Skagit Artists studio tour this weekend

For the artists hosting the 21 stops on this weekend’s NW Art Beat tour, there is no opportunity to see their colleagues work. That is exactly why artist Dee Doyle organized her three La Conner area colleagues for a preview tour open to the 30-plus Skagit Artists last Wednesday. Thirteen artists, spouses and interns took the Progressive Appetizers Tour, making the socializing better by enjoying provided snacks and beverages.

The group started at Lynn Skordal’s, a paperwork artist on North First Street. Skordal’s work is slightly three dimensional. She invites people to touch it. They must when picking up her art books. She also creates collages and small works on paper. She hunts for antiques, pop culture and found materials to make her unique pieces. Unique is often misused, but each Skordal piece is unique.

Gary Giovane’s studio is in his house on South Third Street. He is sharing his space with Rick Klauber, a Camano Island sculptor creating viewing stones from found pieces. He places them on carved wood bases. This is a 1,500 year old Asian tradition he is trying to introduce here as a fine art. Each Klauber sculpture is also unique.

For 40 years Giovane has been traveling a path that has led him to “Northwest Coast-Celtic fusion art inspired by Japanese design aesthetics and the Arts & Crafts Movement,” as his website states. He paints acrylic on large cedar planks on which he has traced his designs.

Dee Doyle’s work as an art instructor Senior Centers in Skagit and Whatcom Counties pushes her into great productivity in several media: acrylics, encaustics, watercolors and watercolors across a variety of styles, from abstract to figurative, to nature – birds, flora, landscapes – and still life. Her studio in Shelter Bay offers three rooms of choices.

Sarah Dalton lives on Snee -oosh Road east of Kukutali Preserve. A photographer and painter, her use of mixed media of collage materials includes found pieces: driftwood on the beach and aluminum cans she “upcycles.”

The 15th annual NW Art Beat Studio Tour is July 21-22, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. The stops range throughout western Skagit County. There is an interactive map at their website: https://www.nwartbeat.com

The weekend fulfills Giovane’s “wish to keep La Conner on the ‘artistic map’ through current works.”