exceptions:
Dec. 25th (Christmas Day) – CLOSED | New Year’s Eve Dec. 31st -CLOSED | January 1st (New Year’s Day) – CLOSED
Our normal hours are:
Monday-Friday 10am-6pm / Saturday 10am-5:30pm / Sunday 12-5pm
Each year the Stonington Gallery hosts an invitational group exhibition celebrating the winter season; and every year painter Thomas Stream (Sun’aq Aleut) is the very first artist to submit his work. From 2013-2016 Stream produced what we at the gallery refer to as his “snow scene” paintings: four beloved gouache on paper paintings that look at the natural world through a veil of pointillist snow.
Although the original four paintings are long gone, their indelible images live on in the form of high quality giclee prints, available to purchase at the gallery.
The gallery will be closed for Thanksgiving this Thursday, Nov. 23rd. We will reopen for normal business hours on Friday, 10am.
In observance of Labor Day, the gallery will be closed on Monday, Sept 4th. We re-open with normal hours on Tuesday. We will be installing our September solo exhibition, “Raven Skyriver: SURGE” on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the show will have a public opening reception on Thursday, Sept 7th from 6-8pm. Join us!
Back in July we had a visit from glassblower Raven Skyriver (Tlingit) who had just finished a multi-day blow at the Museum of Glass. He stopped by with the newly blown sculptures to give us a peek at what we might see in our September exhibition.
As September draws near and each piece is completed, we’re starting to see the fruits of Raven’s labors. A lot of work goes into the pieces even after they are blown: when they’re cracked off the pipe each one is left with a bit of extra glass on it that must be ground off. Some are sandblasted to give them a matte finish, while others–such as Raven’s whales–need careful sand-carving by an expert cold-worker (usually Seattle-based Ethan Stern) to give them their ventral pleats beneath their jaws. Then, Raven must create custom iron stands for every piece, and a carved-foam box to lay it in. Is there anything this guy can’t do?
Keep your eyes on the “Raven Skyriver: SURGE” exhibition page throughout August and September, as we update it with incoming works. And join us for the opening, September 7th, 6-8pm!
In honor of the total solar eclipse on the morning of August 21st, the gallery will be opening at 11am to give the staff the opportunity to view it! Seattle is at 92% totality for this special event, and the excitement around the state is palpable. Thank you for your understanding, and we’ll see you around 11am for regular business hours. Happy viewing!
“Frosted Dichroic Glass Moon/Sun Face” by Marvin Oliver (Quinault/Isleta Pueblo)
We’re over the moon for these brand new prints by Allie High (Aleut/Haida/Ts’msyen)! Allie’s work is some of the most popular in the gallery, and is often chosen as the perfect wedding, housewarming, or baby shower gift. Each print is a limited edition of 100, hand-pulled on thick, high-quality paper, and they frame up beautifully. The new prints are (clockwise): “Strawberry Fields“, “Bella“, “River and Brook“, and “Brown E. Bear“.
Dan Friday (Lummi) and videographer Derek Klein have put together this video that shows the steps to making one of his luminous glass baskets. It’s a mixture of mosaic, hot-sculpting, and blowing the glass.
The work is coming in, and we are getting geared up for Dan Friday’s solo exhibition, “Dan Friday: New Works in Glass“! This exhibit will show off Dan’s repertoire of glass blowing and sculpting techniques, as well as the many cultural and aesthetic ideas he is exploring. Woven mosaic baskets, hot-sculpted bears, totems, feathers, skulls, and more will all make their debut on the evening of Thursday, August 3rd. Join Dan at the gallery from 6-8pm, and don’t forget about that free parking program that is part of the First Thursday Art Walk!
Left: Glass bears in the photobooth. Photo by our fabulous freelance photographer, Ashley Genevieve.
The gallery is very proud to announce the arrival of the newest in the “Coppers from the Hood” series by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas (Haida). This Hood is titled “Throw the Ball“, and is perfectly emblematic of the artist’s blend of multiple media, kinetic lines, elegant composition, and humor.
“The title of this hood is “throw the ball“, and the image is of a dog in play with a person. This has something to do with the fact that the two upper corners of this hood are physically dog-eared, that is, slightly folded over.
It often feels like Art is far too seriously focused and attached to this time when Our wee world is such a serious place with shadows challenging the sun. This ‘play’ wants to be seasonally energetic and call on us to think of Moments when engagement and play is possible even across species. “Throw the Ball” seeks to be totally accessible to the widest audience possible, and in this case the audience includes both the owner and the dog.” -Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas, July 2017
The Coppers from the Hood series was inaugurated in 2007 at the Museum of Anthropology (MOA) in Vancouver, Canada, as part of the exhibition Meddling in the Museum. Using an automobile hood, the works are covered in copper leaf and painted with Yahgulanaas’ distinctive Haida Manga imagery. The sculptures reference both traditional Haida coppers – a symbol of wealth in the indigenous community – and the car as signifier of social and economic status in contemporary society. The first two Coppers are installed at the entrance to the Museum of Anthropology. More than a dozen Coppers have now been created and are held in private and public collections, including the British Museum, and most recently the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2016.
Coppers from the Hood emerged as a result of the artist’s search for a new and innovative medium for his work, while developing artworks for an exhibition at the Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver, Canada. Yahgulanaas liked the smooth surface of the car hood, its resistance to degradation, and the meticulous engineering and aerodynamic accomplishment of “the car,” which he views as “the modern canoe.”
The artist is currently working on an 18 foot wide and 2 foot high mural in Haida Manga style that has been commissioned by a major US art institution.
Did you get to see Raven Skyriver (Tlingit) working at the Museum of Glass this past weekend? If you missed it, check out this video of highlights from the MoG, showing Raven and the team working on a gorgeous sea turtle. Many of the pieces he blew will make their debut with us this September, in Raven’s solo exhibition, “Surge”. Keep your eyes out for the works, which will start swimming our way in August. For more on Raven, head to his artist page.