The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

This month, a new gallery is opening and other galleries are featuring artists new to the community. The new gallery, Space in Common, owned by Amelia Morton, is at 351 W. Hood Ave. and will feature her work and selected pieces by upcoming artists. The gallery will officially open on June 2, but stop in during Fourth Friday Artwalk for a preview.

Raven Makes Gallery is in the third year of The Homelands Collection. Indigenous artists create ledger-style, narrative artwork on antique maps, to include a body of work representing Indigenous artists from across the earth. Artists from Peru, Nepal, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Northern Scandinavia, and the Torres Strait of Australia join artists from North America. Gallery owner Chris Morin says, "Using the title 'Decolonizing the Map' as this year's theme better illuminates how we brought together people worldwide in a singularly focused art exhibition. To our knowledge, a project of this nature has never been attempted." This year's edition offers 88 works from 28 artists. The Homelands Collection will be on exhibit until June 1.

Stitchin' Post's group exhibit is "In The MIX." MIX is a Portland-based mixed-media group. Members Lynn Anderson, Kathy Blondell, Betty Daggett, Annette McFarlane, Elaine Millar, and Hilde Morin use techniques including printing, painting, embroidery, piecing, appliqué, quilting, and more to bring original designs to life. Once a year, the group comes up with a challenge using common elements such as theme or measurements. The MIX blog is online at mixpdx.blogspot.com and on Instagram @mix_pdx.

Wildflower Studio owner Chris Nelson is her own featured artist this month. Nelson has new paintings, prints, and cards depicting local landscapes, birds, and florals. She works in oil with a loose painterly brushstroke and uses color and line to create detail in her paintings.

The Rickards Gallery features artist Sarah B. Hansen. A lifelong hiker, backpacker, and outdoor explorer, Hansen calls her show "Unlimited Skies: A Walk Through Nature." Her work taps the beauty of nature as she pushes and plays with shapes, colors, and textures to suggest landscape elements. In leaving certain parts undefined, she allows mystery and imagination to dance at the edges. She often scripts words such as journal excerpts or poetry into painted landscape to create a conversation about nature, and they suggest that not everything is known in the wild.

Toriizaka Art introduces the unique work of Ngo Van Sac (Vietnam). His mixed-media, two-dimensional works include wood burning, collage, and paints on natural wood. Years ago, when the French occupied Vietnam, they insisted that all the old manuscripts using the original Chinese characters be burned. This was a part of their "modernization" effort when changing the Vietnamese written language to the Latin or Roman alphabet. Van Sac's grandfather was a poet, philosopher, and professor, and instead of burning his manuscripts, he buried them. Today, Van Sac often incorporates these formerly forbidden manuscripts into his mixed-media works.

The Cindy and Duncan Campbell Gallery is featuring Sisters High School art students Abby Christopher, Makenzie French, Araiya Grummer, Devan Hepburn, Addie Kroytz, Zoey Lorusso, Adriana Luna, Kaleb Woods, and Sage Wyland. Each student chose an inquiry question as the premise for their projects and pursued a detailed investigative cycle through research, experimentation, creation, revision, reflection, and finally display. This show, a representation of what they studied and discovered, will be up until June 1.

Hood Avenue Art features photographer Scott Cordner, landscape painter Barbara Hudler Cella, and sculptor Michelle Deaderick. Cordner prints fine art landscapes on canvas and makes his own frames using renewable hardwoods, finishing with linseed oil and beeswax. Many of Hudler Cella's paintings are based on small plein air pieces that she's contemplated for a long time. Each of Deaderick's clay figures is a treasure to be passed down for generations.

Photo Provided

"Feeding My Spirit," 1827 Nova Scotia map by Loretta Gould at Raven Makes Gallery

Sisters Gallery & Frame features new monoprints and monotypes by Denise Kester, vessels in wood, alabaster, and soapstone by master woodworker John Scheideman, and clay plus pine-needle basket weaving from Ann Grossnickle and Kim Black. In her book, "Drawing on the Dream," Denise Kester explains, "Making art ... is how I express my love for the world." She is a printmaker specializing in viscosity printmaking, using oily lithography inks on a Plexiglas sheet or plate. "What I really do is use the medium of monoprinting to draw out my dreams." Gallery favorite artist Jennifer Hartwig, "The Scratchboard Lady," will be showing new pieces that have emerged from the dark of winter to the light of spring.

Sign up for $50 Quick Draw gift certificates, good at all participating galleries.