16th Annual ARTrails Continues in Southwest Washington This Weekend

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Artists with studios as far north as Littlerock and as far south as Ryderwood are participating in the 16th annual ARTrails of Southwest Washington Studio Tour, which includes an exhibition of mixed media at Centralia’s Historic Train Depot.

The free and self-guided studio tour started last weekend and allows the public to watch artists in action and purchase their artwork. Since not everyone has their own formal studio, there are 38 artists in the ARTrails exhibition spread across 17 studios where they’ll be working and showing their art from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sept. 22 and 23.

A full list of participants is available at ARTrailsofSWW.org., or just stop by the Historic Train Depot at 210 Railroad Ave. between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. to pick up a guide. The exhibition will be held there daily through Sept. 23.

Just around the block from the Train Depot is Jan Nontell’s Verdant Fire Studio At Rectangle Gallery, which hosts many artists who don’t have studios or want to be closer to the exhibition space in order to more easily show their work.

Nontell, who has owned Rectangle Gallery in downtown Centralia for two and a half years, started participating in ARTrails during its second year and has been doing so ever since.

“I did the tour the first year and wanted to be a part of an artist’s group,” she said. “It’s a really good group of people.”

Nontell’s “Breakthrough Series VI” raku ceramic piece is featured in this year’s exhibition, and said she likes that ARTrails inspires people to create art and be involved in the community.

“It’s a nice way to be able to show people art and let people know we all can do it,” she said. “You don’t have to be a special kind of person to do art.”

Tamara Hinck has her wood carving “Moon Mask” on display at the ARTrails exhibition. She’s been a wood carver since she retired in 2003, when she found a master wood carver offering a class in Sammamish and made the long drive there from Chehalis every week.

Hinck has completed five totem poles and she’s working on a sixth during ARTrails called “The Grandmother” — patterned after a design that she saw that had been carved in cedar, cast in bronze and poured in glass.

“It just amazed me,” she said. “It’s such a beautiful design.”

Her totem pole work stays in a climate-controlled area most of the time. The particular piece she’s currently working on was formerly a telephone pole and is red cedar wood. She plans on sealing it, but not painting it.

“That’s what the ancient people did,” Hinck said. “They put it outside and after about 75 years, they figured the person it was honoring was gone and so too the pole would go.”

She estimates that the project, and other similar ones she’s completed, will take between 150 and 200 work hours.

Also among the diverse group of artists at this year’s ARTrails is Ina Wagenman. Her mosaic “The Scarf II” is on display.



“I took a stained-glass class several years ago, and I was just amazed at how much of that beautiful glass got thrown away,” she said. “So I tried mosaics and really liked it. You have more freedom to make mistakes with mosaics.”

Wagenman is self-taught and studies the work of others. She’s been doing mosaics for about five years and became involved in ARTrails shortly after she started.

“It’s sort of like coloring except I’m using a different material,” she said.

Wagenman has a 400-square-foot studio in Winlock, but has recently shown her work at Nontell’s Rectangle Gallery during ARTrails.

“The first couple years I was in ARTrails, I had people come to my studio, but the owner of the gallery invited me to come here where there’s a lot more foot traffic than there is out on the backroads of Winlock,” she said.

Artist Karla Bailey has her graphite pencil drawing “Bald Eagle” on display at this year’s ARTrails. She moved to Centralia two years ago and participated in the event last year as well.

“I love animals, but bald eagles have such a depth to them with their feathers and their eyes,” she said. “It’s just fun to do the texture and expressions on their faces.”

Bailey does mostly drawings of animals and people, but also paints more landscape-oriented pieces.

“I’ve been doing it my entire life,” she said. “I got really interested in middle school. I had a great art teacher.”

Another work on display is Melinda Brein’s “Dragon Scale.” Brein mostly makes beaded jewelry and got started around 16 years ago.

“When I first moved back to Centralia, ARTrails was in its second year,” she said. “I was just at the beginnings of my beading. One of the other ARTrails members had been beading for a long time and she became my mentor.”

Her favorite type of work is off-loom beading, which is like sewing with beads. She is working on a vibrantly-colored necklace during ARTrails.

Among other work featured in the ARTrails exhibition: photography, paintings, cement art, stoneware, mixed media and more.

ARTrails of Southwest Washington encourages the public to “take a drive through the region’s historic communities and wander the back roads of Lewis County.”