Art Means More Than Painting
What Edmonds Art Studio Tour artists Lynn McManus and Dorothy Skea do with glass and textiles, respectively, takes the genre to another level
LH: Why are you drawn to work with glass?
LM: To take what starts as silica (sand) and it’s melted into sheet form with minerals added for color, I cut, stack, and reheat again to put the different colors together. When molten 1,750 degrees, I am able to bring a steel rod through it and comb those colors, [it] is so gratifying. When it cools down, I can heat it again and give it shape and dimension. It amazes me.
—EAST interview, June 11, 2014
When most people think of art, they immediately go to Leonardo Da Vinci, Vincent Van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe, Frida Kahlo, and their paintings. Maybe a sculpture or two.
No one thinks beyond art on canvas.
But art is more. Art is boundless, encompassing almost anything that requires the imagination.
Art is the written word, movement in dance, Shakespeare and Virginia Woolf playing out onstage, a really dense piece of John Coltrane — at his finest…
Art is also jewelry, jackets and shawls, fused glass sconces and bowls made to reflect coral nestled in sea grass.
All kinds of inspiring, purchasable art can be found at the upcoming Sept. 17-18, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Edmonds Art Studio Tour, an annual, free, self-guided affair put on by an all-volunteer committee of local artists. This year, the Studio Tour features 41 participating local artists in total; among them, the 13 members of the 2022 Steering Committee.
I interviewed three of those artists, as recommended by Kim Parsley, Steering Committee Chair and Artist Liaison/encaustic-mixed media artist. Her picks:
“Kalina Wińska, emerging artist and first-time on the Tour. She has a studio at Graphite and her work has very deep meaning. She is a pleasure to speak with.
Dorothy Skea, fashion designer — she is ‘new again’ to the Tour (it's been years since she participated) and she is the only textile designer on the Tour. Her designs are very popular with both men and women and she's very engaging and has a large studio out of her home.
Lynn McManus, very talented glass artist. I have not seen her studio, but she has been very active in our Edmonds arts community for many years.”
“Ah, Fall in Edmonds” is up on Visit Edmonds now, as is my extended interview of Wińska, here on my Substack (“Lost in Kalina Winska’s ‘Atmospheric Gaze’”).
All three artists responded right away, and warmly, to my polite inquiry and fan-girl fawning. I made sure to view their art online first, to get a feel for them as artists. It’s the same approach I use for my music reviews.
Below are my impressions of and interviews with Skea and McManus…
Dorothy Skea’s Wearable Art Fits Just About Anyone
I was told by Kim Parsley that it's been a while since you've been in the last Art Studio Tour.
Yeah. The very first—, I actually participated in the very first or second and third ones…
Where is your studio?
It’s in Edmonds, north of Costco. I’m way at the very first stop, if you look at the studio map, if you come from Seattle and I'm just in between Costco and the Lake Ballinger area.
Yeah, so I did the preview show [at the Edmonds Arts Festival, Father’s Day Weekend] and I did really well.
What did you do in the preview show? Did you work on a jacket?
No, no, no. I start from scratch. I design and make my own patterns. And then, the reason my patterns all have multiple seams is because I like to combine textures and patterns together. And I'm really good at putting things together like that. What most customers comment on is that they would never ever think of putting those combinations together.
And your designs look good with even those combinations.
I design my own patterns and then I actually find— I spend lot of time looking for specific fabrics to make my design look good. I spent more time looking for fabrics than I'm actually sitting down and sewing it, and every piece is one of a kind.
I combine, you know, I basically like to combine just textures and I don't care about the fiber content; I'm more concerned with the texture and the patterns. I don't know if you saw my work on the website I have, but —
I did. Your fashions — and you mentioned this in one of the artist bios — look flattering for all sizes, not just skinny, skinny.
Yes, exactly. That's why I have all sizes of, you know, customers in all sizes shop with me and buy things from me.
I grew up in Hong Kong, and I took tailoring from a [master] tailor. I think that if you look at my design, it's got, like, an Asian flair to it. I started learning how to sew and tailoring, and drafting my patterns when I was 12 years old.
The teacher, the tailor, didn't really want to take me as a student, because I was too young. I had to beg the tailor and say, “Would you try me out for one week?” I decided to take private lessons from her instead of getting in the big group with all the adults. She took me for one week and she told me I was the best student she ever had. And she said, “You will, in your future, be doing something with this.”
So, I've been making all my clothes since I was 12. I never bought any clothes since [then].
Wow, yeah. And I read that you would go and shop for fabrics when you worked at Boeing. You would make all your outfits and wear a new wardrobe every week, so your boss brings you in for a meeting to ask how are you affording all this?
Yeah, yeah, right. How can you afford that? he asked. I said, no, I don't buy it. I design and make all my own clothes and I started taking orders at Boeing. After that, I said, “Well, I don't like my job anyway, why don't I start out with a fabric store?”
So I started with a fabric store and then people came in. Because I always design what I wear, they look at what I was wearing [and they say,] “Can you show me how to make your design?” Then I had to show them how to take a pattern and convert it into my design.
And it took too long to teach people how to do that. That's when I developed into making custom-made clothes and going around doing shows and selling my own designs.
If you look at my patterns, like I said, I don't care what kind of pattern, what kind of fabrics I use. Because when I was 12 and I learned tailoring, I didn't have much money and my dad would import fabrics from Japan for manufacturers, and he had a lot of upholstery and home decorating samples. So, I used those fabrics to develop my own style and that's why, if you look at my designs, a lot of them I used home decorating fabrics and upholstery fabrics. Yeah, so all of these things are all interconnected.
What kind of things inspire you, you know, to create these—
Everything inspires me. I go out on the street and I see some color combination of the garden. I get inspiration from that. If I go to a ride, you know, go to Disneyland or Disney World, I see the rides, I see all the different shapes and structures like that. Those inspire me, too. So everything I see, I come up with clothing designs.
Let me get this straight. You go by what you see that inspires you, but you like the feel of the fabrics too, right?
Yes, absolutely. Yes. That's why I very seldom — I don't like to shop online for fabrics, because I can't see the drape and the feel. So everywhere I go, like when I go do shows in California, I go look for fabrics.
Oh, that sounds like fun. It’s one-of-a-kind, because of how you put it together.
Exactly. Because I don't ever buy everything from one store. I go all over the place, collect them. And then when the right piece comes along, I put them together.
Mm-hmm. That’s just totally unique.
People always ask me where you shop for fabric. I said all over.
The sky would be the limit for you, because you could actually get clothes from other people and break that down or—
I actually have done that. I have customers that brought in an old piece of clothing that they bought from Egypt and they absolutely love it. And so they said, “Well, Dorothy, can you do something with this? Because I really don't want to wear it like this.” So, I combine that fabric with my own design and make them a new outfit out of it.
So what's gonna be happening at the Studio Tour? What are you planning? You know, when they go into your studio, when people come and visit?
Well, you know, I do a lot of shows, so I pass out brochures and then customers buy from me.
They just want to see — when I do shows, there's limited space. So the summer show, I can only bring the summer things and the winter shows, I can only bring the winter things. So the ones when I was doing the summer show, they want to come and see what my winter things look like, right?
That's what the Studio Tour is for. And then people can just see the whole range of what I do. Because I will have my own space that I can put out everything.
Besides all that, are you going to actually start working on a fabric in front of them during the Art Studio Tour?
I won't have time to do that. People want to ask questions, how I make things. I can explain to them, but I won't be able to set up a demonstration, because I, I just don't think I have time or the space to do that. Right now actually, my studio is not really where I'm making the designs. It's another long story.
My mom is 93. She lives next door to me and I had to move her over, because I got to keep an eye on her. So I'm using the house next door that she used to live in to do my Studio Tour with my clothing. And I actually sew over here in my other house right next door to each other.
So one more question. After all these years, you're finally back at the Art Studio Tour. What are you looking forward to?
I'm looking forward to just developing into a new — see, I'm trying to cut down on my business. I'm 73 and I don't know how much longer I can keep sewing, like the way I've been sewing. So I thought, well, if I just develop a local Edmonds type clientele, I can just basically narrow down my business and just cater to all local people, their needs; that's what my goal is, to be able to do that.
Lynn McManus’ Glass Art Fuses Everyday Wonders
“Hi, I’m on a fishing boat in Alaska right now!” Lynn McManus chirped on the other line.
“Oh, how cool!” I replied.
“We’re on a family vacation.”
When I informed her the interview would touch on her and two other EAST artists, as well as other Edmonds fall events, she openly breathed a sigh of relief, adding, “Good!” and that she preferred the focus not be solely on her.
She works with fused glass, deriving inspiration from the waters off Alaska and the Big Island, where she and her family splits time vacationing. She also notices patterns everywhere, in brilliant, gauzy detail, which is seamlessly, artfully depicted in her glass pieces…jewelry, whimsical bowls, sconces, and statement pieces.
“Colors, shapes and patterns have always fascinated me. The patterns I see in fish, tides, fabrics, flowers, clouds and even birds influence my compositions. My representation of those patterns is found in almost all of my pieces. One of my most popular series of pieces was inspired by the shape and colors of coral I saw in Hawaii [artist statement, LHM Glass Design website].”
When I shared my own love of patterns, in the afghans I crochet and the process of sourdough baking I indulge in every week, she let out a squeal of delight, “Oh, I’m so glad! It’s everywhere!”
Originally into stain glass work, McManus, who is also on the Steering Committee as the EAFF Liaison, sought to convey more dimension to her pieces. In the early 1970s, her instructor at North Seattle Community College was at a loss. They made do, trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, so to speak, until the ‘90s, when she discovered blowing and fusing glass online.
A few more classes, this time at Seattle’s Pratt Fine Arts, and she went with fusing, purchasing her “first kiln and fusible glass and I was off to the races! Three kilns later, I find myself being inspired by many things in my environment, the colors around me and just life itself [website].”
She shared her knowledge as a stained/fused glass instructor with middle school students, helping them realize their own abilities, individually and together for class projects — an Orca window panel at the Maplewood Co-op library…fused glass tile mosaics on existing cement benches at the Cedar Valley Community School.
Her openness and kind understanding made the interview a breeze, bolstering my confidence a bit. Those rare traits must’ve served her well as a para-professional working in the Edmonds School District for 15 years, helping high-needs students.
Her artist statement zeroes in on the heart and soul of her fused glass pieces, the patterns, interwoven colors, and precious reflections of a world where beauty, quiet joy, and love abound:
“When people look at my work, I want them to smile. It relaxes me and brings me joy to create my pieces, therefore, when I share my work with others, I like for them to have positive feelings as well. Often when I make a piece, I have a particular friend or family member in mind. I consider their likes, dislikes, passions, and tendencies as I cut, fuse, and comb the glass. The diversity among others has contributed to the range of style in my work. My work has shown at several galleries, shows, exhibits and homes in the area and abroad.”
McManus rattled off the fun times she had with her family on board friends’ boats, fishing for salmon (“Oh we just caught one, I think!”), cooking up dinner, breaking bread, and sitting back to enjoy those priceless views — much of which she manages to capture when she gets back home to her kilns, frits, cutters, and wild imagination.
“I’ll be at sea for a few weeks. But I’ll be sure to send you more photos of some other glass pieces I’ve worked on! Thanks, Carol!”
Check out this great interview from a past Studio Tour.
The Edmonds Art Studio Tour takes place on the third weekend in September. Go to their website for a map.
