The 13th annual Fresh Paint festival, the extravaganza of 100 artists who fill the entire length of the Everett Marina promenade with their easels and hot shops and turn the waterfront into a huge outdoor art studio and sidewalk gallery, kicks off Saturday.
Again this year, visitors can search Jetty Island beach on Saturday for their own Fresh Paint glass sea float. Each float is numbered and two of the float numbers will be chosen randomly ahead of time so beachcombers will have a chance to win a jumbo sea float.
This year, glass art makers will travel from Tacoma Museum of Glass to set up their hot shops on the waterfront.
Children can also be “artists in action” with activities from the Imagine Children’s Museum, The Pottery Loft, Interactive History Company and more.
“Fresh Paint: Festival of Artists at Work” is from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Everett Marina, 1700 W. Marine View Drive, Everett. Take Everett Transit Route 3 to the waterfront. Go to everetttransit.org or visit www.freshpaintfestival.com or call 425-257-8380 for more information and a complete schedule of artists and activities. Fresh Paint is a free community activity presented by the Arts Council of Snohomish County.
John Osgood
Hometown: Born in Edmonds, lives in the Greenwood area of Seattle.
Age: 32
Occupation: Full-time artist and illustrator. “It was two years ago on July 10 that I told Albertson’s goodbye, though I do miss working in the produce section.”
Favorite book: “The book showed you how to make drawings of hands or noses. I’m not sure who the author was or the title, but I checked that out from the library more than any book I probably should have been reading.”
Latest accomplishment: “It will be getting through the month of August. I’m in four different shows, I had a buddy in town for a wedding, I’m trying to create artwork to keep things fresh for all these shows and I’m trying to get done with one mural and I’ve got to get two more done by Aug. 14.”
Why you do what you do: “I figured if I wasn’t doing artwork I would still be doing artwork.”
Quote: “Through the process of creating artwork, I know other joy.”
One of the first large-scale murals that John Osgood ever did came about from a contest that never happened.
The business that was soliciting the mural approached Osgood and asked him if he could help them gather up a bunch of artists for a contest to find the best mural artist. He told them to back up.
“I said, ‘You’ve got a winner,’” Osgood said. “‘You don’t have to have a contest. Let me do some rough sketches.’”
Since then, the number of color-popping murals Osgood has created is reaching into the double digits.
Still, Osgood mostly scoffs at the notion of how he’s helping to legitimize spray paint as an art form.
“There’s a lot of people that have been doing it way longer than I have who have just created these beautiful intricate works,” Osgood said. “I definitely have learned from what other people have done.”
Osgood’s creations, however, did land him the title of poster winner for this year’s Fresh Paint festival. This will be Osgood’s first time strutting his stenciling and spray-can skills on the Everett waterfront promenade.
“I think what I’ll do is start a big canvas, one that can fit in the bed of my truck, and I’ll try to knock it out it two days,” Osgood said. “What I’m going to paint, I have no idea.”
Osgood has let the wind blow him this way and that at various times in his career. When he met his future wife, Michele, she steered him into silk screening, which sprouted into a pretty profitable line of clothing and launched their studio, Bherd Studios.
Osgood also is giving back. He and Michele started Art Up, a group that helps communities clean up graffiti and replace it with mural art people will enjoy. He and Michele help teach mural art to school groups and the Boys &Girls Club.
“My art work is urban contemporary street artwork and that’s where I’m lucky because my stuff doesn’t get covered over,” Osgood said. “But when a piece is actually tagged … it stings for a second, but my options are to go in and look and see what I can do with that, and then I know I win this battle.”
Stephanie Johnson
Hometown: Kent
Age: 18
Occupation: A professional artist
Favorite book: “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” part of the “Chronicles of Narnia” series by C.S. Lewis.
Latest accomplishment: Reaching a new level in her art work after recently taking some intense workshops.
Why you do what you do: “It’s kind of a combination of things. I am really happy when I paint, it’s therapeutic and calming and I also want to share that with people to help people to be happy.”
Quote: “It is only by drawing often, drawing everything, drawing incessantly, that one fine day you discover to your surprise that you have rendered something in its true character.” — Camille Pissarro.
If you want to look for evidence that home schooling works, look no further than Stephanie Johnson.
Johnson started the Fresh Paint circuit at the age of 16 and will have a booth this year for the third time. Her paintings are in several private and corporate collections. And she has received a commendation from the New York City Fire Department for a book project that raised money for the families of victims of 9-11.
At 18, Johnson has her own business and her own Web site and a goal of one day owning her own gallery.
“I think I was 10 years old when I started drawing and just saw an art class and thought I’d try and I loved it,” Johnson said. “I kind of try to push forward, because if I continue to grow as an artist, I can pursue better things, like galleries and other shows.”
Johnson started in watercolor and got to a certain point where she thought she had learned all there was to learn. Her teacher recommended oils and Johnson hasn’t turned back since. Johnson creates in a classical style. This fall, she begins a four-year graduate program in Seattle to get more classical training. After that, Johnson said she’ll pursue a college degree.
“That’s what I really always nted was I want to become among the great sort of masters,” said Johnson, who paints between four and six hours a day. “I want to preserve the classical method by painting in that style. I don’t want to loose that.”
Though striving to be a master, Johnson is still confused for a minor, a problem she tries to make the best of.
“I go to these festivals and people will look at me and try to figure out how old I am and they can’t so they have to ask,” she said. “They are always surprised when I tell them I’m 18.”
Ursula Stocke
Hometown: Raised in Alaska, attended school in St. Paul, been in Everett since 1995. “There’s an undercurrent of art that just runs through this town.”
Age: 39
Occupation: Full time artist and also works at Wisedesignz Custom Framing in Everett.
Favorite book: “I just read ‘De Kooning: An American Master’ and I’ve always loved artist’s biographies and these male painters always have a female artist somewhere, so I love reading the personalities behind the art work and to try and get inside their head and to see the partnerships between other artists. It’s fascinating.”
Latest accomplishment: “I was featured in a show in May at the Snohomish County Arts Council with 12 of my large-scale impressionist florals.”
Why you do what you do: “I feel my most peace when I’m in my studio. It brings me a lot of joy.”
Quote: “Be grateful for what you have and you will have all you need.”
For several years, the art that Ursula Stocke produced was really quite staged. Literally.
Stocke painted theater sets for Intiman Theatre in Seattle and for Everett’s Northwest Savoyards, where these 12-foot stretches of canvas would beckon her like an open gate into a beautiful garden.
“My work is figure painting and floral and very impressionist with broad, big, rich, buttery brush strokes and that style bloomed out of working on big theatrical sets,” Stocke said. “That allowed me to have the freedom to explore my own content and what I’m seeing in my painting.”
Today, Stocke’s canvasses are normally still pretty big but she’s scaled down the size quite a bit and will bring a variety of her miniature and medium-size paintings with her to Fresh Paint this year.
Stocke explores organic forms and lines in her paintings of figures and floral scenes, which lend themselves to an impressionistic style. In contrast, her watercolorist husband tends to a more traditional. This will be the sixth year the couple has done Fresh Paint, joyously sharing side-by-side booths as much as they share the artistic passions that bind them.
“My favorite question from him is, ‘Hey what do you think about this?’ I’ll critique his work and he’ll critique mine and it’s a wonderful relationship,” Stocke said. “Art has bonded us even tighter.”
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