PORT TOWNSEND — Gallery-9 will be among the venues which will participate in the Art Walk from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday in downtown Port Townsend.
• Gallery-9, 1012 Water St., will feature the gourd art of Debbie Cain and the photography of Becky Stinnett from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Cain worked with stained glass for years before exploring 3-D gourd art in 2005 while living in Southern California.
She was intrigued by the possibilities of gourds as a multi-dimensional canvas. Her creative process includes wood-burning, carving by micro-carver and then painting by hand.
When she started, she had the opportunity to work side by side with Native American artists. Many of her pieces portray intricately carved animals, flowers and landscapes with a Native American motif.
Since she moved to the Pacific Northwest, her inspirations have changed with her surroundings.
“Hiking through nature and watching wildlife has enabled me to put my inspirations on the gourd canvas for people to enjoy,” Cain said. “I have always enjoyed creating through different mediums. Gourd art is where my heart lies because my imagination has no limits.”
Cain uses feathers, beads, cabochons and other natural items to embellish the gourds, and she also incorporates the use of pine needles and resin on many of her creations.
Stinnett arrived on the Olympic Peninsula from Wisconsin in 2013 with a bachelor’s degree in nuclear medicine technology.
In 2016, Stinnett acquired a digital single lens reflex camera so she could share the mountains, forests and beaches of her new home with her family in the Midwest.
“I have the extreme good fortune to explore wild places that few people have the opportunity to go to, and I want to share these sights with others,” Stinnett said. “My goal is to capture the scene and reproduce it on print so that others can appreciate the natural beauty our world has to offer. I hope to demonstrate through my photography why these places are worth protecting.”
Her recent work has focused on the night skies and the beauty in them that human eyes don’t have the sensitivity to perceive.
These shoots require a lot of planning and a great deal of luck.
First she decides on a location, then she uses phone apps and websites to figure out when and how the Milky Way will align with the foreground landscape. She plans the shoot as close to the new moon as possible, when the skies are the darkest.
On the day of the shoot, she crosses her fingers for clear skies before heading out with a backpack full of gear to her overnight location.
Stinnett’s photography can be viewed at www. beckystinnettphoto.com or on a couple of Clallam Transit buses.
Cain’s gourd art and Stinnett’s photography will be on exhibit at Gallery-9 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Mondays throughout March.
For more information, visit www.gallery-9.com.
