Stop and sniff the art in Port Townsend on Saturday

EDITOR’S NOTE: This has been corrected to include a reception at the Port Townsend Gallery.

PORT TOWNSEND — Eccentric art exploring the human mind, nature and history will be on display Saturday during the Port Townsend Gallery Walk.

During the free event, which occurs the first Saturday of every month from 5:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., art galleries and venues in the downtown waterfront district show off the work of local artists while encouraging participants to explore the many nooks and crannies of the town’s historic center.

Here’s a sampling of events:

• The Port Townsend Gallery, 715 Water St., during Gallery Walk will host a reception for Anne Schneider and Phillip Carrico.

Schneider and Carrico are the featured artists for the month of November.

Schneider is a mixed media collage artist whose work entails is a process of layering papers with acrylic paints on substrates of canvas, wood boards or papers, according to a news release.

Following the layering, a process of adding transparent layers begins. After many layers of paint and papers and use of colors, a balance and dimensionality emerges in the work.

One of Schneider’s featured pieces, “Stamp of Approval,” features old Stamps, while another, “Dunes,” bringing the colors and movement of sand to life, according to the release.

Carrico specializes in printmaking, which he studied at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

He does woodcuts and wood engravings that begin with a sketch that is transferred to a block of wood. From there, Carrico uses special tools to hand carve the block and pulls original prints from the block.

He also does multi-colored prints, with as many as 13 colors, which is a more precise and time-consuming process, accoring to the release.

Much of his work portrays the Alaska wilderness and wildlife.

For more information, call 360-379-8110 or visit www.porttownsendgallery.com.

• Gallery 9, 1012 Water St., during Gallery Walk will feature art glass by Nancy Rody and an environmental mural by Larry Eifert.

Both artists will be on hand to meet the public and answer questions about their works.

Rody, a long-time Gallery Nine artist, has been experimenting with recycled glass and presents a new collection of jewelry made from broken blown glass and sea glass, according to a news release.

Blown glass that drops accidentally onto the hot shop floor has beautiful colors and abstract shapes, and these pieces inspired a new series of pendants made from a material that is often discarded, according to the release.

The sea glass was gathered from beaches in Washington and Hawaii — its color and texture the result of rolling among waves, sand and rock in the ocean.

Eifert will present a recently-completed, 18-square-foot mural for Mount Rainier National Park.

Commissioned by the National Park Service for a new installation at the Carbon River Ranger Station and Visitor Center, this painting shows the “complexities of that rare inland temperate rain forest, a forest compressed and brimming with wildlife and wild plants,” Eifert said.

Eifert said he rarely shows his large paintings in Port Townsend, adding this is a chance to see his painting processes and passion for nature.

For more information, visit www. gallery-9.com or call 360-379-8881.

• Northwind Arts Center, 701 Water St., during Gallery Walk will host a reception for jeweler Paulette Hill, who will be on hand to meet the public.

Hill, born and raised in Parkland, said in a news release that she has always loved art, nature and animals of all kinds.

Comfortable with needle, thread and a sewing machine since the age of 9, Hill remains devoted to artistic detail work to this day.

In the mid-1970s, Hill majored in fashion design at Washington State University.

She then went to work for Boeing for more than three decades.

Hill returned to her creative roots, and has been a jeweler for the past seven years.

She said her most loved technique is wire wrapping rare stones from all over the world, adding she is always on the look-out for unique stones throughout her travels.

With her jewelry, Hill has been a featured artist at the former LARC Gallery in Sequim, the Heatherton Gallery in Port Angeles and is a member of ARTfusion, a small group of artists who host an annual Art Show and Sale over Labor Day weekend in Sequim.

At 7 p.m. Nov. 11, Hill will demonstrate her wire-wrapping techniques on a semi-precious formally cut cabochon — a shaped and polished gemstone — at Northwind Arts Center.

During the demonstration, Hill will use sterling silver and/or gold-filled square and half round wire to encase and enhance the stone, according to the news release. She also will demonstrate stitching and necklace assembly.

For more information, visit www.northwindarts.org or call 360-683-6999.

• The Jefferson Museum of Art &History, 540 Water St., during Gallery Walk will feature the exhibits “Quilting Memories” and “The Printed Word in Port Townsend: Literary Presses of the 1970s and ‘80s.”

“Quilting Memories” features 26 quilts on loan from community members and from the Jefferson County Historical Society collection dating back as far as the American Civil War.

“The Printed Word in Port Townsend: Literary Presses of the 1970s and ‘80s” explores the world of small presses during the town’s creative renaissance.

For more information, visit www.jchsmuseum.org.

• Pippa’s Real Tea, 636 Water St., during Gallery Walk will host a meet and greet with painter Andrea K. Lawson.

Lawson’s exhibit, “Seascape Mindscape,” is on display through December.

Featured in the exhibition is Lawson’s new “Brain Beauty” series inspired by images of the human brain at the microscopic level.

The acrylic paintings are a smaller version of Lawson’s “Brain Beauty, Beauty Brain” public art installation at Camano Island Library in Island County.

Merging art and science, Lawson said she rendered her concept of brain functions with colorful abstract gestures across nine painted panels — each representing different parts of the brain seen at different levels of magnification.

At first glance, Lawson said, the paintings appear abstract expressionist, but are actually specific images of brain functions such as the neocortex, the retina, the Hippocampus, neurons and glial cells.

“Advances in Scientific research and methods of imaging have gathered new visual information about the brain which controls our cognitive processes, our physical movements and even our memories,” Lawson said.

“Both the organ, and the learning process itself, give us the ability to think at a high level and to create functions which distinguish us as human beings.”

Lawson said she sees her paintings as the visual manifestation of these microscopic spaces — metaphors for intellectual metaphysical ideas as well as visual forms evolving from contemporary art history.

The remainder of the “Seascape” art exhibit consists of pieces inspired by local views of the Olympic Peninsula’s bays, oceans and skies, Lawson said.

Andrea paints in a studio overlooking Port Townsend Bay.

Pippa’s Real Tea is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday.

For more about Lawson, visit www.andreaklawson.com.

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Features Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56650, or at cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com.