Art's Alive opens Oct. 25

Surprise! Art’s Alive is two weeks early this year – which looks like a sound decision.

With the coming weekend a literal washout and November trending damp, it’s just possible that Oct. 25 will bestow a generous slice of lovely late-fall weather on the annual event, planned and produced by the La Conner Arts Foundation.

This year’s show is actually three shows in one.

As usual, the Invitational Show downstairs in Maple Hall will showcase eleven artists, five of them new to Art’s Alive.

The late Thomas Stream, whose work graces this year’s poster, created paintings of birds that celebrate the Aleutian people of Alaska, and Aleut and Native Americans displaced or relocated throughout the United States.

Printmaker Gene Jaress of Mount Vernon and oil painter Kent Nordby of Fidalgo Island are also new, along with Charlotte Slade Decker of Shelter Bay and Suzanne Powers Fidalgo Island.

Returning favorites include Maggie Wilder, Coizie Bettinger, Pieter Van Zanden, Gary Giovane, Nicolette Harrington, and Margaret C. Arnett.

Many Invitational artists will be present at the Opening Gala next Friday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. So will beloved local artists – Sarah Walls, Joan Cross, Tracy Powell, Gary Brown, Anne Schreivogl, and Nancy Crowell, to name a few – each with a piece in the upstairs Open Show.

New this year is the Volunteer Gallery, which will display art by men and women who are the backbone of Art’s Alive.

“As you know, La Conner runs on volunteer power,” said La Conner Arts Foundation board member Sheila Johnson. “We are grateful to the 100-plus volunteers who have given their time and attention to Art’s Alive and to our scholarship program for the last five years, and we want to honor them.”

In both the Open Show and the Volunteer Gallery, visitors can nominate their favorite piece of art for the People’s Choice award. Awards will go to the piece that gets the most votes in each show.

Johnson is upbeat about the new gallery and the new date, which she hopes will avoid the extreme weather that caused last year’s power outage. “That was so severe it even depleted the batteries at the cell tower,” she said.

For 18 long, inconvenient hours, the show had no cell service and no wireless.

Not this year! “We are putting that all behind us,” she said.

Art’s Alive begins at 1 p.m. Friday, Oct. 25 and continues Saturday, Sunday and Monday, when it wraps up at 4 p.m.