Sequim Gazette staff
With their talents combined, five local artists host a rare opportunity to find some of the best art in Sequim.
Catherine Mix, Paulette Hill and Pat Starr are partnering with Linda Collins Chapman and Rocky Fankhouser for ARTfusion, an original art show at the Cutting Garden on October 18 and 19.
“This is a show for serious collectors,” Hill, a jeweler, said.
All five have been working on art specifically for the show throughout the year.
“I paint for this show every year,” Mix, a watercolor and pastel painter, said. “This is my annual show.”
Mix founded the show in 2004 with Starr, a watercolorist, and Diane Johnston, a Raku sculptor, with the goal to create a “spectacular show,” she said.
ARTfusion has been held at different times of year, but Mix said they like the fall because it brings people inside and her garden is still interesting looking this time of year. They plan to transform the garden’s house and try and set this event apart from the Sequim Arts Studio Tour, which most of them participated in.
“Basically, that was people teaching, demonstrating and selling but this is showing and selling,” Mix said.
Collins Chapman, a ceramics artist, said everyone involved is a professional artist with rich professional backgrounds in the art world.
“I’ve been told that it takes 10,000 hours to become a professional artist and in Japan it takes seven years to make a master potter,” she said.
“All of us have dedicated our lives to our crafts. I think about what I do all the time.”
Fankhouser, who has been a hobby woodworker for more than 40 years, agrees.
“I look at a stack of wood and see a chair in there somewhere,” he said.
As the newbies, Collins Chapman and Fankhouser are honored to be a part of the show.
“This is a destination venue,” Collins Chapman said. “People zip by all the time and now have another reason to stop by.”
More on the artists
Linda Collins Chapman uses the ancient decorative technique of sgraffitto, creating pattern and three-dimensional effects on the surface of her pots. Her porcelain pieces are wheel-thrown, combining both the traditional manner and unusual approaches to achieve risky and innovative vessels.
Rocky Fankhouser dabbles in multiple mediums like fiberglass, metal, cement, plastic and glass. His work uses wood-turning, constructing fine rustic furniture, bird houses and weather vanes, as well as sand-blasted glass and carved concrete.
Paulette Hill works with the subtle textures and colors from nature, vivid colors, energy and sparkle of crystals in her jewelry. She includes stones, metals, woods, pearls, and beads in her earrings, bracelets and necklaces.
Catherine Mix paints with either pastel or watercolor, sometimes together, to capture the spectacular scenery of the Olympic Peninsula and the manner that light passes through glass or water onto an object. She paints to reveal light and shadow and the electric color combinations they create.
Pat Starr paints watercolor landscapes and animals while this year’s ARTfusion shows her landscapes of the Olympic Peninsula. Her work has been displayed in juried exhibits throughout the United States and her painting, “Day Lake” won Best of Show at the Northwest Watercolor Society’s Waterworks Show in 2006.
