Image used courtesy of http://cascadiaartmuseum.org/
This past September, the first Cascadia Art Museum opened it's doors in Edmonds, Washington, and has been enjoying a great early success with several great, Pacific Northwest focused exhibitions. Cascadia opened its doors with a mission to celebrate art and artists within the Cascadia bioregion, from the sweeping mountains of the Continental Divide to the Pacific Oceans, and is currently the only museum in the Northwest to focus on the time period of the late 19th century, through the 1960's.
As noted through a lovely review in the Los Angeles Times
"If you want a monument to everything Pacific Northwest — gray skies and craggy mountains, environmental correctness and the locavore life, salmon, hops — look no further than the sprawling Cascadia in this Seattle suburb on the edge of Puget Sound"
Cascadia Curator Cascadia curator David F. Martin notes that "Northwest art differs from that found in the rest of the country because of the region's early influx of immigrants from China and Japan. Combine such influences with the Western mode and Native American culture, and that affects the visual language of the region."
Image used courtesy of http://cascadiaartmuseum.org/
The museum is housed in half of a sweeping, 22,000 square foot, converted 1960's era Safeway supermarket, retrofitted to highlight it's midcentury timber frame and as a nod to the regions eco-consciousness. To help compliment it's Pacific Northwest flavor, it shares the space with a home made distillery named Scratch, and Brigid's Bottleshop, with more than 300 available craft brews.
Since it's opening, the museum receives an average of 80 visitors a day, and is open five days a week, surpassing 3000 visitors since opening. Cascadia is now focusing on its membership drive and expanded education programs, with a goal of 700 sustaining members in it's first 12 months of operation, having already achieved 275 supporting members.
If you would like to become a supporting member for the Art Museum, follow this link.
The membership provides free entry, invites to exclusive events and a discount in their museum store.
Their inaugural exhibit introduces viewers to work from regional artists active from 1900 and leading through the 1960s including Glen Alps, Ray Hill, Irwin Caplan and Jess Cauthorn. Also on display right now is Vintage Christmas Cards by Northwest Artists from 1909-1990 which will be showing until January 10th 2016 and including more than 100 rare and vintage Christmas Cards made in block print, silkscreen, watercolor and oil by artists including Paul Horiuchi, Yvonne Twining Humber, Danny Pierce and many others.
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