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.

​   ​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.

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   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.

     ​Oceana Madrone’s work directly and honestly reflects the emotional and meaningful aspects of life with an emphasis on healing through the beauty and joy of art. This season she is especially excited about beads, their colors, textures, sizes, shapes and sparkle. She finds herself adding them to every one of her fantastic creations, sewn to quilts, dolls, jewelry, dream catchers, and wound around boxes, bottles, driftwood, and more.  Madrone started her first adventure with beads at the age of twelve, with her first bead loom and two pounds of beads. That is a lot of beads for a twelve-year-old!

    In her own words, "My art is a mirror of my life. It reflects who I’ve been, who I am and who I hope to become. 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. There is beauty all around us if we take the time to see it and appreciate it."

     Tom Kingshill is a local woodworker inspired by the great variety of wood in our surrounding landscape. He uses foraged sections of local trees and with a lathe creates decorative vessels for the home. He specializes in natural-edge bowls. These vessels challenge the artist to practice a fine-tuned discernment of formal qualities of design while leaving the edge of the piece wild. 

     The elements of smooth, machine-like precision and natural, raw undulations of the untamed surface of a tree come together to form an utterly unique bowl.

  Born into a family of carpenters, Kingshill learned at an early age the woodworking techniques he has spent his life exploring. His biggest challenge is finding the wood he needs to create his art.

​As he says, "There is always the fear that someday there won't be beautiful burls to work with. The joy of wood turning is finding a redwood burl and discover the beauty as I turn. The bowls you see in these pictures are second-growth redwood burl, a growth on the outside of the tree, somewhat like a wart.  The grain is going in all different directions so you have no idea of the beauty of what you have until you are done."

Reception during Trinidad Art Night​
Friday, October 7th
​6 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Music by: Howdy Emerson and J.D. Jeffries

    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 studio. He also plays a beautiful Celtic harp and has CD's available. He is a Certified Music Practitioner and has worked as a hospital staff therapeutic musician.
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​      Emerson calls the sea his inspiration, "Finding her mystical essence is my goal. I explore the sacred narrow line where the land and sea interact.  I wish to honor the subtle and nuanced – the misty grey day of muted colors. In our busy lives my endeavor is to create works that allow the viewer to stop a moment and find a breath of calm."  Emerson's person connection to the sea, his art and his music is clearly reflected in all his work. There is no doubt that he is "seeking and finding a sense of being stopped by the mystery and discovering in that stillness its underlying spiritual truth.
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     Musician J.D. Jeffries has been heard in a wide variety of musical formats throughout Humboldt County for many years. His styles have included rock, folk, blues, country, bluegrass, Motown, and a program of John Denver’s hits. Some of the many well-known musicians he has played with include Boz Skaggs, Jerry Garcia, Elvin Bishop, bluesman Roy Rogers, Al Rossert of the Moody Blues, Youngbloods, Buddy Reed, Stoneground, and the legendary Rose Maddox.