Artworks featured artist for September is Shawna Marie Franklin

||| FROM B.J. ARNOLD for ORCAS ISLAND ARTWORKS |||

Shawna Marie Franklin

The Orcas Island Artworks features work from Shawna Marie Franklin’s Distant Memory series of monoprints and oil paintings through the month of September.

Lately, I’ve been obsessed with a distant memory. 

A long unpeopled beach brushing up against a massive green-gold headland.  I look out to an unsettled bottle-green sea and a steel wool sky.  The wind stirs countless gulls into whirlpools above my head.  Resident Glaucous-winged Gulls, migrating California Gulls, maybe Bonaparte’s too.  I look so I can remember how this feels.  I want to get back to that hour, that day, that place.

My Distant Memory series is comprised of large format oil paintings and large format collagraph mono-prints.  This, like most of my work, is an on going series.

My artistic process begins with biological inquiry and observation in the field, together with drawing and writing.  I utilize the practice of painting, printmaking, and drawing to create cohesive bodies of work that tell a story about the natural world.  Through the act of making art, I am accomplishing a larger personal goal of bearing witness and practicing empathy towards the non-human world.  I hope that my art will ultimately remind the viewer of the importance of the non-human life on this planet.

Orcas Island Artworks located in Olga, is a cooperative gallery featuring over 40 members. It offers a carefully curated selection of fine art and handcrafted pieces by talented, passionate artists who call Orcas Island home. Visitors can explore one-of-a-kind works that reflect the unique spirit of the San Juan Islands. The gallery is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.