Everyone assumes that artists are passionate about their work and have a compelling need to make it.  But then what?  Some of the best of the best, not unlike musicians (or bull riders!), take to the road.  Portland is home to quite a few travel -experienced professionals.  Gail Pendergrass, a local potter and Melissa Stiles, jeweler, have mastered not only art, but also the art of shipping, display, selling, bookkeeping, and travel.  And they maintain a vigorous schedule, covering the US at sometimes-weekly intervals.

Art In The Pearl is put on by an all volunteer artist board that has the collective experience to put on Portland’s huge three-day event. They all know what it takes to get their stuff from here to there and have experienced first hand the foibles of it all such as lost luggage or sudden stormy weather.  Consider the solitary artist making exquisitely executed personal art in the basement, struggling to get it together in a booth despite the airlines, teamsters, mother nature, etc. and then calmly and coolly selling it to the public (as in “we artists clean up real good”.)  Just the cost and planning required to transform a 10×10 canvas tent into an appealing mini-gallery might daunt casino online the uninspired.   Then will it go by land or air and how many times will it be handled before it’s carefully unpacked in a narrow window of time before the public shows up?  When said art doesn’t show up at the correct location or snow, wind or torrents make their appearances, how does that artist cope? And let’s not even mention digging out the “artist show clothes” or how shy persons have to master taking personal risk and speaking regularly to the public. 

 Those 20 artist board members have seen it all and bring that understanding to make sure that 100 tents will be full of the finest art in the country, on time, looking spectacular.”

Kina Crow will return to Pearl this year after completing some of the biggest best shows in the country this spring and summer.  Describing herself as “self-taught, self indulgent, self-absorbed and self-depreciating,” Kina's humor and insight infuses clay and mixed media sculptures that blew Pearl's visitors’ socks off last summer (and she nearly sold out).  Crow’s little characters exude big notions and no doubt meeting with her would be as funny and engaging casino online as her work. Guaranteed cool!

 Arunas Oslapas will also return after a summer of shows with an entirely different visual story to tell.  Anyone who has ever encountered that metal strapping used around lumber, pallets or cartons, knows it is a sharp, spring-loaded beast.  Arunas makes the most beautiful baskets and quilts with the stuff; exquisitely colored and rusted, it’s a visual “ahhh”.  WAY wonderful!

Eileen brings her mind blowing colored pencil drawings to Pearl for the first time this year.  When asked about her start she says, “I have always drawn, not always well but I loved it and kept at it. It is basically a hobby that evolved into an obsession that is now my career.

My medium, colored pencil, is a bit unique in that not many artists are out there working with a drawing medium. I like to think my compositions also set me apart from other artists out. Currently, birds are my main subject matter, and I use them to tell my visual stories.  I have a degree in Wildlife Science from the University of Washington that taught me a lot about animal habitat and anatomy.  It also taught me to really look at things and see how they work. That attention to detail really shaped the way I work as an artist, the scientist in me is accurate and thoughtful and the artist in me is whimsical and colorful.

Eileen is a member of Women Painters of Washington, International Guild of Realism, Society of Animal Artists and Colored Pencil Society of America.

Returning to Pearl for the second time, Michelle takes traditional techniques of wet felting and mixes fibers of silk and wool to create hand-felted silk.  Her experience at Kansas City Art Institute provided a foundation for fiber techniques that she employs in her studio to this day.  Michelle is a member of the Surface Design Association.

Jacquline will bring her wonderfully inventive work to Pearl for the tenth time this year.  Making imagery that populates an inner imaginary world, Jacquline describes her work as:

“’odd.’   I don't know how else to put it. I think it has a psychological twist that draws people in. They don't quite know what to make of it until they start looking at it closely. Then they seem to see something in it that they can relate to on some personal level.

Life experiences seem to be the fuel that drives me. I take those experiences, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and try to make artwork from them using my own symbols and imagery.

The fact that I was born and raised on a small mid-western farm has a lot to do with my love of nature and solitude which are reflected in my work.

Past relationships of all kinds are great creative fuel and show up over and over in my pieces.

The human condition, the big picture and the small can always influence what I'm doing in the studio. I love to delve into the psychological aspects that make us who we are.”

This is the eighth successive year Thomas will be bringing his woodcarvings to Art In The Pearl.  He started carving wood as a teenager and continued into making sculpture. People began requesting carved work so he got into custom woodcarving for 15 years, and eventually into carving linocuts.

Thomas says, ”My sculpture is folk art influenced but with a contemporary narrative, and often ironic humor. My online casinos prints are very graphic, influenced by cartooning, Old World religious art, among other things.  Perhaps my Norwegian ancestry has a say in the technical side of what I do. Then there's Mad Magazine's “Spy vs. Spy”, and those cold Minnesota winters.  Thomas is a member of Waterstone Gallery.