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.
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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.

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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.

​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.

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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.

     Tom Kingshill is a local artist inspired by the natural wood of the Northcoast landscape that surrounds him. Using the wood lathe, Tom shapes foraged tree wood into artistic vessels and sculptural wall art. He specializes in natural-edge bowls, pieces that challenge the artist to practice a fine-tuned discernment of formal design qualities while leaving the edge of the piece wild. The juxtaposition of smooth, fine craftsman precision and the natural, raw undulations of untamed tree                                                                        surface, are Tom's signature style.

​     ​Kingshill was born into a family of carpenters and has become passionate about woodturning. He was gifted his father's old lathe in 2007 and finds there are few other techniques in woodworking that embellish the inherent beauty of the natural wood of the tree. As Tom works he is driven by the unknown qualities of the wood. Beginning with a simple block he enjoys that there is no way for him to know exactly what the piece will look like when it's done, each a gift for us all to enjoy.

​  Annie Reid is exhibiting pieces from her new series, "Migrants, Monarchs & Immigrants". Her current works represent stages of the Monarch butterfly's migration. The titles are "Nurture", "Shelter", "Transformation" and "Listening to the Whispers of the Ancestors". The Monarch butterflies migration, the greatest return migration of any insect, is an evolved and somewhat miraculous example of a species' adaption to migrate for survival. At 3:20 pm Annie will give a short presentation on Monarch butterflies, their life cycle and migration. She will share how our observation can aid in their survival.
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     Annie earned her Certified Interpretive Guide designation to volunteer as an ambassador for the California Coastal National Monument and the Trinidad Coastal Land Trust.
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​    Annie is a lifelong Northern California painter. Her work is inspired by the natural world and conveys a deep connection to the spirit of that realm. Also on exhibit will be "Lotus emerging into its Light Body", a pigment and gouache piece from Reid's stay at the Morris Graves Foundation.

Townwide in Trinidad, Sunday December 9th, 10 am - 5 pm

   The Trinidad Art Gallery is joining with other artists, musicians, shopkeepers, restaurants and wineries of the beachside town of Trinidad for a celebration of the holiday season on Sunday, December 9 from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. It is their hope that residents of the North Coast are beginning to make the festivity of “Holidays in Trinidad” a regular part of their Christmas enjoyment and a show of their support for shopping at local businesses for holiday joy and gift-giving.

    ​Trinidad Art Gallery will lead carols at 4:00 p.m., a sing-along with words provided. For the month of December all its artist are featured in celebration of the wonderful gift that a treasured piece of art can make. In addition to art photos, original prints and paintings, there are ceramics, jewelry, hand-turned wood bowls, bread boards and cribbage boards, copper fairy creations in ever more fantastic forms, cave art images in clay, beadwork and dolls, stained glass and blown glass, silk-printed and naturally dyed scarves, and a wide array of affordable prints and greeting cards based on members' art.

​    Each year this festivity has grown enthusiastically as businesses of Trinidad have drawn together to make it a very special day. Now the Trinidad Civic Club has taken the lead and given the day added meaning by asking local businesses to donate a portion of the day’s profits to the fund to restore and find a permanent home for the iconic Trinidad Lighthouse. It's traditional cliff abode eroded, necessitating its costly relocation. Everyone who participates in Holidays in Trinidad will be contributing to that worthy cause. For a schedule of the day, go to trinidadcivicclub.org.

Elaine Y Shore has been creating original, hand painted and hand carved, one of a kind , functional porcelain since 2009, when she moved to Humboldt County after a career in financial modeling and corporate finance.  Her pieces are meant to be beautiful, functional art to be used every day and include bowls, vases, mugs, tumblers and dishes.

    Recently, Elaine has been working in two complementary styles: She uses colored underglazes to hand paint the porcelain, which is then fired, then dipped in a clear glaze and fired again, resulting in bright, colorful work featuring flowers, fish and animals. She also creates striking, black and white pieces which she hand carves, using a technique called “sgraffito”.

Jim Lowry
Redwood Park

Jim Lowry
South Fork Eel River
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​Lida Penkova has gained fame in Humboldt County for her unique art pieces. Her unusual process of linocut with colors added by acrylics and colored pencils always tells a story, sometimes from mythology, sometimes from real-life moments of a Mexican market or a surf day at a Trinidad beach, and sometimes from her own imagination. This month she is focusing her work on October's Day of the Dead.

Penkova, born in Czechoslovakia and living in countries around the world, was deeply affected as an artist by sixteen years of living in rural mountains of Mexico where she encountered folk art. The style she has developed is perfectly suited to illustrate the many ways that the dead are honored in October's Mexican tradition.


​Her lively scenes show altars adorned with flowers, candles, favorite dishes and drinks for deceased loved ones, families visiting the graves of relatives to honor them, the sugar skulls and skeleton toys sold in outdoor markets and at street stalls, marigold flowers in vases or spread out on pathways or hanging on strings to embellish homes and streets for the remembrance of those who are gone before us.

Donvieve creates amazingly lifelike masks that “gently challenge personal barriers and speak to people's inner places.” She uses only natural and recycled materials such as leather, fibers, metal, clay, and wood to achieve her three-dimensional expressions. “I am committed through my work, to build a deep appreciation of our connection to all things and cultivate awareness of how we each impact our planet and care for one another.”

When Donvieve traveled to countries such as Bali, Mexico, Central America and Europe, she worked with native mask makers, developing deep appreciation for the art of varied exotic cultures. Donvieve generously shares her skills and her ecological consciousness with students in a variety of venues, from high school to university and with private organizations such as the Ink People. 
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When teaching, Donvieve works to help her students become more interested and sensitive to different cultural groups and to what each group considers beautiful and valuable as they observe the world around them.

     ​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."