Redmen Hall exhibit features 3 local artists

The three artists exhibiting at Redmen Hall are at varied points in their careers and use different mediums.

Exhibit curator Jill Hatier said she was struck by the ways the artists are interpreting the world and called the exhibit Explorations.

Martie Vavoudis calls herself a ceramicist. She said, “I’ve been engaged with ceramics for the past thirty years, and hope I’ll be doing it for the next thirty.”

The show includes ceramic objects including a life-size bust of a fellow art student.

She is also exploring a new direction—using plaster and paint on panels, working to manipulate color in a palette of what she calls “hippie colors.”

A sign saying “Executrix” hangs beside Martie Vavoudis’ collection of ceramic panels. Vavoudis was executrix of her mother’s estate, and says she still misses her mother every day. She’s taped a photograph of her mother to the back of the sign.

Nick Deal is a 17-year-old photographer, who’s been taking and showing pictures since he was 12 and has been winning awards at the Wahkiakum County Fair for much of that time. A photograph of a playground in Spain won the best in show prize.

Deal plans a career in art. Although he worked with his grandfather, Kyle Gribskov, with glass-blowing, he’s isn’t sure what art form he’s interested in.

Nick’s father, Sean Deal, acts as a photographer’s helper. He remembers stopping traffic on Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway in Portland so that Nick could shoot an abstract geometric print. Sean Deal said his son takes about 600 shots a year and he was pleased that the show allowed a broader range of photos than are possible at the county fair.

Some of the images that Nick likes are a recent study of area wetlands, or swamps, as he calls them.

Noreen Fitts was interested in art, but didn’t begin studying watercolor until her children were grown.

For the past 12 years she’s been painting, and began to exhibit in the past few years. Her subjects are flowers and the natural world. Paintings exhibited include rhododendrons and a chickadee. One of her favorite paintings in the current exhibit shows skunk cabbage blossoms.

“They’re one of the first things we see in spring with any color. One of the first signs of spring,” Fitts said.

Despite their different media, each of the artists is likely to agree with Friederich Nietschze’s quote in Vavoudis’ artist statement, “Art is the proper task of life.”

Redmen Hall is open Thursday through Sunday from noon until 4 p.m. The exhibit will be up until July 10.