Art Beat

What do you get when you cross 10 gallery/performance spaces, an outdoor sculpture garden, tons of good food and drink, a broad spectrum of activities and more bands than you can shake a drumstick at? If you said a really great time, you’d be right. But where does one have to go to find an […]

When most people pull off southbound Highway 101 into the parking lot shared by Mr. Fish and a pawn shop, they’re probably looking to bring home a few pounds of fresh crab or make a few bucks off that old guitar that’s been taking up closet space — but not local artist and gallery owner […]

 Living in Humboldt County, it’s easy to become desensitized to our beautiful surroundings. Majestic redwoods, dramatic seascapes and an abundance of wildlife are all right outside our windshields during just about any local commute. But rushing through our daily lives, filled with appointments and deadlines, it’s often hard to appreciate the magnificence of our coastal […]

Those familiar with the work of Michael Guerriero may be surprised by his latest show, opening this weekend in HSU’s First Street Gallery. The mixed-media works on paper and canvas are different from what you’ve seen from the artist, who works at his home studio on a mountainside near Bridgeville. While he’s known for refined […]

There is something appealing about doing things the way they’ve been done for centuries — sailing, leavening bread, celestial navigation — they offer us a connection to the past, contact with tradition. They help us to place ourselves, to feel part of a continuum. There is also something inexplicably attractive about activities that incorporate primary […]

The late Hobart Brown would undoubtedly approve. The upstairs bedrooms in the Ferndale Victorian that one housed his Hobart Galleries, along with his studio and living quarters, are once again full of art — the walls hung with paintings and more in progress on easels. The gallery space downstairs currently features bronze sculptures by the […]

The Ironside Gallery is one of the newest cooperative galleries in Humboldt County. Formed in 2011, it offers a select group of area artists space to display and sell their work. The work on display rotates among more than 25 local artists and ranges from printmaking, handmade jewelry and photography to sculpture, painting, drawing, mixed […]

For most of us here in Eureka, the trauma of Jan. 9, 2010, has faded into the annals of earthquakes past. Living near the triple junction, seismic shifts are our lot. If we remember the date at all, we probably think that was the day we personally dodged a bullet. Miraculously no lives were lost, […]

An antique iron press with an enormous black wheel anchors the back room of artist Elaine Benjamin’s Blue Chair Press studio, formerly home to the Blue Lake Advocate. The place also came with the oak counter where she greets me, wearing a pair of round tortoise glasses. Obsolete objects are all around, including a row […]

If you’ve ever cruised down E Street in Eureka, done a double-take at the house next to the Labor Temple at Ninth Street and wondered, “Are those really oil paintings crammed at the front door, leaning on the hedges and tumbling out onto the lawn?” … you would be correct. And if you took the […]

Suk Choo Kim smiles like a happy baby. At 62, his hair is wispy and silver, but his broad face is still smooth and rosy like the persimmons heaped on the granite counter at which we sit.  I open one of his folios, a black 8 x 10 archival paper envelope with a dozen or […]

For many artists living and working in Humboldt County, no matter their style or medium, the diverse natural beauty of this place inspires passion. Temperament and craft play their part in the approaches the artists interviewed here take in expressing their environs, be it town or county, with results that are as varied and striking […]