No second thoughts about First Weekend
Toledo art galleries and studios will throw open their doors this Saturday and Sunday, April 2 and 3, as the town celebrates First Weekend.
The Yaquina River Museum of Art has extended its Founder’s Sale Show, featuring art from the museum’s private collection of pieces by founder artists. Displayed on the museum’s walls is “Sunset Near the Oregon Coast,” a dramatic watercolor landscape by John Hewitt, who gifted this work to the museum in 2015. Hewitt lived in Toledo with his wife, Judy, and daughter, Jacqueline, for three years. At the time his art was secondary to his profession as an emergency room doctor at both the Samaritan hospitals in Newport and Corvallis. Post-retirement, Hewitt now paints full time. He is adept at painting en plein air, allowing the public to see his process in real time. He and his family have returned to Fort Bragg, California, where he shows his work, and always finds something new to learn in his artistic career. For more information about the art of John Hewitt, go to johnhewittart.com.
The Yaquina River Museum of Art is located at 151 NE Alder Street and is open on Saturday and Sunday from noon to 4 pm. For more information, go to yaquinarivermuseumofart.org
Across the street at Michael Gibbons’ Signature Gallery, “Thistle Dew View” will be featured during First Weekend. Gibbons (1943-2020) painted this work on site in Corvallis on a flower farm. He particularly liked to paint crops and was in his element with the layout of the flowers growing in curving rows as he related to the colors growing in nature. Among crop subjects, he was known to paint hay bales or “stoucks” as they are called when in the Norfolk area of England, and the iris fields in Schreiner’s Gardens each year. Some of his most striking paintings were of poppy fields near Silverton, Oregon, and in the Cotswolds of England — which he would seek to paint as often as he could throughout the growing season. To learn more about the work of Michael Gibbons, go to michaelgibbons.net.
Michael Gibbons’ Signature Gallery is located at 140 NE Alder Street and is open on Saturday and Sunday from 11 am to 5 pm. For more information, go to michaelgibbons.net.
Just around the corner, fellow oil painter Ivan Kelly will be showcasing a selection of landscapes, maritime scenes and paintings of big game.
Ivan Kelly Gallery-Studio, located at 207 East Graham Street, will be open from 11 am, to 4 pm on Saturday and noon to 4 pm on Sunday, as well as by appointment. For more information, call 541-336-1124.
On Main Street, Crow’s Nest Studio & Gallery will feature the works of 15 local and regional artists. Adorning the walls of the space are the chromatic watercolors of Tish Epperson. Epperson’s whimsical characters make viewers feel as though they are entering into a fantastical world. Other featured artists at Crow’s Nest include founder and assemblage artist Janet Runger; art; Alice Haga, fused glass; Val Bolen, tile and ceramic pieces; Paula Teplitz, sculptural jellyfish mobiles; Jeff Gibford, digitally manipulated photographs; Sylvia Hosie, photography; Yelizaveta Bhaktina, oil paintings; and Susan Jones, woven fiber jellyfish.
Crow’s Nest Gallery & Studio is located at 305 N Main Street and is open on Saturday and Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm.