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Is there any greater achievement for any of us than to become – that is, know and embrace – one’s core self? The tagline of the film “My Otherland” is “a story about being yourself.” The perhaps 400 people filling the Lincoln Theatre June 30 for the premier screening of John Bowey’s documentary heard from its leading man, Linden Jordan, and a panel of seven people who are transgender or, as parents or children, are in loving family relationships. It takes great courage, patience, perseverance and support for one to face and grow int...
What was old was new again at the Museum of Northwest Arts 30th annual auction in person at the museum Friday, June 17. Every wall of the first and second floor galleries was hung with art, with sculptures displayed on stands and tables. The art was mostly donated by local and regional artists and collectors. Still-new Executive Director Stefano Catalani marveled at the generosity of artists and collectors in offering their work for the fundraiser, noting, “This is one of the few auctions where you have prime from the fifties and sixties w...
Take a leisurely stroll through seven private gardens featured on Skagit Symphony’s 2022 Garden of Note Tour. The delightful self-guided tour Sunday, June 26, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. presents the Pleasant Ridge home-garden of Christianson’s Nursery owners John and Toni Christianson, and six Fidalgo Island treasures. The Anacortes tour includes a drought resistant pollinator garden, an impressive art-filled Cap Sante garden overlooking Guemes Channel and four unique Old Town neighborhood gardens wit...
I only met Lavone Newell-Reim once, but after immersing myself in the new show at the Skagit County Historical Museum, she feels like an old friend. “Lavone Newell-Reim: A Life Well Lived” traces Newell-Reim’s journey from Kansas to Sauk Mountain and then, over the course of her 90 years, down the Skagit River to its mouth near Fir Island. Along the way, her talents and interests, passion for life, art and cooking and knack for building community are celebrated. Tougher moments are also included. Riding across the country sitting atop a 1939...
Ryan Booth can check several boxes on his resume: National Park Service ranger, Washington State University assistant professor of history, and Fulbright Scholar, to name a few. Now add film star to the list. Booth, a 1995 La Conner High School graduate, provides expert commentary in several segments of a new documentary about Black soldiers who served in the U.S. Army more than a century ago. “Buffalo Soldiers: Fighting on Two Fronts” premiered last weekend at the Seattle International Fil...
Three months after stepping into leadership of the Museum of Northwest Art (MoNA), Executive Director Stefano Catalani has his eye on how the museum can best reflect the complexity of artists’ voices, cultures and artistic mediums in the Northwest. As someone who has transited continents and careers, he is focused on the expansiveness of the art world today. That focus centers on the Northwest in the present, and historically. With that said, he’s quick to point out that the first phase for a di...
La Conner resident Tamara Friedman knows the keys to success. That is because she is a concert pianist, her performances drawing rave reviews from numerous critics, including Harvard alum Morton Gold, who notes that her playing of Mozart “reaches my heart as well as my intellect.” Friedman will play Mozart - as well as Bach, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn - on her beautiful replica of a Nannette Streicher fortepiano April 8, 7 p.m. at the Croatian Community Center in Anacortes. She will be joi...
Lovers of Irish music and culture will gather at the Lincoln Theatre Tuesday, March 8 to hear something new. Starting at 7:30 p.m., the audience will witness Dervish, a native Irish folk band, play music from their latest album “The Great Irish Songbook,” along with their fan favorites. Dervish is recognized with a BBC lifetime achievement award and has been nominated for album of the year by Folk Alliance International. Founding members Cathy Jordan (vocals, bodhran, guitar), Michael Hol...
La Conner artists Meg Holgate and Steve Klein have joined together to present “A Precarious Edge,” their exhibit opening at the Museum of Northwest Art Saturday. As successful artists do, they have created beauty and are confronting viewers with truth and a challenge: with the future of the Earth hanging in the balance how can each of us “preserve and be part of the restoration of our ecosystems?” as curator Jodie Nelson wrote in introducing the exhibit. Nelson believes that Holgate’s large-scal...
How important is it to be earnest? How important is it to be honest? How important is it to enjoy a night of community theatre, either in person or by downloading it to view at home? Very important is the last answer. Find out for yourself from the comfort of your home by scheduling watching "The Importance of Being Earnest" or see it in person in Oak Harbor's Whidbey Playhouse the next two weekends, through Feb. 27. Oscar Wilde was a subtle wit in an age of proper decorum. He would probably be perfectly at home in our 21st century social...
The Bookworm You knew this was coming. You knew that you were going to have to finish your holiday shopping soon but it snuck up on you, didn’t it? And even if you’re close to being done, there are always those three or five people who are impossible to buy for, right? So why not head to the bookstore and look for these gifts. Here is my fiction list: Fans of thrillers will absolutely want to unwrap “Bullet Train” by Kotaro Isaka, the story of five assassins who find out that their respective assignments have a little too much in common...
Harry Everett Smith was neither born nor died in Anacortes, but he did live there for about 10 years as a youth before and during the Great Depression. Salmon canneries brought his family, and his father, R.J. Smith, to Anacortes and cannery work took the Smith family to Bellingham, where Harry Smith graduated from high school. After living in Seattle, he left the Puget Sound area, never to return. As a high school student Harry Smith studied Salish Sea traditions, recording and collecting tribal songs on 78 rpm shellac records. He went on to...
Inviting Charles Dickens (played by Pat Shreve) to appear on stage and act as guide in the current production of “A Christmas Carol” is a touch of genius. He is the perfect host for the multi-generational audience, even showing a sense of humor that apparently eluded the critics of his time. Yes, Dickens and the characters from his novel, those that you love and those that you hate, were all there at the Lincoln Theater in a welcome return to live stage Sunday. This was an unusual adaptation by Teresa Vaughn and Brian Young, who also des...
The Museum of Northwest Art has a new executive director, Stefano Catalani, starting in January 2022, a museum press release announced Nov. 10. It is hard to know who is more excited, Catalani, C.J. Ebert, chair of MoNA’s board of directors or Joanna Sikes, who will transition to director of development after over 30 months as executive director, first stepping in as interim director in April 2018. Catalani was energetic in a phone interview Monday. MoNA has energized, refreshed and transported him since he was asked to jury the art for the 201...
Local art lovers turned out in force for Art’s Alive 2021. Almost 1,100 people attended the four-day event in Maple Hall Nov. 5-8. This was the 36th annual show since Black Swan Café owner Martin Hahn, Art Hupy and a group of artists that included Ed Kamuda and Michael Clough held the first Art’s Alive in the Gaches Mansion in 1985. Since then, the show has been organized by town merchants, the La Conner Chamber of Commerce and the La Conner Arts Commission. “The town literally rescued th...
Gene Helfman has a whale of a story to tell. It is one the Lopez Island author is literally putting into the hands of the public – especially those concerned with the plight of threatened Southern Resident orcas. His novel, “Beyond the Human Realm,” follows the life of, Makai, a captive male orca saved from euthanasia and released into the wild. Makai then encounters whales and people instrumental in helping him gain acceptance into orca society. “I think the book will be of interest to your readership because of the intense local, regio...
If Skagit Valley’s community of artists could be considered a family, and if the family had a mother figure, she would be Lavone Newell-Reim. From 1987 to 2003 she annually hosted and supported this large, familial group at an event that brought the arts to the public in a reunion, celebration and sale. Newell-Reim, an abstract painter, together with fellow artist John Simon, hosted the annual Barn Show. In fact much of what kept the art scene moving forward over the past four-plus decades h...
Curators’ statement: Bruised, but never beaten. Lonely, but not alone. “Standing, Still” represents strength and unity in times of struggle. This exhibition strives to capture both the societal standstill caused by the pandemic and the resiliency of communities, who have emerged still standing after their experiences. Eleven artists explore the topic of COVID-19 through first-person narratives and creative expression. Selected quotes from each artist accompany their work on the wall, creat...
Inside a nondescript tractor storage building in La Conner farmland, glass artist Steve Klein has been testing the nature of glass. Klein has been renowned for his work with colored, kiln-formed glass for several decades and may be better known in the international glass world than he is right here at home. The creative work is taking place in his studio, facing out over the fields where he marvels over the palette of changing skies but also practices his craft of glass firing in various kilns....
The Handweavers Guild of America, Inc. 2021 exhibit of small works: “Small Expressions,” debuted in July at the Pacific Northwest Quilt & Fiber Arts Museum. “Small Expressions” is an annual juried exhibition showcasing contemporary small-scale works (not to exceed 15 inches in any direction) using fiber techniques in any media. These small but visually compelling pieces speak to the intricacy of expression, intimacy of design, thoughtful communication and visual excitement. The artists create a big impact employing a variety of traditi...
Author Cheryle Coapstick has garnered strong reviews for a spot-on depiction of her birthplace, fishing hub and former Russian colonial city Sitka, Alaska, in her latest book, a compelling account of her extraordinary family. Local readers will no doubt also recognize a La Conner influence through the pages of “Alaska’s Firy”. That is by design. Coapstick, after all, is a 1967 La Conner High grad now living in Mount Vernon. Scenes in “Alaska’s Firy” set at the Sitka Café and Sitka Sentinel newspaper office are reminiscent of those that...
As the Museum of Northwest Art rolled into its 40th year it had become increasingly clear that the COVID-19 pandemic would once again restrict MoNA’s annual art auction. The traditional in-person excitement that MoNA depended on to support this fundraiser was, for a second year, at stake. Not knowing how the community would respond after a long and extremely difficult year fighting the COVID-19 virus, MoNA reached out to local volunteers and asked us to co-chair the auction committee with G...
“Hugo Helmer: Skagit’s Own Music Man” is the Skagit County Historical Museum’s new exhibit, now open. It celebrates accomplished accordionist Hugo Helmer, featuring his life and legacy. Helmer instructed hundreds of children throughout the region, established Hugo Helmer’s Accordion Band in the 1930s, a dance band and first marching accordion band in the U.S. Be prepared for Scandi-monium! Go to the Museum website for a schedule of performers of live accordion music in the Museum gallery by former band members Leif & Sunnie Accordion Duo, Sylv...
With the elimination of most COVID restrictions, Cantabile Chamber Choir, a fixture of Skagit Valley’s live music scene since 2006, is looking forward to resumption of in-person rehearsals in September. “It’s no surprise on-line rehearsals cannot replace the experience of singing and creating beautiful harmony together in the same room. That being said, a core of musicians is eager to use the listening skills and theory we’ve been ‘pandemically studying’ in actual rehearsals this fall. I have a lovely concert in mind and am excited to be audit...
“War is hell,” U.S. General William Tecumseh Sherman said late in life. He had proved it in 1864, laying waste to a swath of Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah, helping to shorten and win the Civil War. War became more hellish in the 20th century, proven very specifically by the Japanese Imperial Army’s treatment of allied prisoners of war in the Bataan Death March after the Philippines fell in 1942. Yet men do remain humane and compassionate through unimaginable deprivation and the hell of being a prisoner of war and a slave laborer in a mine...
