Watershed Art: A Ten Year Anniversary Reunion

Wenatchee River Institute will host the 10th Anniversary Reunion of prominent artists who participated in the Watershed Art project that culminated in 2 major art exhibits in Leavenworth and Wenatchee in September 2002.

The Reunion, generously funded by a grant from the Sleeping Lady Foundation, will take place the weekend of September 21-22, 2012. Events for the general public include a program about Watershed Art at Sleeping Lady Mountain Resort on Friday, September 21, 7:00 PM, to be presented by one of the original participating artists – environmental educator and sculptor Tony Angell. The program will include a slide show presentation on his new book, Gifts of the Crow.

Also, the general public is invited to meet the artists and view the permanent Watershed Arts Collection at an Open House that will take place on Saturday, September 22, 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM, at the Watershed Art Gallery in the E. Lorene Young Audubon House, 250-12th Street, Leavenworth. Several of the artists will have books available for sale and will be on hand to sign them including, Tony Angell, Thomas Quinn and Mary Randlett. There will also be a Student Art Show at Icicle Arts Gallery at Barn Beach Reserve with a reception from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM on September 22. Refreshments will be served.

In 2000, three local professional artists, Gretchen Daiber, Cynthia Neely and Gretchen Rohde, collaborated with Angell to put on a series of “artist for nature” events in the Wenatchee River Watershed. The non-profit organization, named “Watershed Art,” had a mission to create an awareness and emotional connection to the unique cultural and natural history of the Wenatchee River Watershed through art.

As part of the Watershed Art project, fifteen internationally recognized nature artists and writers came to Leavenworth in 2001 to chronicle the watershed through their art. They stayed at Sleeping Lady Mountain Resort as the guests of environmentalist and arts patron, Harriet Bullitt.

In 2002, Watershed Art organized two month-long shows in Leavenworth and Wenatchee to exhibit the artwork that was inspired or produced during the 2001 events, including a total of over 200 pieces. After the shows, the proceeds from artwork sales were used to purchase 22 pieces of art representing each artist and discipline, creating the "Watershed Art Collection." This collection is now owned by Wenatchee River Institute and hangs in its permanent home in the E. Lorene Young Audubon House, located at Barn Beach Reserve, 250 12th Street, Leavenworth.

The exhibition space, with its setting overlooking the Wenatchee River in Leavenworth, is otherwise ideal for the collection, but it lacks adequate lighting. Donations in any amount are welcomed for gallery lighting to be installed in time for the 10th Anniversary Watershed Art Reunion. Donations should be made payable to "Wenatchee River Institute" and mailed to PO Box 2073, Leavenworth WA 98826.

For more information about the Reunion and associated events, please call (509) 548-0181 or visit www.barnbeachreserve.org/events/

Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans by Tony Angell and John Marzluff

CROWS ARE MISCHIEVOUS, playful, social, and passionate. They have brains that are huge for their body size and exhibit an avian kind of eloquence. They mate for life and associate with relatives and neighbors for years. And because they often live near people—in our gardens, parks, and cities—they are also keenly aware of our peculiarities, staying away from and even scolding anyone who threatens or harms them and quickly learning to recognize and approach those who care for and feed them, even giving them numerous, oddly touching gifts in return.

With his extraordinary research on the intelligence and startling abilities of corvids—crows, ravens, and jays—scientist John Marzluff teams up with artist-naturalist Tony Angell to tell amazing stories of these brilliant birds in Gifts of the Crow. With narrative, diagrams, and gorgeous line drawings, they offer an in-depth look at these complex creatures and our shared behaviors. The ongoing connection between humans and crows—a cultural coevolution—has shaped both species for millions of years. And the characteristics of crows that allow this symbiotic relationship are language, delinquency, frolic, passion, wrath, risk-taking, and awareness—seven traits that humans find strangely familiar. Crows gather around their dead, warn of impending doom, recognize people, commit murder of other crows, lure fish and birds to their death, swill coffee, drink beer, turn on lights to stay warm, design and use tools, use cars as nutcrackers, windsurf and sled to play, and work in tandem to spray soft cheese out of a can. Their marvelous brains allow them to think, plan, and reconsider their actions.

With its abundance of funny, awe-inspiring, and poignant stories, Gifts of the Crow portrays creatures who are nothing short of amazing. A testament to years of painstaking research and careful observation, this fully illustrated, riveting work is a thrilling look at one of nature's most wondrous creatures.

Praise for Gifts of the Crow

"Although based on extensive academic research, this book about a family of birds known as corvids is surprisingly accessible for general audiences. ...this is far from a dry, academic work. Marzluff and Angell's latest will be enjoyed by anyone interested in nature. Highly recommended." — Library Journal

"...the book will instill in many readers a sense of wonder and curiosity at what these birds can do. An insightful look at some of our surprisingly capable feathered friends." — Kirkus Reviews

Puget Sound Through an Artist's Eye by Tony Angell (Forward by Ivan Doig)

Artist and naturalist Tony Angell has used Puget Sound's natural diversity as his palette for nearly 50 years. He describes the methods he uses in his art and his observations and encounters with the species that make up the complex communities of the Sound's rivers, tidal flats, islands, and beaches: the flight of a young peregrine, an otter playfully herding a small red rockfish, the grasp of a curious octopus.

About the Author

Tony Angell was born in 1940 in Los Angeles, and grew up among the hills and canyons of Southern California. His love of nature is rooted in the afternoons he spent watching birds, collecting plants, building forts and hiking to the far reaches of the Santa Monica Mountains and canyons. He credits his mother Florence, a farm girl from Michigan, with encouraging his artistic and naturalist activities.

Author, illustrator and sculptor, Angell has won numerous writing and artistic awards for his work on behalf of nature including the prestigious Master Artist Award of the Leigh Yawkey Art Museum. His sculptural forms celebrating nature are to be found in public and private collections throughout the country. Tony has worked actively as a board member of Washington's chapter of The Nature Conservancy, is an elected Fellow of the National Sculpture Society, and retired in 2002 as Director of Environmental Education for the state of Washington after 30 years. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two daughters.

Buy a SIGNED copy of Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans - $25.00

Buy a SIGNED copy of Puget Sound Through an Artist's Eye - $35.00

Mary Randlett Landscapes by Mary Randlett

Mary Randlett's photographic vision of the Northwest is big-hearted, intricate, and tender - and fully inhabited by the animals, tides, forests, mountains, and spirits that dwell there. What others may take for granted, Randlett sees as quintessential: overcast days with endless and often exquisite variations of gray clouds, raindrops on puddles, dripping branches, and distant shafts of sunlight breaking through the cloud cover. She is steeped in the history of the Northwest and its many art forms.

The images presented here stand as a visual record of the Northwest at its most pristine and poetic. During her many years of finely turned observation, Randlett has learned to take the time to ponder the essences of what she sees - the curl of a bird's drifting feather, a water strider not quite breaking the surface of the water, fog ascending a hillside, the moment a pond's surface turns to ice.

The magnificent photographs are accompanied by text that sheds light on the artist and her work. Anchoring the book is an essay by the internationally renowned poet Denise Levertov about Randlett the artist, along with seven of her own poems that were directly inspired by Randlett's photographs. In another essay, Washington artist Barry Herem situates Mary Randlett among the major figures in Northwest art. Photographer/actor Ted D'Arms offers an introductory essay addressing Randlett's place in photography and in the Northwest. Jo Ann Ridley provides a biographical chronology, and Joyce Thompson remembers Randlett's seventieth birthday party. Randlett adds a technical note in which she shares details about the cameras, lenses, film, and printing techniques she has used, as well as pertinent information about time, place, and circumstances.

Praise for Mary Randlett Landscapes

"In this superb collection Randlett, who knows her subject well, majestically captures the physical qualities of the Pacific Northwest. Her work represents splendid environmental perfection: one knows these definitive photographs could have been taken nowhere else. This beautifully presented collection should be made available to everyone interested in the art form." — Choice

"This quiet, reflective collection is filled with photos that work like poems. It invites repeat visits because of the subtlety of Randlett's art—much of it focused on light, clouds, and mist—and also because it stands as a stern rebuke of what growth and development are doing to a bounteous natural world that once seemed immutable." — John Marshall, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

About the Author

Mary Randlett has been photographing the Northwest for more than fifty-five years. Her works are held in at least forty permanent collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution.

Buy a SIGNED copy of Mary Randlett Landscapes - $29.95

The Art Of Thomas Quinn by Thomas Quinn

Limited edition hardcover book, 11 in. x 10 in., 176 pages featuring over 80 paintings, studies, and sketches reproduced in full color. Housed in a wooden presentation case inlaid with a ceramic tile featuring the image of a Sandhill Crane. Included is a limited edition print, which along with the book, is numbered and signed by the artist.

About the Author

Thomas Quinn lives and paints on the northern coast of California. He is a regionalist who disciplines himself to a limited palette and a limited focus toward local subjects—plants and animals—that are entirely familiar to him. This intimacy with the daily behavior, attitudes and intelligence of the wild ensures veracity as well as a willingness to dignify the lives of common creatures. "Sometimes," Quinn says, "the paint can transcend the flat surface of the canvas, and the result assumes the elusive quality of a wild thing." The philosophy of "less is more" is evident in Quinn's art. He has "always admired the magic of negative space, what is left unsaid." One finds in his elegance and simplicity intriguing parallels with the Chinese masters of the Sung dynasty and 18th century Japanese landscape painters—a tendency to suggest with calligraphic brevity, allowing much revelation to be completed in the viewer's mind. "I try to turn the viewer of my paintings loose by giving his imagination plenty of room to expand. Then he is traveling on his own." Quinn graduated with distinction from the prestigious Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. He has had exhibits at galleries and museums around the country. He is the author of The Working Retrievers, a large, handsome volume, written in an exceptional narrative style, now considered a classic on the subject of field retrievers. He's received the Red Smith Prestigious Award in 2009 from National Museum on Wildlife Art, the Master Wildlife Artist of the Year in 1998 from the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, and the Gold Medal for Watercolor in 1994 by the National Museum on Wildlife Art.