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This year the art is back on the walls. The Museum of Northwest Art is holding its 29th auction next week, celebrating regional art, the museum’s 40th birthday and the easing of the COVID-19 pandemic. The physical experience will be integrated with the virtual one. Art enthusiasts can go to MoNA and browse through the art until the “First Forty | Next Forty Art Auction” opens for bidding June 10. Since the museum’s first auction in 1992, it has been a premier regional art event, organiz...
Our soldiers fight to protect the nation’s freedom. Journalists report on war so families and the public back home know the facts and truth of the soldiers experience. Journalists tell what is actually happening, as opposed to what the military and the government say. Journalists in wars are protecting democracy – as much as our soldiers. In 1960 no newspaper had women war correspondents. The U.S. military had rules regulating all journalists coverage during war. Since President Johnson refused to declare war in Vietnam, regulations l...
Some Northwest artists have recently learned fairly new techniques to express the changing forms in nature. That means sculptors were painting, painters were sculpting and other new techniques were at work to express Earth’s ancient patterns. The results are on display at the latest art show at Edison’s i.e. Gallery through April 25. Allen Moe, Michael Clough and James Brems have all taken on a new – or relatively new – medium for their latest work. Sculptor Moe is displaying a ser...
Tim Bruce was such a strong advocate of the arts during his 26 year tenure as superintendent of La Conner schools that the district’s auditorium has been named in his honor. But the story does not end there. His support for the arts on the La Conner campus continues five years after Bruce left the district to join the Western Washington University faculty. La Conner School Board members on Monday accepted his donation of three pieces of art created by Mary Ennes Davis and valued at $10,000 for display in the Bruce Performing Arts Center. ...
Attorneys do not usually make a living drawing attention to cases they have lost. Stewart Riley, a retired, longtime Seattle criminal defense lawyer, is clearly an exception to the rule. Riley has spoken at length about a high-profile courtroom defeat early in his career – as he did during a stop at Seaport Books in La Conner on Thursday – and has expanded it into his debut as an author. Riley’s newly released “Helena Star” details the epic tale of a major international drug smuggling operation whose prosecution in Seattle more...
La Conner artist Maggie Wilder’s “Beloved: A Courtship of Place” opens with a reception 2-5 p.m. Saturday. It is the Perry and Carlson Gallery’s April exhibit. Wilder writes: “For many years I lived in a rustic cabin with Ika Island looming a short distance away. On winter nights, especially, the sight of it standing silently while the sun dropped beneath its silhouette gave me much comfort. Though I had many opportunities to travel with my kayak to her shores, I quietly pledged to never set foot on her. Perhaps not every place needs to be per...
Good things are worth waiting for. And when it comes to the recently re-opened Skagit County Historical Museum in La Conner, so, too, are great things. In this case, an exhibit of the works of the acclaimed late La Conner artist Jesus Guillen, whose images capture both the beauty of the Skagit Valley and the workers who have harvested its agricultural bounty. “Guillen (is) a noteworthy regional artist who died in 1994 but remains an important part of the art history of the Skagit Valley,” says K...
A local man is using technology for walks back in time in historic La Conner. Adam McGarity has developed a 45-minute audio tour of early La Conner history that highlights eight key locations covering about a half-mile distance between the downtown business district and the Civic Garden Club building on Second Street. McGarity, who holds a history degree from Mercer University, in Macon, Ga., gave La Conner Town Councilmembers and other residents a preview of the tour Saturday afternoon. The “time-based storytelling” project has drawn pos...
There are signs of hope in the Skagit Valley – even as COVID-19 drags into another year -- in the daffodil fields, in the partial reopening of restaurants and businesses, and at the Museum of Northwest Art. There, a Max Benjamin exhibit (“A Road Well Travelled”) transports visitors from the grays of winter with bold, colorful work spanning five decades. The iconic painter from Guemes Island rarely exhibits his work. In fact he stopped exhibiting in 2002 except for a show at La Con...
The Museum of Northwest Art (MoNA) has a reputation throughout the region for its many must-see exhibits. Now the downtown cultural center is itself being eyed for a new look. MoNA officials last week outlined for La Conner Planning Commissioners preliminary plans to expand services, address lingering structural issues and acquire nearby office space to continue its mission of connecting the public with Northwest art, cultures and environments. MoNA Executive Director Joanna Sikes, board chair...
At 90, a famed La Conner animation artist and painter still knows how to draw a crowd. On Zoom as well as at the easel. Bob Abrams, fondly known around town as the “Disney Artist,” was feted with a special on-line birthday reception Friday that drew well-wishers from near and far. The virtual event, which extended beyond two hours as Abrams reflected upon his remarkable career, was coordinated by Rebecca Strong of The Lux Art Center on Lopez Island. Strong met Abrams when she managed a gallery h...
The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the tide of public forums to on-line sessions. For Friends of Skagit Beaches, a local group in its second decade highlighting life in and around shoreline and marine ecosystems of the Salish Sea, that is the case both literally and figuratively. Friends of Skagit Beaches is launching the 16th year of its popular lecture series on-line 7 p.m. Jan. 15. Details for the Zoom link to this Friday’s lecture are at skagitbeaches.org. The one-hour program will address “Seals and Sea Lions: Pinnipeds of the Salish Sea...
How cold has your family been? Hopefully, they are not suffering in this pandemic year, or even your lifetime, but reflect on your family however many generations they have been in America, or perhaps throughout your family’s history: For how long has comfort been the norm? In 1909 in the Skagit Valley, in Seattle, in Spokane, would your ancestors have hopped freights and hitched rides in the back of wagons as day laborers, with all the possessions they owned rolled up in their blanket slung over their backs? Many of them probably did, as d...
These days news is often shared via platforms and messaging networks that are ephemeral in nature. Think Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter, as examples. They are literally here today, gone tomorrow formats. But there is still room – on bookshelves and elsewhere – for time-honored means of sharing and preserving news, such as journals, clipbooks, and scrapbooks. The thick collection of news accounts from the pages of the Puget Sound Mail compiled 50 years ago by late La Conner business leader and Rotary Club officer Paul Thompson is a...
In his new book “Let Us Dream: The Path to a Better Future,: Pope Francis advocates a Copernican revolution in our politics. Instead of viewing politics from the places of political and economic power, he summons us to see it from the vantage point of the peripheries. For Francis, the “often forgotten people” are the true center of the political firmament. Francis addresses our culture on its own terms to point out its spiritual vacuum. Western conceptions of liberty and equality have become untethered from the idea of solidarity and a vision o...
For more than a decade, wherever he moved, Danny Hagen could not bear to part with the beautiful eight square foot framed painting of Mount Shuksan and Picture Lake that he picked up by chance while on a job in Bellingham. He knew the painting’s setting and appreciated its artistry. He just did not have a clear picture of its backstory. Until now. Hagen, a Shelter Bay resident who is an appraiser with the Skagit County Assessor’s Office, took to social media last week with a blanket request for...
“Marley was dead: to begin with.” Thus starts one of our most beloved Christmas stories, Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” But what of Marley’s life and his partnership with Ebenezer Scrooge? And what about Scrooge’s formative years? How did the two meet? In Dickens’ classic their shared scene is in Scrooge’s bedroom, Marley’s ghost coming through the door, dragging a chain made “of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.” This is Marley’s legacy, the chain he forged in life: “I made it link by link,...
The Museum of Northwest Art’s 28th Annual Art Auction in September was a success, netting $134,000, exceeding the Museum’s goal. Board and staff thank the artists, donors, buyers and supporters. The Museum could not have done it without their continued belief in MoNA. The online program was a first attempt and you were right there with us. Some of you were even still bidding as the Auction closed at midnight on Sunday. All 280 bidders stayed online during the entire Live Auction and some on Eas...
Half a loaf is better than none. And in the age of COVID, even a quarter loaf now looms large. Just ask La Conner Regional Library Director Jared Fair and Lincoln Theatre Executive Director Roger Gietzen. Both received a welcome dose of good news last week when Gov. Jay Inslee modified COVID-19 library and theater restrictions. The governor approved guidelines allowing libraries and theaters to operate at 25 per cent capacity in Phase Two of the state’s Safe Start plan Oct. 6. Skagit County has been in Phase 2 since June. But Fair and G...
Bay View author Carl Molesworth has been fascinated with the life of famed Flying Tiger pilot Bill Reed for over four decades. But he was only recently able to get around to writing about the highly decorated though ill-fated World War II aviator. Molesworth is now practicing the same patience he showed in researching and developing the book when it comes to rolling it out to local readers. He was scheduled to launch “Flying Tiger Ace: The Story of Bill Reed, China’s Shining Mark” at a sprin...
FRIDAY HARBOR — The Friday Harbor Film Festival is going virtual this year, featuring award-winning documentaries, short films and student-made films, as well as daily live-streamed Q&As with filmmakers. All films will be available on demand for 10 days, Oct. 15-25. Q&As will be recorded for those who cannot participate via live-stream. Read about this year’s lineup at www.fhff.org. Detailed information about how to participate virtually is available on the website. Thanks to the generosity of part-time islanders and enthusiastic film f...
On a morning when La Conner remained shrouded in wildfire smoke and haze, it was still possible to get a clear picture of the town. Of course, you had to go indoors to do so. The colorful, much celebrated Bob Patterson mural of La Conner was hung a week ago Monday inside Maple Hall, the venue chosen by Town officials so the public can easily view the detailed four-panel, 20-foot image, a nearly 700-hour project completed in 2014. Town Public Works staff placed the mural at the balcony level of...
The Skagit County Historical Museum in La Conner has re-opened with an exhibit that literally hits the ball out of the park. The life of Sherman Anderson, Jr., the World War II bombardier for whom the spacious baseball and fairgrounds complex in Mount Vernon is named, is the new display at the museum, which last Friday began greeting visitors again after having been closed since spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The exhibit, curated by museum archivist Mari Densmore, features a collection of...
There are few names as ordinary as Bill Smith. But it also happens to be the name of a truly extraordinary character familiar to readers of award-winning La Conner author Wayne Johnston. Johnston, a retired La Conner High English teacher and former tugboat chief engineer and mate, introduced Smith in “North Fork,” his 2016 debut novel, which has since been used in classrooms between here and central California. In “The Home Stretch,” Johnston’s new release, Smith returns as the narrator in a page-turning, emotionally gripping account that addr...
The American trait of impatience, that drive to get things done now, caution be damned, is often fatal. It was for Ada Weeks’ step-parents, who in the opening pages of Shelter Bay resident Ashley Sweeney’s new novel, “Answer Creek,” plunge their oxen-driven wagon into the late-May Big Blue River, swollen to twice its normal flow and carrying whole trees. In minutes the wagon is rammed, turned into the current and swept downstream. Humans and oxen are upended and disappear. Gone. The 19-year-old Ada, along with hundreds of others in the Donner...
