Jack Gunter’s 2022 tulip poster offers joy and dancing

Does the glory of the tulip fields make you want to dance? For those who feel like jumping for joy at the sight of the brilliant colors, this year’s Tulip Festival poster immortalizes that feeling. Camano Island artist Jack Gunter painted the 2022 Tulip Festival Poster to represent the enthusiasm and sheer pleasure of the Tulip Festival resuming after two years of COVID-19 pandemic slowdowns.

There is a formula for a successful tulip poster that sell copies by the hundreds or thousands. The most popular posters feature close-ups of the flowers themselves – the lines of petal, the intimate details of their colors. Barns and trees are a popular theme. Mount Baker? Even better. With a nod to that aesthetic, Gunter created a painting that brings some tulips into the foreground for a close look, while extending into the distance. But the joy of this poster is all in the action.

Gunter paints almost exclusively in egg tempera and his work can be found at the Scott Milo Gallery in Anacortes this month. His art is available at his Camano Island gallery and studio. He is on the walls of homes in private collections around the Valley and beyond.

Gunter remembers a time he brought out-of-town visitors to the fields and witnessed their entranced expressions. “I realized that I wanted to create a feeling of joy like in that.” In fact, he wanted people dancing (one point though – dancing in the tulip fields, or even walking through their rows is not permitted, for obvious reasons). He completed 20 trial paintings of children leaping playfully before he and the festival committee selected the piece that now adorns the 2022 poster. His choice features two little girls facing the fields and Mount Baker in the distance, with halos of sunset alighting their heads.

The Tulip Festival has been commissioning artwork since 1993, showcasing different pieces of art each year, says Cindy Verge, the Tulip Festival’s executive director. There have been 27 contributing artists.

When selecting the artist this year, she says. “We knew that Jack’s work was well known and we knew that he would create a special piece for us.” She adds that “His painting makes us smile and invokes the happiness of the season – something we are all excited about with the ending of COVID restrictions.”

Each poster, in its own way, relates to the year that it represents, just as literature relates to the time period that it’s written about, Verge says. “Our artists have all captured a bit of the Skagit Valley as they see it – the diversity of our artwork really shows the many sights and sounds of our area.”

While 2022 features the first official Gunter Tulip Festival poster, it’s not the first time Gunter’s painted tulips, or the festival. In fact he’s made dozens of tulip festival paintings over the years, many featuring his unique form of satire. He is in fact, the self-proclaimed brat of the Northwest arts.

Gunter’s work includes a painting capturing La Conner’s tourism in the form of a Valley traffic jam. He has painted the festival from the perspective of a tulip, known as “Tulip’s Eye View” looking up at the clouds, aircraft and back sides of tourists. He has also painted the crowded airspace over a tulip field.

This year, says Verge, “My hope for the festival is that we can all enjoy the wonderful slice of Mother Nature that the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival brings. It is a year of joy and celebration and a chance for people to get out and see each other again. I am and will continue to enjoy the smiles on the faces of the people coming to visit.”

Gunter is signing posters April 13 and 27 at the Tulip Festival store, 311 West Kinkaid Street, Mount Vernon from 3-6 p.m.