Green: ON THE EDGE / Call to artists

The San Juan Islands Museum of Art & Sculpture Park (IMA) is sounding the call to Washington, Oregon and British Columbia artists to enter IMA’s juried visual arts competition – Green: ON THE EDGE.  The upcoming summer exhibition is asking artists to tackle the question, what does green mean to you?  ON THE EDGE is IMA’s way of saying, don’t be conservative, take it to the edge!  Express Green: ON THE EDGE in your medium. Let everyone see what you’ve got and submit your work by May 24.  Work must be current, no more than 2 years old and submitted with a $25 fee.  All media accepted. For more detailed information about mailing images, size requirements, application forms, and more, visit our website www.sjima.org or give us a call at the museum, 360-370-5050.  You may also pick up an application for submission at the museum, 28 First Street, Friday Harbor, WA., during business hours, Fri –Sun, 1–5 pm.  Exhibition dates – July 2, 2010 through September.

IMA is excited to bring together the incredible talent from our region and beyond with this forward thinking show.  IMA would love you to be a part of this fantastic ON THE EDGE opportunity!

Recent shows at IMA include:  Shaun Peterson, “Outside the Box – Inside the Museum” Sculpture Exhibition from San Juan Islands artists, and “Helen Loggie: Celebrating a Northwest Legacy – A Retrospective 1917-1956”, from the Lambiel Museum on Orcas Island.

JURORS

Tom Toperzer (Consultant, Curator, Juror, Artist, and Former Museum Director)        Mr. Toperzer served as a Director of Museums at the Amarillo Museum of Art, the MAINSITE Contemporary Museum of Art on Main Street, the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art at the University of Oklahoma, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, and Museums at Illinois State University and Mayo Park in Rochester, MN.  His contemporary art background makes an ideal juror for the Green: ON THE EDGE exhibition on San Juan Island.  In addition to an extensive list of curatorial experiences, he continues to jury exhibitions and consult with museums and galleries all across the United States.  Born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA, Toperzer received his MFA from the University of Nebraska and presently resides in Moore, Oklahoma.

Eric Metcalfe (Artist and Juror)  Mr. Metcalfe is a Vancouver BC artist who spent his formative years in both Victoria BC and Seattle, WA.  He is the co-founder of the Western Front in Vancouver and has exhibited throughout Canada, Japan, Europe, South America, and the United States.  His practice is diverse and calls upon a wide range of media applications.  He is the recipient of many Canada Council Grants, the Audain Award, and recently the Governor General’s Award.  His work is found in many collections, including the National Gallery in Canada and MOMA in New York City.  Metcalfe was commissioned by the Cultural Olympiad to complete an installation for the Olympic Games.  The work, entitled, IKONS, recently closed at the Five Sixty Gallery in Vancouver.

Marisa C. Sanchez (Seattle Art Museum Curator and Juror)  Ms. Sanchez has served as a Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) since arriving in 2007.  She is currently working on the upcoming exhibition love fear pleasure lust pain glamour death –Andy Warhol Media Works, which opens May 13 at the SAM.  In addition, she is working with contemporary artist Trenton Doyle Hancock on a site-specific, sculptural installation opening in August at the SAM Sculpture Park (Olympic Sculpture Park Pavilion).  A recent essay highlighting significant twentieth century sculptures within SAM’s permanent collection entitled, More Than an Object, attracted IMA to invite Sanchez to Jury the Green: ON THE EDGE exhibition.  Sanchez holds a Masters in Art History, Theory, and Criticism from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Awards

There will be 3 Juror Awards for the Green: ON THE EDGE exhibition.  Artists receiving the Juror Awards will be guests of IMA, while on San Juan Island over the July 4^th weekend. Their work will also be featured on the Museum’s website sjima.org.

San Juan Islands Museum of Art (IMA) and Sculpture Park is seeking submissions of large, outdoor sculptures for the IMA Sculpture Park at Roche Harbor. The IMA Sculpture Park is a major Northwest art destination, located on over 19 acres in the San Juan Islands, adjacent to the Roche Harbor Community on the shores of Westcott Bay. The Park received over 25,000 visitors in 2009, and sold over $50,000 of sculpture during the last three months of the year. With new plans for the IMA Sculpture Park, the Park plans to quadruple this amount in 2010, and the artist’s commission has been increased to 70%!

Sculptors may submit up to three submissions by April 30, 2010. A non-refundable entry fee of $20 is required, covering up to three submissions. Early submissions are encouraged. The deadline for installation of accepted work is June 15, 2010. Entry forms and further details are available at http://sjima.org/

Submit entries to:

Deborah Neff, Director

306-370-5050

IMA Sculpture Park, PO Box 339, Friday Harbor, WA 98250

or sculpturepark@sjima.org

The new web site will be up next month!

The following images are from the opening Friday Jan 29th

at the Islands Museum of Art

Islands Museum of Art                                                                                                Friday Harbor, San Juan Island

Celebrating a Northwest Legacy, Helen Loggie, A Retrospective 1917-1956

Jan 29^th - March 7^th, 2010; opening reception with Leo lambiel Jan 29th, 5-8pm

The San Juan Islands Museum of Art & Sculpture Park (IMA), at 28 First Street in Friday Harbor, will open A Retrospective of Helen Loggie, 1917-1952, on Friday, January 29th, 5-8 pm.  Helen Loggie, a nationally recognized artist, lived most of her life in Bellingham and on Orcas Island. This exhibition links San Juan Island and Orcas Island in a unique manner, for The Lambiel Museum on Orcas is generously loaning part of its Helen Loggie Collection of over 100 pieces, the largest private collection in existence, to IMA for an exhibit that will run through March 7th.

Helen Loggie was born and grew up in Bellingham, studied at the Art Students League in New York City followed by trips to Europe, and in the late 1920’s returned to her home in Bellingham. In the early 1930’s she had a house of her own design built on Orcas Island.  A place that had very special meaning for her and would become the main focus of her work in later years.  It was here in the Northwest that she created many of her acclaimed drawings and etchings. Throughout her career, there have been exhibitions of her work including solo exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., the Frye Museum in Seattle, the Whatcom Museum of Art and History and at the Western Gallery at Western Washington University, both in Bellingham.

The IMA exhibition is divided into two sections: Gallery I will include drawings and etchings from her student years in New York with portraiture, dynamic city scenes and St. Patrick’s cathedral, along with vibrant oils, drawings and etchings of magnificent cathedrals, bridges and fishing boats from her European travels.  Gallery II will focus on her transition back to the Northwest with drawings, etchings and oils depicting ships in Bellingham Bay, sawmills and even circus animals, but most importantly, her exquisite images of mountains, islands and trees, particularly her beloved old, gnarled trees of Orcas Island.  The exhibit will also display some of her sketchbooks, etching tools and a collection of Christmas cards.

Helen Loggie scorned abstract art and focused on realistic detail for which she became famous.  Even though she dabbled in oils, her preferred medium was pencil drawing. The brochure for the Western Gallery exhibit quoted from a 1939 newspaper: “For her drawings, Miss Loggie uses three pencils, hard, medium and soft. When she goes out sketching, we are told, she takes with her a dozen pencils of each variety, all carefully sharpened, so she will not have to interrupt her work to repoint them.” Her pencil drawings of trees especially illustrate the intricate lines, e.g. of bark and the grasses on the ground below, which became her signature.

During the first half of the 20th century, current methods of reproducing art did not exist, so she became skilled at the process of etching in order to make copies of her work. Her drawings were particularly suitable for etching and she explored ways to develop contrasts in the etchings to avoid a monotone appearance. Vicki Halper, author of the Loggie Exhibition brochure at the Frye Museum, quotes Loggie as saying: “If I had known how hard etching is, I would never have started.” However, the etching process was essential for her to share and distribute her work and she persisted in honing her skills. A description of the etching process will be part of this exhibit for one of the goals of IMA is be an educational avenue in the arts.

Ann Friedman, author of the essay accompanying the Helen Loggie exhibition at Western Gallery in 1993, quotes Loggie as saying:  “If I could strike an answering spark, especially in the hearts of the young people, so that they would realize that natural beauty is the greatest heritage the West has to give her children, so that they would protect what remains of our Northwest… then I would indeed feel that the years have been well spent.”

Helen Loggie had a reverence for nature and felt it was her role as an artist to preserve its beauty. Although her work covered diverse subjects, her interpretation of the trees, mountains and flowers of the Northwest convey her commitment. In her art and writing, she was clearly an environmentalist long before the word was in our common vocabulary.