It was a reunion of sorts for longtime Port Townsend locals.

Old friends clustered in small groups, catching up.

People smiled and waved at familiar faces across the room.

Townsfolk told tales of the man who brought about 150 people to the city library on a Friday night: Jim Alden.

The opening night on Oct. 27 for the art show at the city library was a well-attended one that honored the prolific Port Townsend painter, who moved to town in 1972 and died in 2004.

For the next four months, 34 of his paintings from 23 private collections are on display at the Port Townsend Public Library.

STORIES

Monica Macguire was one of those locals who attended the opening reception for this season’s Art in the Library exhibit.

She spent the evening close to a painting of a young woman smiling on her wedding day. It’s a portrait of Macguire, painted some decades earlier.

Macguire laughed, saying that, while she may look different now, the painting is like a time capsule. When she looks at the painting, she said, she is in that moment.

“It was the happiest day of my life,” she said.

Macguire recalled Alden running out from the Salal Cafe, where he was working, on her wedding day, snapping a photo of the bride and leaving. She wasn’t sure at the time why he was taking the photo.

Sometime later, she was in the Salal with her daughter, who called out, “Mama, Mama, look, it’s you!”

There it was, a painting of her, hanging on the wall.

“It’s a disconcerting experience to see yourself on the wall of a local cafe,” she said.

Macguire sent her husband to the cafe straight away to buy the piece, which she has loaned to the library for the next four months for the exhibition.

Macguire’s story was one of many shared between friends and acquaintances that night.

Poet Finn Wilcox also was present, and he shared his remembrance of Alden in a piece he wrote and read to the group.

“He was fat as a Buddha / and nuttier than a squirrel turd” is how he described Alden in his poem.

COLORFUL

Water Street in downtown Port Townsend was Alden’s world. He lived in and managed what are now the Eisenbeis Condominiums, worked at the Salal Cafe and spent his evenings at the Town Tavern.

The walls of the Town Tavern, Salal Cafe and Waterfront Pizza served as his galleries, and it’s guessed he painted about 3,000 pieces – many of which he traded. Seeing Alden carry a still-wet painting and hang it on the wall of the tavern wasn’t an uncommon sight.

The idea to feature Alden’s work was that of library manager Keith Darrock, who worked at the Salal Cafe as a young man.

“People who are like Jim, who are living out of their vehicles, who are living on the fringes and creating an interesting culture through their art, made the culture of what Port Townsend is, and was, and still is today,” said Darrock.

The show featuring pieces from private collections is a collaboration between the library, Northwind Arts Center which sponsors the Art in the Library exhibits, and the Jefferson County Historical Society. Darrock had reached out to society president, Jenny Westdal, who, as co-owner of the Salal Cafe, knew Alden well and has made it her mission to record art from the 1970s and 1980s before it passes out of memory.

She’s now focusing on recording Alden’s life and work.

“[Alden] was, you know, a bit eccentric, but that was standard at the time,” said Westdal, who is a co-curator of the show, along with Northwind’s Polly Lyle. “He was such a colorful character, it really makes the art even more interesting.”

Westdal said more than 100 paintings were submitted for consideration by community members – more than could fill the library’s walls. “People were really generous,” she said.

She’s having pieces professionally photographed and is working on creating a book that shares anecdotes from Alden’s life and celebrates his art.

“We’re really excited to see [his work] brought back to the public eye,” Westdal said.