First Saturday Art Walk set this weekend in Port Townsend

Published 1:30 am Thursday, April 30, 2026

PORT TOWNSEND — A variety of artwork will be on view during the First Saturday Art Walk this weekend in Port Townsend.

The monthly event will be from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, mostly in the downtown area.

Among the galleries that will stay open late are Gallery 9 and the Port Townsend Gallery.

• Gallery 9, 1012 Water St., will host a reception for the gallery’s featured artists, Moss Magill and Jenifer Caldwell.

Caldwell, one of the newest members of the gallery’s North Olympic Artist Cooperative, creates necklaces, rings and earrings from sea glass and other objects tumbled by ocean waves. She gathers the objects while diving, then wraps them with finely tooled silver casings.

“I have always had a passion for jewelry,” Caldwell said. “In my previous career, I worked as an interior designer. I find the same principles apply to creating jewelry. Scale, color and proportions are just a few design elements I utilize.”

Magill paints in acrylics on a variety of surfaces, such as canvas, foam board, recycled cardboard and lampshades. He began painting more than 30 years ago when he decided to paint a portrait of a friend from a photograph for a surprise birthday gift.

“Never mind that I had never painted before or knew anything about how to go about it,” Magill said. “I persevered anyway and produced something that struck a surprising likeness to its subject.”

After that, he studied at the Art Institute of Seattle and the Seattle Academy of Realist Art. His current body of work is visual representations of the poetic verses in “Giving LOVE the Last WORD: An Emotion Literate’s Lexicon” by Seattle poet Pamela Sackett.

Magill’s paintings, in a palette of purples and teals, capture the essence of the book’s poetic messages.

Also showcased in the gallery window during May will be driftwood carvings by Melissa Moller, turned wood bowls and implements by Jon Geisbush and oil paintings by Gary Rainwater.

Magill’s paintings and Caldwell’s jewelry will be on exhibit at Gallery-9 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily throughout May.

For more information, visit www.gallery-9.com.

• The Port Townsend Gallery, 715 Water St., will host a reception for Cathie Wier and Melissa Bixby, its featured artists in May, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday.

Wier is a weaver and silk artist who uses texture and color in her work. She has been exploring pleating by designing intricate warps for the loom that create patterns of pleats and combinations of color.

Wier draws her inspiration from the ocean, wild rivers, forests and gardens. She employs stitching, steaming and dyeing silk to create a variety of textures and uses the transparency of the material to layer it over woven or dyed backgrounds.

Bixby has been capturing marine life and colors of the waters of the Pacific Northwest in her silk batiks for years.

More recently, her photographic work has begun to stand on its own.

Bixby reveals a world that exists just beneath the surface, through both her mediums.

Weir’s fiber arts and Bixby’s photography will be on display from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily throughout May.

For more information, call the gallery at 360-379-8110 or visit www.porttownsend gallery.com.