​In her own words, "My art is my effort to create order out of chaos and to transform pain and survival into strength and beauty. Art doesn’t make the hard things in life go away. It does help me to find joy and continue on my path of healing and discovery. I love the color, textures, and sparkle of fabric and beads. I create images of beauty and magic. Life is a magical gift."

 ​

Mara Friedman has recently brought her considerable experience and skills to the Trinidad Art Gallery with a rich background in a variety of art forms. After many years living in Hawaii and then the lush green Oregon countryside, the artist now makes her home with her husband Gus in the beautiful and wild northern California coast.

These days, she especially concentrates on musical mosaics composed of elk women and whales, hummingbirds and stars, dots, dashes, squiggles and swirls. Many of her new works include our whale kin, who for her are powerful allies of compassion and refuge in these turbulent times.​

​Mara's images celebrate the feminine aspect of Spirit. Her imagery draws inspiration from cultures around the world, from the cycle of the seasons and from universal symbols and form. Her work echoes the blend of many diverse influences: the art of O’Keeffe and Chagall; Tibetan, Hindu, Aboriginal, African and Native American art; mystical Sufi poetry and Buddhist teachings

​Maureen McGarry is a watercolor painter who primarily paints local landscapes. Also a teacher, she has offered classes to people of all ages over the past 40 years, primarily teaching art to children in many of the local schools.    

​

​Donvieve is a multi-dimensional artist/educator.  She creates masks that challenge our personal barriers and speak to our inner spaces.  Another longtime resident of Humboldt County, she is best known as a mask-maker.  She has conducted many art workshops, including in other countries.  

Matthew Gagliardi has always been attracted to the fluidity of working hot glass. He explains that most of the process of blowing soft glass is spent trying to influence a material that is not totally in a liquid form or a solid state, but tends to ebb and flow between the two. He says with some sincerity that when blowing glass his perception is often in a similar tidal pattern, drifting between daydreams in the etheric realms and physical reality, yet at the same time it requires his complete attention and total focus.

    Jim Lowry’s photographs are collected internationally, and he has won a number of awards for his stunning photographs, including Photographer of the Year and a second place award for landscapes in the International Panoramic Photography Contest.
 
   Here in Humboldt County, Lowry is perhaps best known for his landscapes and beachscapes. While his use of color is always effective, he especially enjoys the stark minimalism of black and white photography, and he can be strongly reminiscent of Ansel Adams. 

  During the month of July, Trinidad Art Gallery will feature a new print by Patricia Sundgren Smith. She has expanded on her Japanese-inspired koi theme with a new, larger linocut, "Koi Beneath Bamboo." As with her other koi images, she incorporates Japanese decorative papers into the design.

Patricia will also be exhibiting some of her past linocuts of birds, as well as her new series of egret and heron rookery collages. The birds are drawn on white or black printmaking paper, and then collaged onto two layers of decorative papers. The first layer is Murano paper, and the second is shredded and dyed amate bark from Mexico.

  ​Elaine Y Shore has been developing her current style of ceramic art for more than ten years, although she was first entranced by the craft many years earlier. “Throwing a piece on the potter’s wheel is mesmerizing. It looks easy, but takes lots of practice and determination.”
​
  After retiring from a long career in financial modeling, Elaine moved to Humboldt County to be a full time artist and grandmother. “Fortunately, I discovered the Fire Arts Center in Arcata and it has become my second home.”  
​  Elaine decided to specialize in wheel-thrown and hand built functional porcelain pieces, and uses various surface decoration techniques to interesting, complex surfaces.

 
​  “I wanted to do more than simply dip my pieces in a glaze, so I started exploring other ways to provide visual and tactile interest and beauty”.
Her pieces have evolved to include colors and textures, using techniques that include carving, painting, applying colored clay or etching away clay, all of which result in a piece that is interesting to look at and a treat to use.



   Her current collection includes striking, black and white carved designs, and colorful, glaze-painted, textured designs inspired by the natural world.

Kurt Hellmich has been working in wood for over thirty-five years. He began by turning
driftwood into utilitarian art pieces, and evolved over the years into his broad, popular selection
that includes creative cribbage boards, cutting boards, unique boxes with lids and cunning
drawers, and bird houses that still feature his signature driftwood.

​​Delicate details adorn the boxes and cribbage boards. Hellmich's precision has been refined over the time of his practice of this woodworking artistry, and the Trinidad Art Gallery is happy to boast his efforts in our midst.

John Wesa has long made his mark on the Humboldt County art scene through his landscape-focused serigraphy (screen printing), with his Master of Arts degree at Humboldt State University in 1976. His prints of the area have found their way around the world.
​

​
Wesa says of his work, “I love the interaction of shapes and colors. When things are going right the image achieves a hypnotic vibrancy. It’s fun to see it take its first breaths and begin to live.
The thing I find most exciting about serigraphy is the self-publishing dynamic. I produce multiples, yet they are all originals and individual. When a good one takes off it can acquire a social life of its own. It can pop-up anywhere in the world. It can acquire a kind of currency that represents a shared value and experience.”

Our gallery hosts over 20 local artists every day, but during the two weekends of North Coast Open Studios, you get a chance to see some members working their magic right at the gallery. Check out the (updated!) schedule below, and visit anytime to chat with our members.

​Amanita Mollier is a silkpainter. Although she does create silk scarves with a simple flowing design, the main focus of her art is in wall hangings that are complete landscape paintings. She is especially fond of mountains and streams, or oceans and cliffs. Her egrets are a tribute both to Mother Nature and to her brush skills. 

​Sarah Magnuson’s art is constantly evolving. She began with the creation of a myriad of hanging fantasies, from fairies to dragons. Then her imagination went wild and she added all kinds of enrichment. Shells, beads, acorns, dried seed pods were just the start. Soon there were tiny vessels of handblown glass and larger shells. 

J.D. Jeffries is a founding member of Trinidad Art Gallery, and his music will add to the festivities this Art Night. J.D. Recently stepped away from performance to reset his music focus. His music at the gallery will be the first chance to hear his new sound as he appears with his new guitarist Chris Volas, a seasoned musician in his own right. He’ll be singing along with J.D.in sets that focus on vocals. As J.D. says, “I love harmony. Good band have good vocals.” J.D. has been singing pretty much all his life, and has several CDs with covers as well as his own songs, all on sale at the Trinidad Art Gallery. J.D. is hoping for some great Humboldt County spring weather so he can perform outside on the front patio.

​   ​Howdy Emerson wears two hats at the Trinidad Art Gallery, musician and painter. He creates landscape paintings in oil and fine-line brush paintings in ink, working on location or in his on-site studio. He also plays and teaches a beautiful Celtic harp and has CD's available. He is a Certified Music Practitioner and has worked as a hospital-staff therapeutic musician.

   
​This year Emerson has begun to focus on Chinese fine-line brush style paintings in ink on "rice paper." Dramatic line variation comes from brushes that end in a fine flexible point, so that very thin lines that can be varied to thicker lines as more pressure is applied. Shading is done with softer brushes using ink and water color. 

   Barbara Wright wears at least two hats as well, one as a fused glass artist, and the other as a creator of superb mosaic creations. In 1999 Barbara Wright began making mosaics. In 2002 she attended the Sculoa Arte del Mosaico in Ravenna, Italy, learning the old techniques. There she was inspired by modern works in the old style and began creating two and three-dimensional pieces using art glass, Smalti, millefiori, tiles and various artifacts. Each piece expresses her vision and environment, with many ideas originating from the beautiful coastal area of Trinidad, where she now lives.

​
   Wright has done several large mosaic projects in her home, as well as for commissioned work. Her art was included in the exhibition for the Society of American Mosaic Artists’ and the Museo Italo Americano in San Francisco in 2004. She also studied mosaic portraiture with Laurel Skye in Tuscany, Italy, in 2013. She has been experimenting with fused glass jewelry for several years. In 2005, she studied glass techniques in Barcelona, Spain, with Rene Culler and Phillipa Beveridge, both well-known glass artists.s.

​Colleen Clifford's skilled glass work is light and flowing, usually treating subjects in nature. This past year, Clifford has found herself inspired in her images by her own customers who have commissioned her for specific topics and/or window sizes. Three of focused areas of creativity have been birds in flight, botanicals that include a fiddlehead fern that will be on display, and figures of women in moments of serenity.

Clifford begins her process by sketching drawings, and the lines create the glass pattern. The chosen glass colors create the underlying depths and reflective nature of the subject at hand. Texture and light give additional expression to the completed art windows. 
 
Clifford's creative variety is also reflected in her work with glass boxes and small mandala ornaments. The mirrored bottoms of these boxes reflect the rich, luminescent textures and colors of the glass she selects, and a simple design on top often brings a bit of beauty to these precious piece of home decor.

​
Loryn White just joined the Trinidad Art Gallery as of the first of March, and much of the work that she has brought to this gallery demonstrates a number of new directions for her work. Long a favorite potter in various Humboldt County venues, White came to her passion for pottery rather late in her life. She took a class here and there, and before she knew it she had a studio and a kiln in her home and she had become a full-time potter with a steady demand for her lovely work.