Do you have a Jim Alden painting hanging on your wall?

The Jefferson County Historical Society is putting out a call to all owners of Alden’s works in an effort to curate a collection, to be displayed this October at the Port Townsend Public Library.

The show would be part of the Art in the Library program, a collaboration between the library and Northwind Arts Center.

Alden, who died in 2004, was a Port Townsend painter whose works are now only found in private art collections.

Jenny Westdal of the historical society figures there are several thousand paintings out there.

“Jim was really prolific,” she said. “His paintings would sell quick because they were really cheap.”

Best known for his paintings of the piers and pilings of Port Townsend Bay, Alden also painted many downtown scenes, buildings and people.

He was just part of the downtown scene,” she said, noting that he had lived in the apartment located above what was once Olympic Hardware. “That was his little world and he was there all the time.”

Westdal encourages anyone who has a painting to take a photograph of it and email that photo to Polly Lyle at Northwind Arts Center. Email pollylyle@me.com with the photo attached and include the dimensions of the piece, the title and the year it was painted. Send in photos by Aug. 16.

A callout on Facebook has already elicited a lot of response. 

If your painting is selected for the show, arrangements will be made to pick it up, Westdal said.

PHOTOS, PLEASE

Due to space constraints, not every painting would be included in the show, but Westdal encourages everyone to send in a photo of their Alden paintings as she is trying to document all his work.

“Since [Alden] was not recorded and not in any of the conventional art exhibits, I’m afraid he’s going to slip out of memory,” she said. “The rest of my life right now is trying to record the art from the ’70s and ’80s, because it wasn’t.”

This would be the second show of Alden’s work. In April 2005, a few months after his death, Westdal and fellow Salal Cafe owner Pat Fitzgerald organized a town-wide exhibit of Alden’s paintings. Enough paintings were loaned and space volunteered that there were 11 businesses exhibiting Alden’s art and five shops with paintings in their windows, said Westdal.

The Alden exhibit is scheduled to open Friday, Oct. 27 and run for four months.

The goal of Art in the Library is to provide art for the enjoyment of library patrons and staff, to offer opportunities for artists to exhibit their work, and to decorate and honor Port Townsend’s historic library.