Mercer Island Artists Celebrated At Home

"Spotlight on Mercer Island Artists," Mercer Island Arts Council Gallery, 8236 S.E. 24th St., through Sept. 10. Free. 236-3545. --------------------------------------------------------------- -- MERCER ISLAND

In search of hidden talent on Mercer Island, the Island Arts Council has uncovered works bound to history and nature and touched with spirituality.

The council's "Spotlight on Mercer Island Artists" focuses on those who've rarely exhibited on the island, said Jane Nelson, a member of the gallery committee. "From what you hear in the community, you begin to realize that there are a lot of people doing some substantive work that you never hear about, she said.

The council ran a newspaper announcement asking for submissions from Mercer Island artists and selected six to display.

For several years, freelance graphic artist Gail Spangenbery-Parrish has specialized in painting coats of arms. Those who commission the works trace their genealogies to find the original designs, Spangenbery-Parrish said.

From either sketches or descriptions she modernizes the ensigns, straightening extra curves and corners to minimize the distortion of figures without sacrificing authenticity, she said. In the treatment of colors, among other elements, her designs must also be heraldically correct to be registered with the College of Arms in England, she said. Registration ensures that a coat-of-arms design can't be copied.

Spangenbery-Parrish, who came to the Northwest 20 years ago, trained as an artist and began working in the field of heraldry in South Africa.

Africa is one of many places photographer Duke Coonrad has traveled to to capture nature on film. "The animals there will hunt right in front of you," Coonrad said. The wildlife of the Florida Everglades is no less uninhibited, he added. "You can be so close to the birds you can watch them fish." Chronicling nature up close and from a distance, Coonrad's photographic style is a mixed bag but never haphazard.

Though Coonrad focuses on wildlife, perhaps his most well-known photograph, now a poster, is of the Space Needle during an electric storm.

With a degree in biology and a long-held love of animals, nature is a natural as the subject matter for sumi painter Catherine Kapp. "The barriers between humans and animals are largely in our minds," said Kapp, who included a few of her cat paintings in the Mercer Island exhibit.

"Part of the real pleasure of sumi painting is that everything is organic," she said. Along with using handmade paper, Kapp makes the ink by grinding together sticks of compressed soot and a binder. "Such a repetitive motion is supposed to settle your spirit before you begin painting," she said.

"Violation" and "The Initiation," two works included in the exhibit, exemplify sculptor Susan Price's focus on contemporary social issues. "The images are concrete, but the story is more illusive. It probes your subconscious," she said. Price, who began sculpting a year and a half ago after working as a fabric artist for 20 years, said she's freer to express herself in this medium.

Batik artist Hope L. Lawrence also works with cloth. The art form utilizes different resist methods to block dyes from mixing together as they're applied, she explained. By cracking the beeswax she uses, she does allow some mixing to create gradation, as a painter would mix colors on the palate, said Lawrence, who used to be a painter.

Francis Kalensky, a graphic designer, painter and sculptor, fled his native Czechoslovakia in 1987, in part for artistic freedom. His work will also be on display at the exhibit.