Join us for First Thursday on June 4 to meet our featured artists Bernadette Crider and Katey Sandy and see the annual Student Art Show.
Mingle with fellow art lovers in historic downtown Longview. Live acoustic guitar music provided by local musicians. Featured artists artwork on display all month.
About the Artists
Bernadette Crider – Potter
My life as a potter began 41 years ago as I stood in the kitchen unpacking boxes with my new housemate. She was the former wife of a potter, but I knew his work and was aware that this was not something he had made. It was a perfectly formed, quiet little soup bowl.
When I asked who made it she responded that she had. I looked at the bowl and then at the Melmac bowls I had unpacked from my boxes and had two thoughts: pottery beats plastic; and if she can do that, I can too! (For those who are young, Melmac was the original hard plastic material for kitchenware – a miracle of the ‘50s).
So my adventure in clay began. I took a class at the local art center, but instead of perfectly round bowls I made hockey pucks with off-centered holes. At the same time I had the opportunity to work with Leroy Kitzman, a master potter who taught me technical knowledge like: for every 1/8” you pull the pot up, the wheelhead must go around one time, the art of Raku firing, and the spiritual component of working with clay. To center the clay, I must first center myself. Hockey pucks gave way to bowls.
That summer I headed to Europe with my mind set on a couple of months of fun on Greek beaches. A stop in a Swiss Youth Hostel had me spending the evening talking to an Art History major from New York City who, with wild-eyed enthusiasm of an Art Zealot, convinced me I had to go to Florence and see a dozen museums and other spots not to miss. It was a life-altering moment; like unwrapping the bowl. I did spend some time in the sun, but most of the trip was spent in galleries, museums, and archeological and architectural sites the length of Italy, around the isles of Greece, into Istanbul, down the length of the Nile, and into Spain.
I returned home, dutifully enrolled in a grad program in Portland, and lasted all of a week before I picked up the phone and called the husband of my old housemate and asked if he wanted an apprentice. Jay Widmer, like Leroy Kitzman, was a master potter. From him I learned the rhythm of the studio, the tricks of the trade, and the Japanese sensibility that holds that the elements of the pot; from foot to throw rings, are a reflection of the potter’s journey and instructive about the craftsman.
Fast forward through going back to school to study art, getting a job teaching art in Pendleton, meeting and marrying Bob and, finally, moving to Longview. Trudy Woods came into my life as I sat on the flow in the weaving studio that Pat Martin had around the corner on Broadway. She was talking to Pat about joining a group of local artist who wanted to start a gallery. I popped my head up and said I was game. And so 33 years ago this summer, I was a part of the group who began the Broadway Gallery!
I taught Ceramics at Lower Columbia College from 1981 until we left the community for Walla Walla in 1990. I continued to bring my work to the gallery until 1994 when I went to grad school.
Between teaching, raising children and going to school, the studio took the back seat. What was supposed to be a temporary suspension became an extended hiatus, coupled with a move Yakima and then to Maine and a return move back to Yakima. I reopened my studio last year and the work you see today is a leap forward from the work I started making in the early 1990s when I began carving my pots.
I am drawn to Little Gidding, poem four from Four Quartets, by T.S. Elliot:
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
Katey Sandy – Painter
I paint intuitively from the internalized inspiration of nature’s shapes, colors and textures. I love to experiment letting each composition unfold and change as I work. I use a variety of approaches and interact with what is happening during the process. My work is very diverse. My finished works are not realistic renderings but my expressionistic interpretations. My sense of design guides each piece. Sometimes my work is figurative abstraction and sometimes total abstraction. I offer these to the viewer, hoping they will find beauty and enjoyment based on their own experiences and interpretations.
I studied art at San Diego State and graduated with an Art Education degree. I taught junior high school art for 3 years in San Diego, leaving to start a family. When returning to work, I received a Master’s Degree in Early Childhood Education and worked in that field for 35 years. I painted some but family and work seemed to take precedence. My desire to experiment, explore new ideas, and create in a variety of mediums was kept alive as I worked with young children and college students. Art was always a curriculum focus in the classes I taught and in the schools where I was the director. I learned a lot about art and the process of creating art from the eager, fresh approach of young children. I returned to my painting after retiring in 2007 from Warner Pacific College.
I currently teach abstract painting & montage design for the Mature Learning Program at Clark College in Vancouver, WA My work is currently represented by the Camas Art Gallery, Camas, WA. I have also shown at and been represented by Circle of Friends Gallery in Tumalo, OR.
I have entered shows throughout the northwest and have won various awards. Several paintings were accepted and shown in the 41st national juried Associated Arts of Ocean Shores, WA Show. I have also had work accepted in the Gresham, OR Annual Juried Show, and at a North Bank Gallery in Vancouver, WA. My work was accepted twice for individual shows at The Second Story Gallery, in the Camas, WA Library… 2008 and 2014. I exhibit regularly in the shows at Gallery 360, Vancouver, WA. In 2014, I exhibited my work at the First Unitarian Church in Portland, OR. Currently my montage design work is scheduled be shown at the Hilton, Vancouver WA beginning in April 2015.
