Parklane Gallery is covering both ends of the spectrum with its August show, which runs Aug. 8-Sept. 3. The community's only cooperative, artist-owned art gallery features the stunning nature photographs of longtime member Larey McDaniel juxtaposed by the calming Japanese-inspired Sumi-e ink work of newcomer Kate Jones.
Larey McDaniel
McDaniel clearly has two loves: music and photography. He has been playing clarinet with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra since 1961 and also performs with the Seattle Opera and the Pacific Northwest Ballet orchestras. His official foray into photography began in fifth grade when he toted a Kodak Brownie camera on a trip to Glacier National Park.
Eventually, he segued into portraits, wedding photography and more recently, architectural photography, where he worked with an interior designer and a residential building contractor.
In July, he was on location, backpacking with his son Don through the Grand Teton National Park and then through Utah's ancient Arches National Park. Whenever he could nab an Internet connection - amid Arches' natural sandstone arches, balanced rocks and phenomenal contrasting colors - McDaniel would e-mail us with pictures. There you have it: technology triumphs again. Here is a bit of McDaniel's diary-like entry to us:
Friday, July 21, 12:47 p.m.
"Right now I'm approaching my third and last day of photographing in Arches National Park. Hiked to Delicate Arch for a sunset photo on Wednesday, walked the primitive trail through the Devil's Garden this morning - the trail was hot and difficult with scampering up and across rock walls, jumping from boulder to boulder and climbing on the back and then walking the length of tall rock fins. I didn't know I could do that!
Tomorrow, my son Don and I follow a park ranger through the Fiery Furnace, and if we survive that, we head toward Kirkland."
Saturday, July 22, 5:13 p.m.
"The Fiery Furnace hike with an Arches Park ranger was the highlight of the trip. We scrunched through the narrowest of slits between incredibly beautiful canyon walls; visited the home of a (now deceased) family of black widow spiders; photographed a tadpole pool newly formed from flash floods earlier in the week; and crawled, scooted, jumped and scampered over and through some of the most beautiful Southwest rocks I have had the privilege to experience."
McDaniel has named his show at Parklane, "Natural Images," and includes large and small photographs of landscapes and flora of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. He will be including flower studies from Bellevue Botanical Garden, Meerkirk Gardens on Whidbey and from this year's Skagit Valley Tulip Festival. There will be prints exhibited with frame sizes from 11x14 to 30x40 and "everything in between," he says. In addition to the photos taken this week and last there will also be some from Mount Rainier, the North Cascades and the Olympic Rain Forest.
McDaniel will also be displaying his work, mostly flower studies, in Kirkland Performance Center's lobby - dubbed ArtStage - along with fellow Parklane photographer, Mason Coberly.
Kate Jones
She exudes an unmistakable gentleness and sense of healing that befits a woman who is both a practicing cardiac nurse, feng shui consultant, interior designer and Sumi-e artist.
Kate Jones, who has been a member at Parklane for the past 18 months, will be exhibiting modern scrolls depicting her love of the ancient Japanese practice of watercolor and ink. She hopes that they "inspire peaceful quiet and meditation time."
The scrolls are made of rice paper - instead of fragile silk - and then mounted onto canvases, which are much sturdier. The name of her show is "Now and Zen."
Jones came to Sumi-e in a somewhat roundabout way. About 12 years ago, she read her first book on feng shui, by expert Sarah Rossbach. Initially not fully grasping its precepts, she arrived at an understanding of the theory through her love of colors and aesthetics.
She then found a Chinese master, who, despite his "very broken English, showed me a Chinese painting to show me principles of feng shui," says Jones. "If this area is crowded, this area should be empty. It's the yin and yang." This brought her to the realization that feng shui used design principles that can be used for anything.
Today, when she's not at Overlake Hospital as a cardiac care nurse, she tends to interior design clients applying feng shui principles; moreover, she taps into her artwork as part of her design solutions. "My technique is very unique," she says. "I found Sumi-e to be an art form that is especially honest with nature. The result is a strikingly elegant image that is quiet, peaceful and direct."
Jones says that by helping people set up and balance their home space, she helps people heal in a creative way. "People have a hard time trying to figure out how to fill their spaces with artwork," she says. "Usually a client has an intention and I come over and help them hang the picture."
She uses the Asian culture for symbolism in her art and once did a scroll of a praying mantis in a banana field. The mantis, which is a symbol of courage, was posed in a celebratory (what she called "yay!") position. A woman purchased it for her son, who was diagnosed with cancer while enrolled in law school. Even with chemotherapy treatments, he finished school and obtained his law degree. "It's like he's hit the banana fields," Jones says.
The scroll is placed at end of a hallway in his house. "He told us that that every time he looks at it, he's so proud of his accomplishment. That's what all of my work is about," she says.
Jones is from Montana and has been in the area for 15 years, maintaining a studio in Redmond. The increase in diseases that she sees concerns her. "It wasn't unusual for me to take care of healthy, strong, hard workers in Montana," she says. "But to take care of 35-year olds with heart disease here..."
Her concern for our relative level of unhealthiness is what drives her to provide her clients with a complete sense of balance and safety in their homes. She says, "They can shut out the stress and say, 'Thank God I'm home' and be happy about that."
* * *
Parklane's artists' reception is Aug. 10, 6-9 p.m. The gallery is at 130 Park Lane, 827-1462, www.parklanegallery.com.[[In-content Ad]]
