The gallery will be closed tomorrow in observance of the July 4th holiday. Normal hours will resume on Wednesday July 5th at 10am.
Hib Sabin’s “The Long Game” Opens This Week – Don’t Miss the Artist Walkthrough on Opening Night
The staff is busy installing our July exhibition, Hib Sabin’s “The Long Game”. The exhibit will open at 6pm on Thursday, July 6th, and we are excited to have the artist at the gallery for the celebration. Hib Sabin will give an informal exhibition tour at 7pm, free to attend. Along with opening the exhibit we will also be releasing the exhibit catalog, which is available in both print and digital forms. This catalog is only available through Stonington Gallery, and features photography and writing on the work.
These faces at left are just some of the fine, feathered creatures waiting to meet you on the 6th. Won’t you join us?
More information on the exhibit can be found at the Exhibits section, here.
Gallery Artists Featured in “Salish Modern” Museum Exhibition
The gallery has loaned a number of beautiful prints and sculptures to the White River Valley Museum in Auburn, WA for their upcoming exhibition “Salish Modern: Innovative Art with Ancient Roots.”
The museum exhibit will include works by Shaun Peterson – Qwalsius (Puyallup/Tulalip), lessLIE Sam (Coast Salish), Dan Friday (Lummi), Adam Louis (Nooksack) and Joseph Seymour Jr. (Squaxin Island / Acoma).
Learn more about the exhibit, which opens July 12th and runs through December 17th by clicking here.
“Masters of Disguise” Closes this Friday
You have just a few more hours to see one of the largest and most beautiful shows of the year, “Masters of Disguise III”! We will begin to uninstall the works tomorrow, so that we may have ample installation time for our July exhibit, “Hib Sabin: The Long Game”. A latecomer to the show is Lena Snow Amason-Berns’ “The F/V Helen Dell“, a tribute to her brother and his fishing vessel, the Helen Dell. Some works have already left the exhibit, while others will remain on view past the exhibit closing date.
Behind the Scenes: Catalog Production of Hib Sabin’s “The Long Game”
Details, details…
We’re in the editing phase of production on Hib Sabin’s new exhibition catalog. The catalog–in both print and digital forms–will debut alongside his solo exhibition, “The Long Game” this July.
All photography was shot in-house by our fabulous freelancer Ashley Genevieve, and the introductory essay is by our writer and designer, Sarra Scherb.
“The Long Game” is an exhibition exploring the many facets of the end of life, or, as Hib Sabin puts it, “Age, Aging and Agelessness”. To produce the catalog we shot each piece against charcoal gray and on a pearlescent gray/white. Sabin’s characters are depicted as moving away from the real world and into an uncertain, liminal place–an unexplored realm beyond our knowledge–where they become ageless and timeless. By photographing each piece on both backgrounds, we had the option of showing the works in a more grounded and “real” context (charcoal gray) or emerging into that beyond space (pearly white). That mysterious and elegant font on the cover and running throughout is Gogóia, which is reminiscent of Icelandic runes by way of art deco. (Designed by Alan de Sousa – São Paulo, Brazil).
Join us from 6-8pm on July 6th to see the opening reception of Sabin’s solo show, meet the artist, and pick up a catalog. We’ll look forward to seeing you then!
New Artist: Lena Snow Amason-Berns
It’s with much gratitude that we show the sculpture of Alaska-based artist Lena Snow Amason-Berns (Alutiiq) in our “Masters of Disguise III” exhibition this year. Those who are familiar with contemporary Alaskan artists will recognize the name Amason from her father, painter and sculptor Alvin Amason.
Lena has carved and painted a gorgeous plank mask-style wall sculpture for this exhibition and sent it down from the tiny town of Old Harbor, AK, where she lives with her family. This sculpture is wonderfully emblematic of the place where it was made, as it is sculpted from found objects from the town and waterways of Old Harbor. (More information on the artwork can be found on its art page.) Many of Amason-Berns’ mask sculptures are based on the marine life of Alaska, including seals and sea lions, otters, walruses, and killerwhales. The importance of these marine mammals to coastal Alaskans can never be overstated, and the materials seen in this panel–from bits of boats to sections of buoys–reflects the fishing life of the town.
Lena’s work is included in collections at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, Alutiiq Museum, University of Alaska Museum of the North and the Anchorage Museum.
Behind the Scenes: Drew Michael and the No Good Very Bad Day
Making art is hard. For every work that arrives in the gallery, there are many that never do, whether they are glass that falls off the pipe at the last moment; ceramic that explodes in the kiln; or stone that cracks at the wrong moment. Sometimes, the idea is there but the material just won’t behave. And other times it seems like the world is just working against you.
That’s the story behind this almost-but-not-quite woodblock print by Alaska-based artist Drew Michael (Inupiaq/Yup’ik). Drew has been trying to print this big, beautiful block (six feet long!) for the gallery, but his materials keep conspiring against him. His latest brainstorm was to use the steamroller his neighbor rented to re-pave his driveway. It was a brilliant idea, and worked great…until the wind picked up and blew a load of grit onto the freshly inked paper. Oops. But, perseverance and creativity are Drew’s watchwords, and we’re sure we’ll eventually see this gorgeous monochrome print in the gallery, come hell or high water…
New Artist: Karver Everson
There are lots of new faces in our mask exhibition “Masters of Disguise III”, and we’re not just talking about all the masks. We are proud to show the work of Karver Everson (K’omoks/Kwakwaka’wakw) for the first time, a young artist who carved the mask shown in his hands at left. Karver is the youngest artist in this exhibit–born in Comox, BC in 1993–but his work shows a maturity beyond those years. Though he may be young, Everson takes his culture very seriously: he carries the name Gayustistalas, a name that once belonged to his father, Chief Rob Everson of the Gigal’gam Walas Kwagut from the Kwakwaka’wakw People. In his biography, Karver writes:
Influenced greatly by his family’s connection to their cultural heritage, Karver has always been eager to learn and uphold the cultural traditions of both his K’omoks and Kwakwaka’wakw ancestors.
We expect great things from this artist, who has been carving for only a few years but has already reached a level few achieve. He attributes much of this to the mentorship he has received by elder artists:
“Karver has been blessed by the mentors in his life. He has worked under the tutelage of Kwakwaka’wakw master carvers Richard Hunt, Calvin Hunt, as well as Mervyn Child and David Knox. His uncle, Andy Everson, has also taught him to understand multiple facets of Northwest Coast art including rules of formline and design.”
New Artist: Troy Kwakseesthala
Joining us for the first time this June is Troy Kwakseesthala (aka Troy Roberts), whose style is ornate and detailed, with riotous color. Troy hails from the north end of Vancouver Island, and is descended from chiefs of the Weiwakum First Nation.
His work makes liberal use of inlaid copper and abalone, giving all of his sculpture a strong sense of richness, akin to a discovered treasure. There is a strong sense of drama in all of his work we have seen, and this is echoed in his love for transformation masks and other types of masks that are danced in ceremony. In his bio, he writes:
“Troy’s favorite carved pieces are the transformation figures which bring two images together in one mask. Each piece is operated by strings within the masks; the beaks clap loudly during the dance ceremony to punctuate the powerful performance.”
We are honored to show Troy’s bold Thunderbird mask in our June 2017 exhibition, “Masters of Disguise III: A Group Mask Exhibition”, accompanied by his Hummingbird Paddle (left).
Gallery will be CLOSED on Memorial Day, Monday 29th
Our gallery will be closed this Monday for the Memorial Day holiday. We hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend, and we will see you for normal hours on Tuesday, May 30th.
Raven Skyriver Hits the Studio with a Salmon Commission
This past weekend we had the opportunity to join Raven Skyriver (Tlingit) and his team at PRATT Fine Arts Studio to watch him blow a salmon as a special commission for a client. Salmon have become an iconic creature for Raven to blow in glass, and watching him use a cage punty (shown below) on the fish’s face and flowing clear glass over foil is a spectacular experience. Take a look at some of the photos from the blow, and keep an eye out for Raven’s solo exhibition in September!
Thank you to Raven Skyriver for the images, which were taken by Sayuri Fukuda.
Southwest Art Magazine Feature on Hib Sabin Out This Month
“The animals are stand-ins for humans,” Sabin explains. “The boats and canoes carry humans between the spirit and human worlds as well as through the different periods in their lifetimes. You have to die in the old period to move on to the new.” Indeed, universal themes of transformation and journeying are common in his artworks, including the transitional moments between life and the afterlife.”
Hib Sabin has a big, beautiful feature article in the June issue of Southwest Art Magazine, in perfect time for his solo show at Stonington in July. The article dives deep into the artist’s current focus, and also gives a great summary of his career and milestones thus far. Oh, and we’re in there, too!
“There’s a feeling that there is far more happening beneath the surface of wood and paint,” Blanchard
says. “His larger and more complex vignettes are often allegories, references to philosophical ideas, or a reimagining of myths from around the world. Even if viewers aren’t familiar with the works of Roland Barthes or Jean-Paul Sartre, they can understand the thrust of the work. It operates on a subconscious level.”-Stonington Gallery Co-Director Rebecca Blanchard
Thanks to writer Bonnie Gangelhoff and the Southwest Art Magazine team for this fantastic profile of an artist at the pinnacle of his career.
Click the image above to read a pdf of the full article, and keep on the lookout for Hib Sabin’s solo exhibition “The Long Game” opening July 6th at Stonington Gallery.