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Neptune's Prelude

by Stacie Lyn Kentop


Artist Statement:
I'm a finder. I am very good at finding interesting objects that can be used in my own art or others' artwork. I'm an ephemera magnet.

I love using found objects in my art because it is recycling, it is making something out of nothing, out of trash, out of discarded, unwanted stuff.

I am still discovering who I am as an artist. I struggle to focus on any one medium or technique because I love to learn, to experiment, and am drawn to so many different art forms.

I've been creating art for commerce since I was 6 years old. I really enjoy sharing what I know, what I have, and what I make with others.

Tea Time

by Petronella Fursman


Artist Statement:
Growing up in England, I loved the tradition of the tea party. It was a chance for people to show off their best china tea sets, comprising plate, cups and saucers, teapot, milk jug and sugar bowl. These were often decorated with flowers, birds, fruits or figures. The best now is the "Willow pattern" always done in blue and white. This inspired me to paint my violin to look like porcelain. Afternoon, 4.00 o' clock was quite a social occasion and every problem both great and small was settled over a 'nice cup of tea'!

Stamps from My Friends

by Lauren Oney


Artist Statement:
Music is an astounding, powerful, multifaceted tool of communication. All components of music communicate some dynamic message. This message can cross barriers of culture, space, and time.

Musical notations visible on this instrument span the globe and time. Musical notations may compare to a letter from an individual on our planted deciphered centuries later and received by those unknown to its author.

Every violin, as an instrument utilized to post these messages, conveys its own tactile, visual, and auditory individuality. Postage stamps also convey messages on multiple levels that may cross barriers of culture, space and time.

The Song Bird

by Lisa Lamoreaux


Artist Statement:
With a fascination for surface texture, pattern, found objects, and vintage ephemera, I begin each mixed-media painting with a base of collage materials. To this, I add many layers of paint, oil pastel, ink, or acrylic glaze, creating a rich surface patina. It is only then that the central images reveal themselves to me; the curve of a wrinkle becomes a vine, the accidental placement of patterned paper becomes an island, or surface texture reveals a bird nest. I scrape, sand, and sometimes sculpt images into the surface. As I allow this organic process to unfold, the composition of my pieces become more complex than originally conceived. I often go to the canvas with the end result in mind, only to discover that the relationship between the medium, subject, and myself as a tool, result in a piece far more complex than my subjective mind imagined. This process reveals deep meaning for me as I hone an ability to notice the connections between myself, my environment, and the manifestation of it on the canvas.

My current work casts me as a visual archeologist, unearthing the hidden treasures of the relationship between the subject and medium. The results are a vocabulary of symbols, fleeting memories, dreams, and commentary around the notion of illusion, reality, containment, and constructs of mind.

Midsummer Night's Dream

by Ellen Miffit


Artist Statement:
As an artist I am constantly involved with the process of transformation: spirit to image on paper or other base material. The idea of mixing and blending different materials is exciting and a natural extension of my Zen style Sumi-e painting for me. The creative mind of the mixed media artist is one that asks: I wonder what would happen if? With that in mind, I approached the Rainier Symphony Violin by asking how I could express the fantasy and comedic form of Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night?s Dream. I prepared by reading descriptions of the various character?s in Shakespeare's play, viewing art work portraying them and thinking about the movie version that was in the theatres about eight years ago. My design includes Bottom the Weaver; Oberon and Titania, king and queen of fairyland; and Puck. The back of the violin shows Titania, awakening, falling in love with the donkey headed Bottom while Oberon and Puck watch. Notice that the fairies? magic takes place at night -- how much is really a dream?

Hummingbird

by Todd Karam


Artist Statement:
My paintings are an exercise in spontaneity and creativity. I am attracted to individual objects often overlooked by others. I value the objects and their ability to provoke unexpected thoughts and emotional reactions. Creating the piece is only the beginning of the process. The painting is not complete until it has been seen by the intended audience.

In the past few years I have had many solo shows in alternative spaces and galleries around the Northwest. My work has been included in many group shows and retail shops around the country, from Baltimore and Birmingham to Miami and San Francisco. I have been commissioned by many private and corporate clients, including Starbucks and Nordstrom.

Van Gogh

by Janet Wold


Artist Statement:
Beauty queens past their prime having cocktails by the seashore. Urban apartment scenes featuring the well lived-in look. Little worlds serving as hors d'oeuvres for a heavenly being. Golden sunset scenes of harvest from a Tuscan dream. From pop to the sublime, the themes of Janet Wold's creations of acrylic on canvas stir the imagination.

Ms. Wold enjoys the company of animals, including her loving, though slightly neurotic black labish, Lucy. Frequently animals have been the subjects of her work. It's this affinity for the four legged among us that have led the artist to donate portions of her profits from her art sales to the great animal guardians. Janet participates in NARN's Artist for Animals annual art show and works through Pasado Safe Haven, an outfit that takes in the orphaned, abandoned, neglected and abused creatures from an assortment of species and gives them a life with food, love and dignity.

Jeweled Child's Violin

by Rebecca DeVere & River Burke


Artist Statement:
River Song Jewelry and DeVere Mosaics have paired up in creating this tiny jewel of a violin. The mosaic pieces consist of hundreds of semi-precious stones.

Rebecca DeVere has been an artist her whole life and making mosaics professionally for 12 years. She is best known for her "Lucky Garden Turtles" sold at Fireworks and her "Golden Buck".

River Burke is an accomplished jeweler with a background in organic farming. Her jewelry is found in Fine stores and galleries across the U.S. such as The Sundance Store, Fireworks and Liberty 123 in Kirkland, Washington.

Found Object: Music of the Street (No Strings Attached)

by Robert Stockton


Artist Statement:
I am mostly a mixed media artist, and incorporate both "found" and traditional artist's materials into my work. Most of my artwork falls into one of two distinct formats: two dimensional pieces on paper or board (framed and under glass), which I tend to think of as drawings, and pieces, frequently on a weathered wood surface, which incorporate a variety of two dimensional, and low-relief three dimensional materials and objects, set off by a wooden shadow box frame, which I call "scrapboxes."

I tend to be fascinated with the odd, unusual, or jarring juxtaposition of textures, patterns, colors, and materials which, for me, create interesting and, often, surprising visual relationships, or connections. While working, I like to let my intuition take the lead, often depending on chance encounters between various materials I find, as well ideas I come up with which seem to fit the materials and processes, of the moment. Because of this, my work frequently progresses smoothly for a time, and then comes to a place where it moves forward, only in fits and starts. Working like this is frequently an experience in both exhilaration and frustration. I am interested in the opposing forces of structure or organization, and chaos (or non-structure), but, even so, I think that much of my work has a contemplative quality to it. I like to think of these pieces as a brief glimpse into aspects of the everyday details of a life that may have been lived in another time and place: realities that might have been.
The title of this piece is: Found Object: Music of the Street (No Strings Attached). The concept behind the piece is that of music belonging to everyone, from the person in the street, to the classically trained musician. Beauty in music (as well as in art), can often be found in unexpected places. I believe that being aware of, seeking out the element of surprise and discovery in music can enhance anyone's sense of musical appreciation.

Baroque 'n' Strings

by Lynette Hensley


Artist Statement:
The baroque period is one of my favorites because of the lavish layers of fabric in the clothing of the privileged classes, the mysterious half darkness of the art, architecture and decor, and the rich complexity of the music produced during this time. The group of characters that come with this violin is a baroque audience, a variety of characters that the future owner can create stories about, and no one needs disbelieve them. When I create a piece like this, it always makes me think of a play and it?s characters. Here?s the heroine, her father, the old baron that wants to marry her--where is her true love??? As a costume designer for 20 years, these characters (and what they wore) were the delight of my work. This is a mixed media collage, with images from books, patterned paper and acrylic paint and medium. It has been varnished for long wear. The violin is still playable though I cannot guarantee the tone!

Little Blackbird

by Janet Fagan-Smith


Artist Statement:
When I heard about this opportunity to help the Rainier Symphony by painting a violin, I just knew I wanted to participate. Being a working artist, and an amateur musician myself, I am always looking for ways to connect the two loves of my life, art and music. What better way to help musicians, and merge my two worlds than to actually paint a fiddle, which also happens to be the instrument that I play? My inspiration for the design of the fiddle comes directly from my experience with music. The feeling that surges through your body when you listen to a piece of music that touches your soul, or if you are lucky, while you are playing your instrument and all the pieces come together just right - that is flight to me. Soaring freely, leaving everything but the music behind, lifted and propelled by that wonderful energy the music fills you with - how else can this be described? It is flying. Flight is a metaphor that I use quite frequently in my work, and I also enjoy paying homage to the birds that bring me great joy to observe.

The final piece of inspiration for this work comes directly from a musician and instructor here in Seattle that I greatly admire, Sandra Layman. Sandra is a classically trained virtuosic violinist and violist whose specialties are Klezmer and the traditional music of Romania, Greece, Turkey, and Hungary. Sandra's CD, "Little Blackbird", is what I listened to while painting this violin. For this reason, and because the emotive music Sandra plays absolutely makes me feel like flying, I have named this piece "Little Blackbird" in her honor.

The images are printed with oil-based printing ink on mulberry paper, from relief prints that I have cut into various materials, such as wood and rubber. I have collaged them onto the fiddle, over the underpainting, using gel-medium, and then painted into the images again, and finally sealed the entire piece with varnish. I must say that it felt so strange to be applying these materials onto an actual violin, when I wipe even fingerprints from my own.

Janet Fagan-Smith grew up on the undeveloped beaches of Northwest Florida, and graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, and the University of Pennsylvania, where she focused on painting, printmaking and folklore. Janet has been exhibiting her artwork since 1997, and when she is not creating or teaching art, she loves to play her fiddle surrounded by her band-mates, the Catbirds.

Janet's artwork can be found in Fremont at Frame Up Studios, in Ballard at the Laura Frost Gallery, on Bainbridge Island at the Fraga Gallery, and in Oregon at the Bohemia Gallery.

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