Visual Voices to be exhibited in June

From a blank, white canvas to something deemable as art is seemingly always a challenge.

“Anybody can make a visual statement,” says Stephen Irving, a member of South Beach Arts Association in Westport and organizer of “Coastal Composite,” a community wide art challenge that will be exhibited at the John Spellman Gallery located in the library at Grays Harbor College starting June 12.

The Arts Association has ordered 100 canvases that it will be giving away — three at a time — for a $5 deposit to those who commit to making art and donating them for sale at $20 each. The deposit is entirely refundable when the art work is returned to the organization in May. All of the rules may be found on the organization’s website: http://ift.tt/12JDh0c.

The idea is a variation on the 30/30/30 in which artists are creatively challenged to make 30 works of art in 30 days and sell them for $30.

Irving was inspired by a gallery in Seattle who has been doing this type of salon-style exhibition for a about 13 years he said, “They just plaster the three or four walls of the gallery. There is a great energy of people interacting in that mix.”

This is a variation on that idea. Irving wanted to make it accessible for creators. He is hoping to reach out to town mayors around the Harbor, “to enlist a wide spectrum.” Artists from everywhere are encouraged to submit art.

Irving says there is also a 3D allowance as long as it is contained in the 5x7 inch format and doesn’t extend outside those boundaries. He expects to see glass pieces and display cabinets. The dimensional allowance, according to the press release, is a 3D space “conforming to cyllindrical space that can be formed with 5x7 inch paper template.”

Artwork may be created vertically or horizontally.

How the artwork will be displayed is still up in the air he says, but he is toying with clusters of like oriented pieces, or he may mix it up. “I think it will be in the layout design when we get to the library. (We’ll) make it workable in that gallery venue.

Currently you may plan to acquire canvases at the Associated Arts meeting in Westport on March 19 from 5 - 8 p.m. And Irving hopes to offer the canvases to be available at other locations in the near future.