I enjoy participating in this local and annual call for art at Make.Shift

2024 - Join us on Friday, May 3rd from 5pm-9pm as we celebrate the opening of “Haiku", the seventh annual collaboration between Make.Shift and 4th, 5th and 6th grade students at SamishWoods Montessori.

Each year, students create watercolor paintings based on a theme and artists in the
Bellingham community and beyond create response pieces in a variety of mediums. Each diptych created in
this collaborative manner tells the story of a visual dialogue between a student and an adult artist, with the
student taking the lead and providing the inspiration for the adult. This format challenges the notion that adults
are always the teachers, the leaders, and the sources of inspiration. Students really enjoy seeing the way their
paintings are interpreted and relish the chance to take the lead in the creation process.

This year’s theme is “haiku” and students each wrote a haiku and created a painting to visually represent it. For
cultural context, Mayumi Paluh visited the classroom to share with students about the history and significance
of Haiku in Japan, and about growing up in a Japanese town famous for haiku.

My Student's Name: Shylo

Shylo's Haiku and Art:

Haiku

Rain

The blossom tree sways 

as the sweet wind blows softly 

and the petals fall off.

My submit: 

title: pink petal in the rain

size: 4x6

medium: photograph

instagram

bio: For quite sometime I thought of myself as a closet creative. To me, that meant I wasn’t officially an artist.  As of late, I am out of the closet creatively. I feel like an artist each and every day! I am captivated by the image stories around me. This has me taking way too many photographs! Self taught, utilizing a simple point and shoot camera, I work intuitively. My image capturing style is described as organic, up close, and authentic. They say that my images are narrative. I like that! 

artist statement: In the past i have submitted collage art to this group show, but my first thought after reading Shylo's beautiful Haiku was this photograph. taken in 2016.

please donate this photograph to the artist and family. 

Karen Hanrahan

Make.Shift Art Space is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit DIY venue dedicated to providing a space for all ages art and
music in Bellingham. The 8,000-square-foot space includes 21 studios, an award-winning gallery, a live music
performance space and a low-power radio station KZAX 94.9. We are an all-ages space dedicated to a policy
of no booze, no drugs, no jerks. 

Smith and Vallee Gallery is in the old school house in Edison which is in the Skagit Valley, WA. When I moved to the PNW ( in 2015 ) I felt like a stranger in a strange land. Since I was raised in the midwest I sometimes feel like I might always feel that way. The two are so different!

This is my 6th year participating in the galleries bird themed invitational. I pinch myself at how many years I've participated because sometimes i still feel new here. The gallery makes me feel like I belong and I really value that. 

For Fowl Play I submitted older works. 6 bird pieces made during a time when I was still developing my stitched collage work. I had been gifted a book of vintage birds, and a priceless bird book made by a 9 year old boy in 1935. He was the father of a gal I know. These 6 resources for these particular birds are from 1900. All told 40 + pieces of collage art were made at this time.  They have shown in a variety of circumstances, some have sold. I've not shown these 6 yet, which is why I felt that they would be perfect for this year. By design they hang individually but in a grid, a bit like a quilt.

I love the 30 minute trek to Edison. I visit certain places near by and snap an annual image. An "I see you" moment, mostly in the form of a drive by. its just enough of a dose of road trip, familiar and beautiful to have me feel happy. I like that.

I make sure to use the rest room at the gallery. ( art in bathrooms. love. ) 

and to eat a kouign-mann from Bread Farm ( omg )

I took a series much like this once before. I think in 2019.  

( when they come up in my memories again - I will try and copy the image files ) 

I think this could be fun to post annually. 

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