Elizabeth Aline Colburne (1885-1948) was one of the most accomplished artists ever active in Washington State. An integral part of the regional Arts and Crafts Movement, she is known today for her extraordinary color woodcuts produced during the 1920s and 1930s. These prints depict the Pacific Northwest landscape in a technique that was highly influenced by Japanese ukiyo-e prints. Colborne elected to design, carve, and print her own editions, using brilliant colors and innovative, multiple overlay techniques. Evergreen Muse is the first in-depth study of her art and presents all the known color woodcuts that she created.
In addition to color woodcuts, Colborne made drawings in graphite and colored pencil, as well as small, intimate and highly detailed gouache paintings. Born in South Dakota, the artist divided her time between Bellingham, Washington, and New York, where she studied with Rockwell Kent, Robert Henri, and Allen Lewis and became a leading children's book illustrator.
David F. Martin is an independent art historian and curator in Seattle.

Evergreen Muse: The Art of Elizabeth Colborne

Arts & Photography

Martin, David F.

History & Criticism

Whatcom Museum

Lesley Dill is one of the most prominent artists working at the intersection of language and art. Experimenting with a wide range of tactile materials, she fuses poetry and images to create evocative mixed-media artworks and performances.Inspired by her two-year sojourn in India and the illuminating aspects of diverse faith traditions, Dill interprets relationships between the physical and the spiritual. Her expressive artworks, layered with multiple meanings, also reference nature and human identity.This book focuses on two bodies of the artist's work: metallic sculptures such as Shimmer and the drawing-and-textile based installation, Encountering Sister Gertrude Morgan, which interprets the life of the New Orleans missionary and folk artist. Unified by layers of words, figures, and symbolic imagery, the artworks underline Dill's desire to render transcendental experience into form.

Lesley Dill's Poetic Visions: From Shimmer to Sister Gertrude Morgan

Matilsky, Barbara C.

Vanishing Ice introduces the rich artistic legacy of the planet’s frozen frontiers now threatened by a changing climate. Tracing the impact of glaciers, icebergs, and fields of ice on artists' imaginations, this interdisciplinary survey explores the connections between generations of artists who adopt different styles, media, and approaches to interpret alpine and polar landscapes. Beginning in the eighteenth century, collaborations between the arts and sciences contributed to a deeper understanding of snowcapped mountains, the Arctic, and Antarctica. A resurgence of interest in these environments as dramatic indicators of climate change galvanizes contemporary expeditions to the glaciers and the poles. Today, artists, writers, and scientists awaken the world to both the beauty and increasing vulnerability of ice.

Vanishing Ice: Alpine and Polar Landscapes in Art, 1775-2012

Painting

Born in Riverside, California in 1937 and profoundly affected by World War II, Ed Bereal made significant contributions to assemblage and performance arts in Los Angeles during the early 1960s through 1980s. A consummate draftsman and object maker, Bereal found inspiration in such divergent sources as Norman Rockwell's illustrations and the tableaux of Ed Kienholz. His "political cartoons" are unique portraits of America filtered through the lens of an artist who lived through the 1965 Watts riots, founded the noted Black street theater Bodacious Buggerilla, and traveled to hot spots around the world as a film journalist. At the age of 82, Bereal distills a lifetime of experiences through an explosion of provocative imagery and narrative, sparking conversations about identity and racial inequity, violence and war, and political and corporate power. Whatcom Museum curator Amy Chaloupka presents an expansive overview of the artist's six-decade career in an introductory essay. Matthew Simms delves into Bereal's early journal sketches, particularly his self-portraits, from his time at Chouinard, where Bereal was a student of Irwin's. Malik Gaines, who was responsible for bringing Bereal's Bodacious Buggerilla theater troupe together for a reunion performance in 2012 as part of the Getty's Pacific Standard Time initiative, discusses the importance of Bereal's contributions to guerrilla theater arising in the Post-Watts atmosphere in Southern California. Vernon Damani Johnson concentrates on Bereal's politically charged paintings and installations, and particularly his motif of Miss America, tracing in his essay the trajectory of Bereal's powerful iconography across three decades and what it has to say in a Post-Ferguson era.

Wanted: Ed Bereal: For Disturbing the Peace

Coinciding with the centennial of women’s suffrage in Washington State, Show of Hands: Northwest Women Artists 1880-2010 surveys the contributions made by women to the legacy of Pacific Northwest art. Highlighting work in all media by artists from Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia, it presents an intergenerational dialogue that unfolds thematically. Show of Hands, which accompanied an exhibition at the Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, Washington, features geometric and biomorphic abstract artworks created to convey transcendental experiences and the beauty of form. It also focuses on artists whose representational approach expresses personal or communal stories that reference historical, social, and environmental issues. Many artists find inspiration in Native American art, and the heritage of women’s handicrafts is given a new twist by contemporary artists who reinterpret skills passed down through generations. Show of Hands also includes a wide variety of landscapes, which inspired many of the earliest artists.

Show of Hands: Northwest Women Artists 1880-2010

Endangered Species: Artists on the Front Line of Biodiversity highlights sixty artists who celebrate biodiversity's beauty, interpret natural and human-induced extinctions, and focus on endangered species from diverse ecosystems. It includes the work of artists who spotlight human actions threatening biodiversity alongside art projects that revitalize habitats and reconnect people to the natural world. Endangered Species surveys a wide range of approaches and media used by artists spanning the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries. By tracing links between contemporary and earlier artists, it reveals continuity within a rich cultural tradition of engagement with nature conservation. Juxtaposing the history of art and natural science, Endangered Species explores artists' pivotal role in raising awareness about biodiversity's importance.

Endangered Species: Artists on the Front Line of Biodiversity

Science & Math

Nature & Ecology

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