Aberdeen artist Mery Swanson received a pleasant surprise last week as she was preparing to launch her latest large-scale endeavor.
A Sept. 25 phone call from Olympia informed her she had been selected to receive a 2018 Governor’s Arts & Heritage Award. The prestigious program recognizes individuals and organizations across the state that have made significant contributions to Washington’s creative and cultural vitality.
Upon hearing she’d won the Community Arts Award, she was floored. She had no idea her friend and colleague Sandi Furlong, who creates wearable art, had nominated her. “I couldn’t breathe for about three hours,” she laughed.
The official Arts Washington release calls Swanson “a change agent that has made an indelible mark on the Aberdeen area.” She’s been active in the local arts community for more than 20 years, since moving here from Kirkland. She started the “On the Map” listings online (galleries, murals, critters and urban art), as well as the Healing Gallery at Grays Harbor Community Hospital.
Now, at 83, she belongs to all three of the Harbor’s art guilds and directs the Art Marketing Group of the nonprofit Our Aberdeen. In her studio, she works primarily with watercolors. And on top of all that, she’s a real estate agent with Olympic Realty.
“This honor is so deserved,” said Hoquiam artist and colleague Carrie Larson. “Along with so many other arts-related endeavors, Mery has been the tireless organizing force behind Art Drives, an open studio tour that encompasses 32 studio spaces involving 50 artists throughout the Harbor.”
The inaugural event will take place over the next two weekends. A broad range of art forms will be represented, including all types of painting, photography, fabric work, pottery, woodworking and jewelry-making.
“On Sept. 27, 2017, we had our first meeting for this Art Drive. We’d been studying it for five or six years, so we decided to float it and see what happened,” said Swanson. “And the energy, and the artists that came out in droves … we ended up with 50 artists who are dedicated to it and have worked all year.”
Artists throughout Grays Harbor and Pacific counties are opening their studios to the public Oct. 6-8 and 13-14. Also on those dates, a temporary gallery at the D&R Event Center in downtown Aberdeen will display one piece from each of the artists registered for the tour.
Swanson credited Mike and Sylvia Dickerson at Our Aberdeen for backing the effort. “Without them, this would be an almost impossible task,” she said. Art Drives is being produced under that nonprofit umbrella, giving Swanson access to grants, event insurance and other benefits.
An $11,600 Grays Harbor Tourism grant covered the media program, which is being handled by Comcast Spotlight, she said. Through TV, print and other media, they’re looking to draw people here from far beyond the Harbor. The push — part of the “Unforgettable Grays Harbor” campaign — extends to metro Seattle and north and east of there, she said.
But the participating artists funded the project itself by paying member fees and selling brochure ads, which covered the temporary gallery rental, the artists reception and the $14,000 event brochure.
She has also recruited plenty of volunteer help to lead the effort: “I’ve got nine leaders in their geographical areas, because it’s Taholah to Tokeland to the East County — that’s a huge area.”
And she’s determined to pass the reins to those leaders next year. With her husband retired, she wants to spend more time in her home studio.
“I’m not doing this next year,” she said. “They are ready to go. And that’s been a real proud thing for me — to have the ability to put the people together in such a way that they are all doing what they do best.
“I want to be part of it next year,” she said. “I’m just not going to be the one in charge.”
For more about Art Drives, visit artdrives.blogspot.com.
As for her Governor’s Award: The dinner gala will be held Nov. 27 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Admiral Theatre in Bremerton. Tickets are $40, available through admiraltheatre.org. For more information about the awards and gala, visit arts.wa.gov.
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Other recipients of 2018 Governor’s Arts & Heritage Awards:
Arts Award, Individual Artist: Preston Singletary (Seattle), a glass sculpture artist who has seamlessly united glass sculpture with his Tlingit heritage.
Arts Award, Organization: Get Lit Programs (Spokane), which has been organizing an annual weeklong literary festival for 20 years.
Arts Award, Young Arts Leader: Leah Wilson-Velasco (Walla Walla), CEO of the Walla Walla Symphony.
Arts Award, Legacy: Jim Kelly (Seattle), a longtime champion for the arts and preservation, and a strong proponent of public investment in culture.
Arts Award, Philanthropy: Edmund Littlefield (Arlington), who makes significant contributions both personally and through his private Sage Foundation.
Heritage Award, Individual: Patsy Surh O’Connell (Gig Harbor), founder and board president of the Asia Pacific Cultural Center.
Heritage Award, Organization: Port of Kennewick, a 103-year-old organization with a record of building and sustaining the community through advocacy, art and architecture.
Swanson’s home studio is filled with her art, tools and inspiration.
A work in progress, with a hawk’s feather as a guide.
Signs to be placed for this weekend’s Art Drives are stacked on the landing at Swanson’s house.
Swanson explains how she used a single green pigment to paint both the light and dark sides of the leaves in this piece, which hangs in her dining room.
