Medium: Mezzotint
Dimensions: 5 x 7 1/2 inches
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1954
Date finished: 2010
Edition: of 90
Reference: 298

Recommended by Sunny: 
(Collections Assistant)

Mikio Watanabe's work is extremely delicate and intriguing. The themes are simple, but his execution of form and technique are quite complex. Fossile catches my eye and reminds me of an Italian marble sculpture. The lighting is beautifully balanced between cool and warm tones and the figure's pose is expressive. Both filled with emotion and purpose.

Medium: Mezzotint
Dimensions: 6 x 3 3/4 inches
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1954
Date finished: 2016
Edition: of 90
Reference: 380

Recommended by Emma (Marketing & Communications Manager):
"Mikio Watanabe captures the soft warm glow of summer in this sweet image. Yet over the years in this region the end of summer has become a season of miserable heat and hazy poor air quality. This droopy sunflower perfectly captures how I feel as we settle in to August and the smoke rolls in. The glow is lovely, but I am exhausted and dreaming of cloudy skies and rain."

Series: 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Medium: Oil based woodblock print on cream paper
Dimensions: 15 x 15 inches
Signature: Signed
Artist details: American, 1935 - 2022
Date finished: 2018
Date of plate: 1986
Edition: of 10
Printer: Sidereal Fine Art Press
Condition: SFAP Chop in the lower right hand corner.

Recommended by Rebecca (Gallery Associate):

This series, '13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird' by Michael Spafford, is the artist's interpretation of a poem by Wallace Stevens. For this piece, the poem reads: "I was of three minds / Like a tree / In which there are three blackbirds." Spafford was a beloved Northwest artist and a teacher at the University of Washington for more than 30 years. His work focused on abstracting mythology into compressed, black and white forms. 'I Was of Three Minds' showcases Spafford's powerful simplicity, where the blackbirds intersect in the figure's mind at the point of a triangle, visible only because of the white grid crossing the black face. It is clear yet complex, perfectly echoing the poem.

Medium: Etching and aquatint
Dimensions: 6 x 6 inches
Signature: Signed
Artist details: Japanese, 1964
Date finished: 2016
Edition: of 10

Recommended by Nikki (Fine Print Photographer & Content Publisher):
"Sugita’s transient monument series highlights the temporal aspect of human transit, as we travel around in our cars, buses, trains, bikes, etc. Something I took for granted before Seattle’s lockdown began.  In Transient Monument #4, we do not see any people. Instead we see two great forces - the man made steel bridge and the water beneath it. Both things are often only seen in passing, until we slow down and really take a second look."

Medium: Wood engraving
Dimensions: 5 x 6 1/2 inches
Artist details: Japanese, 1964
Date finished: 2007
Edition: of 50

Recommended by Paige (Collections Manager):
"Toru Sugita is a California-based Japanese artist and teacher who creates a variety of landscape and city scene prints. He has spent years thinking about changing light and is an expert at capturing each specific type of light that is unique to a place and a moment. On My Balcony I is a beautiful, simple wood engraving that captures a very individual scene: "my" balcony. It isn't lavish or curated; it isn't full of lush plants or exciting people - it's simple and sincere. The intimate process of carving a wood block is felt in this small piece. I feel the block's texture and the quiet moments that the artist spent with it. Now that we often think about curating images of our lives to only present the very best and most exciting aspects of ourselves, I am fascinated by Sugita's emphasis on the ordinary."