CORE 2025
Exhibiting compelling art created by local artists!
Gallery Hours:
Wednesday - Saturday 12 - 6
and by appointment
CORE Solo Exhibitions on view
through July 26th, 2025
Pioneer Square Art Walk & Artist
Reception:
July 3rd from 6-8pm
Art Fair CORE Gallery Hours:
Friday, July 18th 12-9pm
Open to the public at CORE: Artist Talk and Live Music:
July 26th 2-5pm

With generous support from 4Culture, CORE gallery has weathered the challenges of the pandemic. Our door remains open and walls filled with innovative art created by local artists! Thank you 4Culture!

CORE Gallery Artists
SYNERGIA

Artist talk & live music July 26th, 2-5
Andrea K. Lawson and Nancy Lawson Carcione, will discuss Synergia, Andrea’s artistic process, journey and the evolution of her new lichen inspired series, with Q and A.
Followed by Live music! WB Reid and Bonnie Zahnow’s traditional fiddle tunes and songs!

Andrea K. Lawson
A solo exhibition of new work inspired by lichen and symbiosis
Before my family retreated from the flood prone tidelands of the Tsetsibus shoreline in Port Hadlock to the woodlands of Marrowstone Island, my paintings series Light Hours focused on changing light on sea and sky over seasons of time. Now, in the woods, the green light of the forest fills my eyes and my attention. I have turned from the horizon to focus on the microcosm of plants and minutiae of forest lichen.
Thousands of species of lichen can be found in the Northwest on twigs, logs, rocks, walls, and statues, in an amazing variety of forms and colors. Neither plant nor animal, lichen are a unique life form, a reciprocal community of algae and fungi. Mesmerized by these communities, I began transforming minute observations of lichen into layers of vibrant gestures using paint, mixed media, and my own abstract visual language. My prints are etched with ferric chloride on copper plates. I experiment with non-toxic techniques to create texture using household ingredients like coffee, sand paper, sugar, and snack chip bags. Often, I purposely let the edges of my plates corrode, yielding an organic edge. While traditionally the etched metal plates can withstand the pressure of multiple printings to create editions of identical numbered prints, I enjoy playing with colored ink in combination with monotypes, stencils, or mixed media, more often producing one of a kind original prints.
In my new exhibition, Synergia, I’m compelled to express the profound symbiotic relationship that I feel is missing in our human world, which has been expressed for eons in the microworld of lichen.
Lichen are beings who are more than the sum of their parts, a comingling of wonder living in community. Might they teach us about an imaginable un-hierarchical world of peace and beauty? Could we humans dare to turn our darkness into an epiphany? Can we venture into a world where we live together and find solutions to harmonize with each other and our planet?


BECOMING


Michelle Smith-Lewis
A continuation of the "Be Well" series. This new work represents the next phase of my personal journey, focusing on self-reflection, healing, and redefining my sense of self.
Similar to the "Be Well" works, my primary inspiration for "Becoming" stems from my garden. Through this new series of images, I aim to visually express my thoughts, dreams, and personal growth.
The intentional smaller size of the pieces invites viewers to engage with them intimately, as if they are private moments for quiet contemplation and close examination.
Ultimately, "Becoming" represents the transitional phase between who I am in this present moment and the person I am evolving into.

