“Artists in Action” may stir surreal images of Andy Wharhol and James McNeil Whistler dueling with oils or Pablo Picasso slugging it out with Jackson Pollack, but Coupeville’s artists in action are anything but abstract.
During the annual Arts and Crafts Festival this weekend, local and regional artists will demonstrate their techniques in a range of media from oil portraiture to watercolor. Quilters, metal spinners, artistic blacksmiths and a pet hair yarn weaver will expand definitions of “art.”
Saturday, Beth Merrick, a member of Coupeville Basketmakers, will work on one of her projects. Twelve years ago Merrick took a basketweaving course in Ashville, N.C. The Coupeville artist now exhibits at Penn Cove Gallery.
“I went into my first class cold, and loved it,” Merrick said. “Basketweaving can be hard on the hands and fingers,” she commented. “But it’s my avocation.”
Merrick works in reed and focuses on Appalachian-style baskets and has made Pacific Northwest cedar baskets.
She purchases reed already sized but has collected cedar and split and scraped oak.
“I enjoy designing baskets more than I do harvesting materials,” Merrick said.
Buying sized reed is as close to bulk manufacturing as Merrick’s baskets get. The rest of the work is done by hand: dying the reed, building and weaving a basket, making a stain from black walnut shells and staining the finished baskets.
Coils of reed in varying widths hang from pegs in Merrick’s studio. Splotches of dye stains buckets and pots. Classical music plays softly in the room filled with soft filtered sunlight.
“Some baskets almost weave themselves, others are a fight,” Merrick said while working on a double-wall basket in dyed-red and natural reed.
The time it takes Merrick to finish a basket depends on the size of the basket and intricacy of its pattern. She estimates it takes 10 to 35 hours to complete a project.
Merrick uses no glue in her baskets. She relies on the integrity of the weave to hold her basket’s shapes. Wooden clothes pins hold the reed together as Merrick winds other strips around, over and under each other.
The process isn’t as slow as it is studied and smooth. As she reaches the end of a reed, Merrick carefully snips the end at an angle, secures the strip under a rib and clothespins the pieces together as she adds another strip. Basketmakers call this technique “shadowing.” The shadowed area is marginally thicker than other parts of the basket, but unless a trained eye knows where to look, the basket’s construction looks seamless.
In 12 years of basketmaking, Merrick admits to making her share of mistakes. Her first basket’s rim has loosened, another striking blue-and-cream basket has a bottom that was pulled out of alignment, the pattern on one didn’t please Merrick, another shape did not work. And another basket looks perfect but Merrick isn’t satisfied.
“I tossed the whole thing into dye. I didn’t like how it turned out,” Merrick said, turning the deep-green basket over in her hands.
She keeps mistakes in her studio as learning tools and as reminders of what not to try again.
Merrick, fellow Coupeville Basketmakers Mary Alice Sterling and Marge Bagwell are experimenting, trying to stop dyed reed from “bleeding” color onto undyed reed.
“Bleeding is a big problem. We’re working with dyes themselves and mordants, ‘fixatives” for dyes,’ ” Merrick said.
The colors Merrick chooses aren’t terribly bright but are deep, intense shades of green, red, blue woven between strands of natural reed. Final staining seems to barely darken the colors while highlighting the reed’s texture. Any bleeding of the dye will corrupt the intricate, precise patterns Merrick creates.
Merrick’s woven baskets are striking enough to be used only for decoration. However, she sees her works as functional items. “I don’t make objets d’art; I make utilitarian items. I want people to use my baskets,” Merrick said.
Festival schedule
The 40th annual Coupeville Arts and Crafts Festival runs 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. The festival kicks off Friday night with a preview of the juried arts show at Coupeville Rec Hall at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for the opening and a wineglass are $10 in advance, $14 at the door. Call 678-5116 for tickets. The two-day festival is free.
More than a dozen artists at this weekend’s festival will be showing festivalgoers it’s not as easy as it looks. Artists in Action this year include: Betty Jane Miller, Coupeville, Sumi painting; Joseph Albert III, Clinton, NW woodcarving; Roger Leonardi, Oak Harbor, waterfowl carving; Mary Alice Sterling, Coupeville, art baskets; Sue Martell, Greenbank, tatted lacemaking; Marge Newell, Coupeville, wood carving; Rainy Lindell, Coupeville, landscape painting;
Jim Simpson, Oak Harbor, portrait artist; Sue Martell, Greenbank, floral watercolors; Marla Streator, Port Townsend, freeform wax sculpting; Carolyn Smith, Vashon, spinning from fur of pets and native American species; Sheila Stump, Marysville, collage artist; Jack Davis, Tacoma, metal spinner.
The weekend’s music schedule is:
Saturday, Aug. 9
11 -11:45 a.m. Rob Rigoni of Budapest West
12:15 -1 p.m. Middle 8
1:30 -2:15 p.m. Rob Rigoni of Budapest West
2:45 -3:30 p.m. Middle 8
4 -5 p.m. 3 Boat Wait
Sunday, Aug. 10
11 a.m. -1 p.m. Janie Cribbs Band
1:30 -3:30 p.m. Bahia
4 -5 p.m. No Band is an Island
