Meetings & Demonstrations

Whistler and Sargent: American Artists in Venice –
Presentation by Rebecca Albiani

Venice was vital for these two expatriate American painters. Whistler visited only once – after the humiliating Ruskin trial – but his Venetian works revitalized his career, while Sargent considered Venice a refuge from society portraiture and captured the city in oils and watercolors over three decades.

Rebecca received her BA in art history and Italian from UC Berkeley and her MA in art history from Stanford. She spent her junior year abroad and, as a graduate student, was a Fulbright Scholar in Venice and a Graduate Lecturing Fellow at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Since moving to Seattle in 1996, she has become a popular lecturer at the Frye Art Museum, where her monthly series of art history talks is currently virtual due to the pandemic.

Perri Lynch Howard is an artist dedicated to forging new narratives from the front lines of climate change. Working in the context of extreme environments is an essential aspect of Ms. Howard’s practice, driving her curiosity to seek a deeper sense of place, beyond the dichotomy of near and far. Her artwork is a charting or mapping of sites and situations expressed through painting, drawing, sculpture and sound. “is is manifested in her latest series of paintings, “Frequencies,” inspired by studies in the field of coustic ecology and visualizing the shape of sound.

Originally from Marblehead, Massachuse%s, Perri received her BA from “e Evergreen State College, BFA from the University of Washington, and MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Her work is represented by the Sea%le Art Museum Gallery. Honors include an Artist Trust Fellowship, McMillen Fellowship, Sea%le City Artist Grant, and multiple 4Culture Special Project Grants. Perri’s art has a global reach through projects completed in Italy, Portugal, Brazil, Canada, and in South India as a Fulbright Scholar.

Whistler and Sargent: American Artists in Venice –
Presentation by Rebecca Albiani

Venice was vital for these two expatriate American painters. Whistler visited only once – after the humiliating Ruskin trial – but his Venetian works revitalized his career, while Sargent considered Venice a refuge from society portraiture and captured the city in oils and watercolors over three decades.

Rebecca received her BA in art history and Italian from UC Berkeley and her MA in art history from Stanford. She spent her junior year abroad and, as a graduate student, was a Fulbright Scholar in Venice and a Graduate Lecturing Fellow at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Since moving to Seattle in 1996, she has become a popular lecturer at the Frye Art Museum, where her monthly series of art history talks is currently virtual due to the pandemic.

Ellen Garvens is a Professor of Art at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her work has been mixed media, combining photography with drawing, as well as hand tools, sculpture and silver gelatin contact prints. Between 2003 and 2010 she did a research project visiting Prosthetics clinics in the US and SE Asia. These projects have influenced her current work.

Ellen Garvens is a Professor of Art at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her work has been mixed media, combining photography with drawing, as well as hand tools, sculpture and silver gelatin contact prints. Between 2003 and 2010 she did a research project visiting Prosthetics clinics in the US and SE Asia. These projects have influenced her current work.

In recent work she creates a stage to enact unnatural alignments and feats of balance to visually surprise and confront our logic and curiosity. The space created is confusing and the images speak to a process of renewal, of constant questioning and problem solving. They are not answers, they suggest only a sense of movement, seek a balance of chaos and order, and communicate in broad metaphors, i.e., the absence implied by pure black fabric, plants as living but also cut, displaced and out of context, domestic objects and furniture as stand-ins for the mundane, and the string and tape of altering, marking and holding together the delicate and unstable.

Molly Murrah is an experienced watercolor artist and freelance graphic designer, who has lived and worked in the Seattle area since 1982. She started painting in earnest in 2001 and has studied with nationally known watercolor instructors over the years. Molly has taught classes and workshops at Daniel Smith Artists’ Materials in the Seattle area and at several local galleries and art associations. Presently, she teaches most of her classes online. A Signature Member of the Northwest Watercolor Society, Molly served as President in 2013-2014 and is currently serving a second term from 2020-2022. Molly’s strengths as an artist lie in composition, color harmonies and the representation of light. These skills were greatly influenced by her many years as a professional graphic designer. Now concentrating on her fine art career, Molly still incorporates her design experience in her painting and teaching. Her favorite subject to paint and to teach is portraits.

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Chris Witkowski now lives in Port Townsend, Wa. Her pastels, oils and watercolors have been shown in galleries up and down the West Coast for over 40 years and reside in collections throughout the United States. She has created many memorable illustrations in pastel featuring local farming, food and wine for regional and national businesses and organizations.

Chris teaches private and studio classes emphasizing proper use of materials and technique. At the same time she guides each student, no matter what their level of experience, to move towards developing their own individual expression.

She has a BA in Art from the University of Detroit. www.chriswitkowski.com.

 Chris’ presentation will be on pastels including the history of pastels.

Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976) is receiving a much-deserved retrospective beginning November 18 at SAM. Raised in Seattle, Cunningham caused a scandal by exhibiting male nudes early in her career. She developed a clean modernist style in still lifes such as the famous magnolias she exhibited with Ansel Adams and Edward Weston in Group f/64. But she was first and foremost a photographer of human beings. Her final portrait project, made in her 90s, was of people over 90. In her long career she explored a range of subjects and viewpoints, often making stunning images out of everyday circumstances.

Brief bio: Rebecca received her BA in art history and Italian from UC Berkeley and her MA in art history from Stanford. She spent her junior year abroad and as a graduate student was a Fulbright Scholar in Venice and a Graduate Lecturing Fellow at the National Gallery in Washington, DC. Since moving to Seattle in 1996, she has become a popular lecturer at the Frye Art Museum, where her monthly series of art history talks is currently virtual due to the pandemic.

Lois Yoshida – Sumi-e Artist
Using brush and ink with varying tones Lois explores the flow of energy as well as spirit. She uses simple shapes with minimal expressive brush strokes to convey the essence of her subjects.

See Lois’s website: http://new.loisyoshida.com