THE PANDEMIC CAN’T STOP YOU FROM ENJOYING EVERYTHING!

Our team has been hard at work interviewing and photographing the artists and their creations so you can visit them online.  You can now tour the annual Artists’ Registry show at the San Juan Islands Museum of Art (SJIMA) right here online. 

Start by browsing the Artists’ Registry Index to get an overview of all the works in the exhibition, then dive into each artist’s page for more information.  During the week following the initial site launch on Jan 10 several artist interviews — taped live or via Zoom - will be added to their artist pages.  A panoramic video tour will also be added to the site so the art can be seen in its setting with other works.

Seventy-one artists’ work span sculpture, photography, oil painting, glass, jewelry, acrylic painting, mixed media, drawing, encaustic, pottery, prints-etchings, mono prints, block prints, watercolor, wood, textiles, pastels and egg tempura.  This outstanding array of work from our county wide artists-emerging, established and professional, is installed beautifully in the SJIMA galleries.

You can also enjoy previous exhibitions and events under the heading of Second Helpings, with additional past exhibitions being added throughout the year.

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Enjoy the show! We are ready to welcome you in person now and can hardly wait to see you.

“For me the image of the boat is meant to symbolize a voyage or journey.

Perhaps it is the voyage to the other side, or the journey to the unknown.” 

Steve Jensen

Steve comes from a long tradition of Norwegian fisherman and boat builders. He grew up on and around his fathers and grandfather’s fishing boats and in the Ballard shipyards.

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His best friend Sylvan did a drawing of a boat. When Sylvan gave it to him, he asked that when he passed, would make a boat for his ashes? He died a month later and Steve carved a boat as close to the drawings as possible.  When Steve’s father passed, his mother was so moved by the boat she wanted his father’s remains put in a similar vessel. They buried the boat at sea, like a contemporary Viking funeral. Two years later his mother passed  and he created a boat for her ashes and buried it with my father at sea.

When his partner died, his wish was also to have a boat for his ashes. In the course of eight years Steve had tragically lost and made funeral boats for everyone close to him. His best friend died of AIDS, his father committed suicide, his mother fell apart emotionally, then physically.  During this period in what Steve called the nightmare his former partner escaped into alcohol, which killed him. What Jensen is attempting to do is take something that was tragic in his life and turn it into something beautiful.