Community through Art…

Behind the Scenes of the 2024-25 Artists' Registry Show

Written by Wendy Smith, SJIMA Assistant Director

More than ever, being in community is a beautiful, necessary and vital thing.

This last fall I stepped into a new role as Assistant Director of the San Juan Islands Museum of Art, and had the opportunity to take the lead on orchestrating our Annual Artists’ Registry Show. As they say, “It takes a village”, and I can attest, it certainly does!

The show, featuring artists from across the San Juan Islands, boasted its largest amount of entries to date, with 105 artists contributing a work to the show. Being involved with the show for the past 6 years, I had an idea of how to accomplish what was necessary but had no idea just how many man hours or people it would take to bring it to fruition. I learned a lot about community and working together to achieve a goal and doing it with joy in your heart, even when you are exhausted and don’t have a relevant brain cell left in your head. There is always time for camaraderie, gratitude and above all else - laughter! And… lots and lots of Blake’s homemade Chex Mix to get us through it all!

Following is a deconstructed view of how this wonderful and incredibly diverse show came to life and all the people that made it happen.

Gallery Layout

It all starts with a general idea of layout of the galleries and what color to paint the walls. With so many works of art to display, I knew we’d need as much wall space as possible, so chose a configuration of our portable walls that would provide that. Our expert wall movers, Joe & Lloyd (artists themselves), got to work getting everything into place (not as easy as it sounds!), making them ready for the next step of painting.

Honestly, I think these guys are miracle workers! Thank you guys!

Painting

Next up is painting. Right from the start, I had a vision of this deep reddish-pink color for the portable and accent walls in the galleries. I saw a thread of connection to the color of the wall graphics we would use for the title wall, as well as the background color for the postcards created to promote the show, and the banners outside of the museum. I knew it was a somewhat risky color but my predecessor had not been afraid of using strong color in previous exhibitions and so I went for it! Not to say I didn’t have one complete sleepless night after the walls had been painted that exotic color, called “Mediterranean Spice”, I did - but I quickly saw how awesome it was going to be. Thanks to Terry Ogle (another wonderful local artist) and his outstanding crew, for bringing that vision to life.

Artworks

Although I had spots in mind for several of the artworks that would be in the show, primarily due to size of the artwork and certain points of strong visual impact that I wanted to create, until the artists in the show dropped off all of the 105 artworks on Dec 3rd, we really had no idea how they were all going to work together in a cohesive show. Always the biggest challenge of the Artists’ Registry show, the layout of over 100 disparate works of art. Holy Moly! But.. with my trusty team of my sister Alison and expert and friend Chris, we took on the challenge and got started that evening. After 4 hrs, we resigned ourselves to a much needed pizza break, then called it a night and came back with fresh eyes on Dec 4th, spending the next 8 hrs or so finishing the layout. A monumental task filled with moments of joy, frustration and absolute 11th hour giddiness and genius, (we thought, anyway!) To be fair, the pic below of us three was taken a couple nights later at a sushi restaurant :)

The Install

Next up is install. With a trusty and wonderful crew, we set about hanging and placing the artwork through out the three galleries. A full days work, for sure, but it went quicker than I expected. “Many hands make light work” goes the ancient proverb, and it couldn’t be more true. Everyone seemed to quickly get started on the task at hand and literally, went to work! With the artworks in their locations and a set of standard guidelines to follow, our crew knew exactly what to do, and if they didn’t, we had a group discussion and figured it out. Once again, a sense of camaraderie, purpose and joy filled the day. A BIG THANKS to Kristen, Larz, Alison, Kirk & John for all your hard work! BTW, the first 4 listed, also artists :)

Final Touches

Still so much to do! Hanging the wall graphics (labor intensive is too light a term), lighting (kill me now!), hanging the wall labels for all the art, then…. when all that’s done, getting ready for the Opening Night Reception for SJIMA members, all the artists in the show, and their guests. Whew! Not too much to ask, right?! The whole process was done in a nine day turnaround from the end of the fall show to the opening of the winter (Artists’ Registry) show. It’s always an intense time of condensed work with so many moving parts and people. Nothing more satisfying though, when it’s all done and you get to enjoy sharing a glass of wine with everyone at the reception.

Thank you Larz for your tutorial and help with the graphics - literally could not have done it without you!! Thank you Blake for all your hard work with the lighting and everything else that needed doing! Thank you Chris for all your help planning and assisting with the reception, as well as keeping me sane throughout the whole show process. Thank you to Printonyx for all your help with the postcards, banners, wise council and generosity of time and patience. Thank you Browne’s for your donation of the crowd-favorite, Mediterranean Spice paint! Thank you to Danielle & Shannon for all your help with the catalog. And the list goes on and on. Mostly, of course, thanks goes to the amazing 105 artist in the show! Our wonderful community of artists here in the islands, is something to behold and treasure, for sure. It’s wonderful to come together in celebration of our artistic community.

Opening Night Reception

Some fun pics from the Opening Night Reception for the Artists’ Registry Show, Dec 12, 2024. The AR Show ran through to February 24, 2025. Of course, we are already on to our new spring show that opened on March 7th, featuring artists Andy Eccleshall, Kenda Francis & Niki Keenan - but that’s another blog! :) What a ride the AR Show was! My first baptism into designing and coordinating a show for SJIMA - and an experience I will never forget - but I absolutely could not have done it without the amazing community of people that showed up to help. Deep gratitude.

Check out the links below for more information about the artists that participated in the show (AR Directory), a link to interviews with some of those artists and a link for more info about our current spring show and artists.