The Pacific Northwest is home to a unique artistic ecosystem involving craft traditions, pre-industrial cultures, and Indigenous and settler histories. Like folk art, the works featured here are handmade, straightforward, and often blur the line between functionality and aesthetics. Artisanal woven baskets and tooled-wood objects mix with works that are makeshift, improvisational, and often employ salvaged materials. For the artists—patchwork quilters and abstract painters alike—a rural and working-class ethos of making do with what you have is foundational to their work.

This exhibition will include many significant artistic practitioners of the region including Marita Dingus, Warren Dykeman, Joe Feddersen, Blair Saxon-Hill, Whiting Tennis, and Cappy Thompson. A playlist of Indie Folk music selected by Portland’s Mississippi Records will accompany the exhibition, filling the galleries with the sound of the Pacific Northwest.