Art’s Alive! 2009

Posted on November 9, 2009 by Steve@DunbarGardens

Katherine participated in the annual Art’s Alive celebration in nearby La Conner this past weekend. She entered this basket titled “Nana Queen” in the open show at the Maple Hall. On Sunday she demonstrated her basketry at the Skagit Historical Museum.

While she was working, I enjoyed talking to another artist, photographer Jeanne Hansen. She was explaining her black and white film work in particular. I have enjoyed seeing her work in other shows.

In the photo of Katherine, you can see her basket “Harvesting the Skagit” behind her to the right. We described this basket in an earlier post about the “Paint Me a River!” exhibit.

There were numerous artist demonstrations throughout the town. After Katherine’s demo, we wandered down to The Artist Remarque to see Jane Penman, metalsmith and lapidarist. She cuts a wide variety of stones in free-form and mounts them in simple silver designs that are quite lovely.

Festival of Family Farms

Posted on October 5, 2009 by Steve@DunbarGardens

Katherine finishes a willow basket

This past weekend Katherine was at the farm of our friends Eddie and Todd Gordon as part of the annual Skagit Valley Festival of Family Farms. Every year about a dozen farms in the valley host an open house for visitors to enjoy and explore the diversity of our farm community. Katherine has been doing a willow basketmaking demonstration at Gordon Skagit Farm the past five years. It’s a real family event and Katherine spends a lot of time talking to inquisitive children, especially the girls.

future basket maker?

Adair Orr and Missy Holland blacksmithing

Eddie Gordon has invited a number of his friends to participate in the event to make it both fun and educational. Besides Katherine doing a basketry demo, there is Adair Orr doing some blacksmithing, helped out by his partner Missy Holland and his father Frank Orr. Julie Blazek sets up with honey bee info. Then there are goodies like hot cider and baked goods by the La Conner school culinary program run by Georgia Johnson.

Vicki, Silas, and Randy James

Of course, the real draw is the fabulous variety of pumpkins, squash, and gourds that the Gordons grow and display so well. It’s a great spot to run into friends as well, like my friends Vicki and Randy who have a farm down in Silvana. They were checking out some of the unusual squash for their own table or perhaps to add to their list of produce they produce for their CSA someday.

Eddie Gordon

That’s the head pumpkin getting a quick chat in with Katherine. Thanks Eddie.

Juntunen Gardens

Posted on August 24, 2009 by Steve@DunbarGardens

Katherine at Juntunen Gardens

Katherine participated in an event this past Friday evening at Juntunen Farm & Gardens in Mount Vernon billed as a garden party and fundraiser for Seattle Children’s Hospital. Several groups helped organize the event including Skagit Artists Together of which Katherine is a member. Past President Thais Armstrong helped gather several artists from the group to come out and demonstrate their work in a beautiful garden setting that has been created by Rod and Mari Juntunen. There were also informational booths for SAT and the Museum of Northwest Art.

Painter Tom Pickett

Fiber artist Andi Shannon

Working artists included Andi Shannon, Tom Pickett, Karen Fishburn, Alfred Currier, Anne Schreivogl, and Katherine Lewis. SAT members John McClain, Kathy Huckleberry, and Rose Mary Tate staffed the group’s information booth. Of course, there was live music, beer and wine, and general merriment involved.

Katherine finishing a basket.

Katherine made a lovely oval fitched market basket during the event which Rod Juntunen’s sister purchased.

SAT studio tour

Posted on July 20, 2009 by Steve@DunbarGardens

baskets and willows at Dunbar Gardens

This past weekend was the sixth annual juried Skagit Artists Together studio tour. This is the second year that Katherine has participated. The tour is kind of an open farm day for us at Dunbar Gardens. Since Katherine actually works on the second floor of our old farmhouse, we display the baskets in our barn and Katherine demonstrates basketry outside. The nice thing for visitors is that they can see the connection between the craft and the materials. We invite people to walk out to see the willow fields. We can explain the process of growing, harvesting, drying, sorting, soaking, and finally weaving of the willows.

baskets in the barn

We had a beautiful two days for the tour. Traffic and sales were less than last year, but that was not surprising given the down economy. We hope folks enjoyed their visit. We were still selling some fresh produce from our garden like we do every weekend, so some people just stopped by for the vegies!

Heidi clowning around

Willow Basketmaker

Handcrafted Willow Baskets by Katherine Lewis

Tag Archives: Skagit Valley

Art’s Alive! 2009

Festival of Family Farms

Juntunen Gardens

SAT studio tour