Featured Artists for January 2024 are Michael Hale with acrylic paintings, and Debbie Cain with ornamental gourd carvings.

Hale was born in the Pacific Northwest has been at his art since the time he could hold a pencil and later a brush. Majoring in his second love of architecture, he attended Washington State University where he minored in fine art. Not liking the ridged conformities of architecture, he switched to a commercial art program at the Burnley School of Professional Art in Seattle. After a three-year diversion in the U.S. Army during the Viet Nam War he went back to school at The Museum Art School in Portland, Oregon where he resumed his studies in commercial and fine art. Taking his knowledge of building and marrying it with his architectural training and his skill of art, Hale started an architectural rendering business, first in the Northwest and then in the Phoenix area. Moving to Los Angeles in the early 90s, Hale became a scenic artist for various movie and scenic production studios working on everything from movie sets to stage drops to cruse ship productions. Influenced by Maxfield Parrish and Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Hale geared much of his work towards fantasy landscapes incorporating figures, often nude and incorporating imposing architectural elements. That is until he moved to Port Townsend in 2000. “There was just too much of everything to paint here: the water, the mountains, the boats and yes, that grand old architectural element of buildings…beautiful, red-bricked buildings.” And ever since, that’s the subject he’s painted the most of, a close second being the masts and the sails of wooden boats moored at Port Townsend harbors. "What inspires me to paint over all these years is to share what I see with others according to my particular view of a subject.”

Cain has been working with 3D gourd art for around 15 years. Her inspiration comes from the limitless possibilities of using the gourd as a multi-dimensional canvas. Her creative process includes wood-burning, carving by micro-carver and painting by hand. She has recently incorporated the use of pine needles for rims, and adding resin to some of the finished gourds. Multiple images are portrayed on her intricately carved designs like animals, flowers, and landscapes, many with a Native American motif. She also likes to embellish the gourds with feathers and beads. “I have always enjoyed creating through different mediums and was led to the gourd which I feel is my area of reaching so many different opportunities that surround me here in the Pacific NW. By hiking through nature and watching animals I am able to produce them in creative ways for people to enjoy which warms my heart.” Debbie’s Blue Mountain Gourd Creations can be found at Gallery-9 as the featured 3D art for January, 2024. Gallery-9 is a cooperative of local artists on the web at gallery-9.com.