Fresh Paint on the waterfront in Everett
Published 7:55 pm Wednesday, August 18, 2010
This year’s Fresh Paint festival of artists doing their thing along the Everett Marina promenade entails a little bit of Shock-N-Awe.
That’s the name of the art gallery run by welder guy Steve Nowicki who will be a first-time exhibitor at this year’s event.
Nowicki welds the standard Pacific Northwest fare of crabs, pewter salmon sculptures and tulips, but he also manages to pack a few surprises in his metal pieces.
How about a set of golf club roasting sticks? Or a fish skeleton key holder?
Nowicki’s even got a page on his website, www.shocknawemetalworks.com, called “What was he thinking” where he displays such arcane art selections as a bicycle-powered reel mower.
The Whidbey Island metal-works creator is one of 100 artists who will be demonstrating their crafts and selling their work during the 14th annual Fresh Paint Art Festival this weekend, put on by the Arts Council of Snohomish County.
For two days, artists line the entire length of the promenade and work on their metal projects, craft jewelry and paint in a variety of mediums, from watercolors to oils to mixed media.
Pastel artist Janet Hamilton is featured as this year’s poster artist with her “Flying Colors” piece highlighting the pretty banners that line the marina each year during Fresh Paint.
Glass artists will be well represented also as Dan and Joi LaChaussee, Merrilee Moore, Cristy Aloysi and Scott Graham demonstrate how to turn molten glass into stunning solid sculptures at the outdoor hot shop visiting from the Tacoma Museum of Glass.
Speaking of glass, this year’s Fresh Paint event continues its annual Float Find for the third year in a row, where families can scour the shores of two-mile long Jetty Island in search of a keepsake glass sea float.
Visitors take the ferry from the 10th Street Park to Jetty Island starting at 8:30 a.m. Saturday, but the beach will not open for this hunt until 10:30 a.m.
This is a free event so the arts council asks that participants follow the one-float-per-person rule. Each of the 200 floats is numbered and two of the numbers will be chosen at random to win a $50 arts council gift certificate, according to the arts council website.
If you don’t find a sea float, you can create your own fused glass piece with Janet Foley. You can also fire ceramics at Brian Somers’ raku pottery kiln or get a photography lesson from Randall Hodges.
Other artists in action include wood-turners, silversmiths, printers and weavers.
