I’ve always liked wood. When I was a kid, I found it easy to work with and I could use it to make stuff that seemed pretty cool back then. Today I still like working with it, but more than anything else, I’m now fascinated by the infinite variety and extraordinary beauty that it offers, something I very much enjoy sharing with others.

Marcy Anholt has been making stained glass windows professionally since 1977. Her windows sparkle across the United States from Washington, Ohio, Alabama, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Oregon, and California, and around the world from Australia to Canada.

I enjoy making every window by hand, from start to finish. I specialize in traditional-styled stained glass using the best available materials.

I take great pride in my work and have a deep love of glass; I am always thrilled to see the sunlight come through a new window for the first time. Each window is the culmination of my skills and experience and your ideas and personality; I love to see how these elements combine differently with every project for a beautiful, one-of-a-kind art window. My work brings joy to others each time the sun shines through, and I love that the most.

I am a self-taught artist and have been painting for more than 30 years. I grew up in logging camps and this environment constantly exposed me to nature. This kindled my interest in landscapes, animals, florals and still life. I began by drawing on anything I could find and when finances allowed, I moved on to cheap watercolors and then finally to oil, acrylics and gouache.

One of my biggest influences in art came in the 80s when I was introduced to the teachings of Betty Edwards with the book “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain”. The book taught me how to look at subjects for a different perspective and enabled me to improve my drawing and painting abilities.

My style is realism and impressionism. I paint mainly in oils and paint subjects that interest and excite me and also subjects that the viewer can relate to, whether it be a landscape, floral arrangement, still life or portrait.

My artistic journey has led me from oils to pastels to acrylics to watercolor and back to oils again. In addition, I have painted portraits, still life, landscapes and now I am fascinated by abstract. Currently my personal artistic expression is freed from all adherence to form, allowing me to totally engage with my inner self and grant my creativity permission to flow into my work.

Painting abstracts in oil with cold wax medium is a great revelation to me as it seemed to open me up to possibilities that were not there before. The effects and textures possible are endless. The mystery of this mixture of oil paint with cold wax medium is that it starts out soft and buttery and dries to a smooth satin sheen, leaving the viewer with few clues to how effects were achieved.

The excitement of walking into my creative space, putting my thoughts and feelings onto a canvas is like putting a handful of Pop Rocks into my mouth. The pops are energizing, awakening and some downright hurt.

I use many mediums to get to the image before you. Bursts of color that excite the soul and welcome you to peek into what was once my past and the blinding light of my future. I know not, what will emerge out of my inner feelings, onto the canvas until it is ready to go on the journey with the quiet and sometimes wild artist that exists in me.

We lost Bob Espen to a stroke in February of 2021. Bob called himself a turner, and said he just liked to see what he could do, but he was a magician when it came to wood

Bob Espen was based in Toledo, Washington

Bob moved to Toledo a few years ago after spending 23 years in Alaska. When he wasn’t working at an Anchorage power plant monitoring gas and steam turbines, he spent his free time in his shop turning wood he found in the wilderness. Prior to Alaska, he served for six years aboard the Navy vessel USS Carpenter.

Espen credits his style to a mixture of on-the-job training and being self-taught. If you had the chance to meet him, he would talk your ear off about how he acquired each piece of wood and how the unique shape of each piece inspired its design. Many of the artists working at the gallery can tell you all the stories, because he talked our ears off, too.

Paula moved to Olympia in 2016 She is a self-taught nature and landscape photographer her portfolio displays her range as well as her ability to translate scenes with even the most unconventional features and challenging conditions into works of captivating art. Glaser has a strong will to get the shot no matter what or how long it takes. She uses her photographs that call attention to things other people may overlook and seeks the unknown while looking for the light within the shadows. As an artist her ability to capture moments of serenity, excitement and wonder have enhanced her passion.

Paula’s work is collected in the Pacific Northwest as well as the San Francisco Bay area.

The creation and interpretation of art is, thankfully, a very individual process.

My craft involves the fusion of silver and copper in sheet and wire form, with semi-precious stones. It is a blend of the hammered working of the metals with imaginative placement of the stones, as I take advantage of the unique color, form and character of each.

Each individual stone offers its own personality and enjoyable challenge as I strive to create one of a kind wearable jewelry and small wall art.

I thoroughly enjoy every opportunity to learn new things, and to be able to expand my skills and knowledge.

Everyone is an artist, no matter the form it may take. Over my lifetime, I have been involved in music, theatre arts, visual arts and writing. This has taken place through degree work, participation, teaching and self-actual application.

I taught students who became joyous at their personal discoveries of talent and on-going success that was so their own. Time is a measurement for the creativity of human beings expressed through art forms. From human chaos and disaster, the arts arise and heal.

For me this exposure has been the stage of theatre and musical performance, the pages of books, the walls of galleries and museums, and my own classroom. A culture/society without this exposure is doomed to the mundane of a laborious existence without exposing the recognition of all beauty.

Art is to be shared. My own paintings have accomplished this belief by joining other artists in sharing shows and gallery space, encouraging people of all ages, and being happy to share with family and friends

Art is a savior of mind, spirit and inner being.

Brent Knott