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 Artist Statement

WE EXPECT little from ordinary things around us, but I am continually fascinated by the ordinary.

Combining realism and abstraction, creating tension, and consideration for the ‘imperfect’ or unexpected, challenge expectations on how I ‘see’ the subject.

In ceramic work, I focus on creating forms that invite a tactile response in the spikes, or in the alterations and negative spaces. The body of work “Touch, Don’t touch” is inspired by living things and shapes in nature. I explore the objects and study them, then reimagine the form: considering how light and space interact, how time and weather alter, and how texture invites and repels. Many of these things are present in the tidal areas I wander, but I continue to explore metaphor and connections to new objects, both local and from travels.

After many years working with realism, my painting is also shifting toward a looser and more immediate response to what I see and experience. Places or found objects often present as metaphors and connect to experiences and running through my head. The subject becomes the mouthpiece, sometimes unexpectedly or unplanned and I scribble sketches to catch that moment before it gets lost. Once an idea becomes clear, I tend to work through a series of paintings until I have exhausted what needs to be said, this may be in a few months, or years depending on the narrative.

Find Carolyn's Available Works Here

  Artist Statement

I’m an artist/designer, designer/artist. For me the boundaries between art and design are blurred. I’ve always been attracted to that edge between functional design, craft, and fine art. 

My training in two- and three-dimensional design at the Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design coincided with studies in painting and drawing at UC Berkeley Extension in San Francisco under Norman Stiegelmeyer. I spent my formative years in San Francisco in the late sixties and early seventies, a time when all boundaries were becoming blurred, and the attitudes of other cultures were being infused.  

Chris' available work at Fogue.

 Artist Statement

As a painter, I have always been intrigued with ordinary plastic, commercial, recyclable containers containing contents for home use, such as: liquid soaps, milk, face creams, shampoo, fruit juices, etc.  The majority of these objects are are made from plastic.  

Paper sacks have also played a major role as subjects for my paintings. I find the folds and creases that create complex surface textures very facinating.  

My colors tend to be muted, and the edges of my subject matter, soft, and thus, lending to atmospheric effects.  

I also tend to work in series, exploring many of the same or similar objects in different compositional schemes, colors, light temperatures (cool north light as coming through a window, or warm spotlight). 

I work in my studio several hours a day most days of the week. 

The artists that have been the most influential in my work are:  Giorgio Morandi, Italian landscape and still life master, early mid 20th Century; Jean Simeon Chardin, French still life master, 18th Century; Gordon Cook, Bay Area landscape and still life master, latter 20th Century; and the Pop Art Movement of the mid-1950s to the 1960s.  Available works at Fogue Studios

Artist Statement

This collection of works by Erik portrays animals in various scenes looking out or skyward. Most of the pieces utilize a significant portion of the canvas for negative space, providing the viewers the opportunity to use their own imagination, when determining what may be drawing these animals’ eyes 

Erik's available work at Fogue. 

 Erik Berkule is a local Seattle artist whose work focuses mainly on portraiture, often with a humorous twist.  Erik is influenced by the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest, as well as by the destinations he visits while travelling internationally.  He likes to draw and paint what he knows, often leaning on creature subjects (both human and animal) with whom he has come in contact.  Family, friends, music and sports figures also play a prominent role.  Erik's medium is predominantly ink and acrylic on canvas and wood.  His work can be found on Instagram at @Aarik73  

 Artist Statement  

Joanne Bohannon was born an artist in Nova Scotia, Canada. She has been an artist, an illustrator and an art director all of her adult life. She has been working in ceramics for over 25 years and all of her artwork has a personal narrative driving it. This current series reflects loss of owl habitat but also its adaption to such severe changes. She lives in the suburbs and believe it or not, she has had a resident barred owl living and hunting in her garden for years. What a muse that owl has been. Coming Soon  

Find Joanne's available works here

 Artist Statement  

I create connections between objects, images and materials to explore a wide range of personal and political themes. Through the interplay between colors, textures and forms of painted images and physical objects, I tell stories that echo my past experiences. My work reveals that memories are real and imagined, personal and impersonal, and opens a space for the viewer to register an emotional response.

My process of creating each image requires chance encounters as well as aesthetic deliberation. Objects sometimes offer me the means to complete a piece that feels unfinished. In such cases, my collection of materials serves as a visual inventory of possibilities that enables me to continue my work. Other times, an object’s shape, color or composition suggests the beginning of an image. 

The act of applying paint, combining materials or the putting together of paper in a collage—this physical crafting of an image—is a core part of my work. I find inspiration in the process itself. The surprising associations in my work are my way of creating a richer work with multiple layers of meaning.

Bio

I have always been an artist, a maker of things. Growing up on Long Island, NY, I spent hours drawing, painting and creating objects. As a middle girl of three sisters, creating “things” gave me my identity, my individuality. My artistic practice has always and continues to help me achieve an equilibrium.

I started my college career at Boston University School of Fine Arts. Outside pressures together with a general frustration with my work led me to leave art school after two years. I moved to New York City, where I graduated from New York University with a degree in teaching (1973) and a minor in art. I taught elementary school for a year, but my departure from the art world left me restless. I enrolled in a masters program at the Rochester Institute of Technology School for American Crafts (RIT), where I studied weaving and papermaking. The work I produced at RIT was included in the International Exhibition of Miniature Textiles in 1976 and 1978, a show that traveled throughout Europe. My graduate thesis was a mixed-media autobiographical work titled A Sense of Self. After a long period of struggle, I discovered my artistic voice through weaving, sculpture, and papermaking. In 1978, I received the Wallace Memorial Library Purchase Prize Award, a top prize for RIT graduates. .

Following graduate school, my career began to blossom. During this period, my work focused on paper and papermaking. In 1977, I was an artist-in-residence at Art Park in Lewiston, New York, where I demonstrated papermaking techniques for visitors to the park. In 1978, I was awarded a one-year National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship Grant. With the NEA grant I had papermaking equipment built to experiment with hand papermaking techniques, in both two and three dimensions. I took up residence at the Farmington Valley Art Center in Avon, Connecticut and taught papermaking workshops. 

Moving back to New York City in 1980, I returned to weaving and textiles for a short period. My tapestries included very intricate figures and I was beginning to feel the need to work larger and looser. I began to paint. Wood panels and canvas were now my starting point and using oils, textiles, paper and other found objects my story continued through these new media. My mixed media approach to painting was and still is very influenced by my early weavings and textile work. The figure that I created while weaving found her way into my paintings and collages. She became my muse – my narrator – and the focal point of my paintings. To this day, I use the same figure in my paintings; although her form has evolved, she is still my storyteller. 

Beginning in the 1970’s, my work was shown in galleries throughout the Northeast. In the 1990s, the Bachelier-Cardonsky Gallery in Kent, Connecticut, began to show my work and did so until the gallery closed in the early 2000s. I have been represented by galleries in New York City, Boston and Provincetown, Massachusetts and Seattle, Washington. With each exhibition, each group or solo show, my figure, ever present, spoke to the visitors and art collectors who purchased my work. Gerrit Henry reviewed my 2001 solo show at the Perlow Gallery in the October 2001 issue of Art in America. Other exhibitions have been reviewed by the New York Times, (1997, 1986) and by Cover Magazine, (1999).

Beliefs in social responsibility have led me to bring my artistic vision and sensibility to promote social justice. Over the past few years, I have created Prints for Social Justice, selling original prints to raise money for political and social causes that I support including gun control, sustainable farming, women’s health and reproductive rights, food insecurity and immigrant justice.

In 2022 my husband and I moved to the Pacific Northwest to live closer to our daughters and their families. For two years I was without a studio and only worked on paper, mostly collage and some watercolors. It’s wonderful to have a studio again and to explore the light, the colors and the ambiance of the Pacific Northeast.

Find Diane's available works here

  Artist Statement

 Garage Art

In 1974 I received my BA from WSU in Education. Years later I studied Creative Arts in Education and achieved an MA. For 31 years I was an educator, working at all levels K-12. Playing college football and coaching sports made me appreciate the power of a crowd of people. Throughout the years, I continued to be awed by the energy of crowds in many diverse environments.

Sports teams, festivals, concerts, political rallies and protests gave me many opportunities to be part of a crowd. Intrigued by the graffiti art on Capitol Hill, I felt the impact and power of art. It hit me in the spring of 2020 that this was what I was meant to do. The pandemic and lockdown gave me lots of extra time. After setting up a studio in my garage, I started painting crowds and never stopped.

In January 2022 I had a stroke that paralyzed my right side. Swedish Hospital’s Cherry Hill Acute Rehab Center saved my life and strengthened my dedication to art. I made an amazing recovery, thanks to all of the staff there who worked with me. When I came home after 20 days one of the first things, I did was pick up my paint brush and finish a crowd of emergency room workers. I couldn’t believe my steady hand with that brush. I was meant to do this. My purpose in life at this time, was realized.

I focus on crowds of people and the energy they create. I hope the viewers will look closely at the details and realize the potential for conversation. Of course, as an educator I’m always thinking of its value for discussion. My pieces represent the diversity of our community with a focus on embracing our differences. As people view my work, I would like them to smile and be wowed by my interpretation.

Jerry's work available at Fogue Studios

Jerry and Pam Burkhalter donate a portion of all sales to 

Family First Community Center