SPA Founders
BARBara robertson
Seattle based artist Barbara Robertson is known primarily for her work in experimental printmaking. Recently, she has expanded her practice to include digital animation and sound installations and mixed media works on paper. Awards for her work include grants from the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture City Artists program, 4Culture Individual Artists award, 4Cullture Artists Projects grants, Artists Trust GAP grant, a KALA Art Institute Fellowship and the Neddy Fellowship from the Behnke Foundation.
Eva Isaksen
My work has always been inspired by nature: organic forms, cycles, seasons, land, water, sky, order, rhythm, repetition, growth, life, regeneration. The thin papers, which I print on, draw on, cut up, mix, are layered endlessly on the canvas. My work is about color, line, material, form, and space and about art as a process that always changes and grows.
Gene Gentry
Gene Gentry McMahon is a distinguished Northwest artist known for narrative paintings that combine subtle humor with wry social commentary. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States, in Mexico, Portugal and China, and is included in numerous public and private collections. McMahon’s belief that art should be a part of everyday life has earned her commissions to create large-scale public arts works, such as a 30-foot mural in the Westlake Station of Seattle’s light rail system, and a series of paintings installed on 13 floors of the King County Administration Building. McMahon earned her BFA and MFA from the University of Washington. She has taught art at the UW, Bellevue College and other art schools in the NW. As a passionate advocate for the arts, she has served as a juror, curator and lecturer, and has volunteered on the boards of non-profit arts organizations, including Seattle Print Arts, On the Boards Contemporary Performance Center and the Alden Mason Foundation.
Janet Berkow
Originally from the East Coast, Janet is an artist and writer who received her BFA in Painting from SUNY Purchase, later moving to Seattle where she received her MFA in Painting from UW School of Art. She taught at Antioch University and for the City of Lynnwood, and then detoured into the theater world where she worked as a scenic artist for Intiman, Seattle Rep, Seattle Opera, and The Group Theater. She then moved into arts management, first as Company Manager at The Group Theater, then as Program and Education Director at Pratt Fine Arts Center. While at Pratt, Janet became friends with Barbara Robertson, who invited her to join her in the creation of a new nonprofit print organization, which would host a symposium at the Henry Gallery. And the rest, as they say, is history. Janet served on the SPA Board for 8 years, working on organizational development, event production, fundraising, and serving as Treasurer for several years. She was also co-Chair for the Seattle part of the first China Exchange with Shenzhen. While Janet continues to write and make art and cheer on SPA, her professional life is now in the world of technology, and her free time is usually spent playing with her dogs and her horse.
JOan Stuart Ross
Joan Stuart Ross, born in Boston, has worked, taught Art, volunteered, and exhibited her artwork in the Northwest for several decades.
Joan graduated from Boston Latin School, Connecticut College, studied Printmaking with Peterdi and Color Theory with Albers at Yale, and earned an MA & MFA from the University of Iowa, where she studied with Lasansky. Joan is represented by Ryan James Fine Arts, RiverSea, and WaterWorks Galleries. Joan is a member of the Ballard High School Art Committee and has served on the Seattle Arts Commission, the Bumbershoot Festival Commission, the Civita Institute, and was a founding Board Member of Seattle Print Arts. She founded the Intaglio Print Workshop in 1970, was the first Monotype teacher in Seattle, 1974, and taught Printmaking at North Seattle College. Joan won the Betty Bowen Award, a Rome Fellowship, and a Fulbright to Vietnam. She is a partner of BallardWorks, an affordable artists’ studio building. She maintains her studios there and in Nahcotta, Washington.
Joseph Pentheroudakis
Joseph Pentheroudakis took his first printmaking classes with Eva Isaksen and Barbara Robertson at Pratt Fine Arts Center in 1997, which got him hooked on making art. Nowadays in addition to making prints Joseph draws in pencil, pen and ink or using digital media; he also works in video.
Joseph served on the SPA board until 2009.
KAPPy Trigg
BA in Fine Art, University of Washington University of Washington
Continuous studios in painting, printmaking, textile arts and photography at numerous schools and institutions.
Studio at Ballaradworks
Instructed monotype at Sev Shoon Arts Center for 12 years.
Layne Kleinart
Layne Kleinart grew up in Florida and has lived in Seattle since 1975. Her education includes studies at the University of Kentucky and Fine Art degrees in Painting & Printmaking from the University of Hawaii and the University of Washington.
Finding inspiration in everyday life, the subject of adolescence is an on-going interest for Kleinart. She responds to that juncture of innocence and discovery where emotions are hidden by self-consciousness and uncertainty.
Shirley Scheier
Shirley Scheier is a resident painter and printmaker of the Olympic Peninsula. She received her MFA from University of Wisconsin, Madison. Shirley has been an artist-in-residence at MacDowell Colony, NH, University of Oregon, Eugene, and Peacock Printmakers Workshop, Aberdeen, Scotland. Her work is held in major public collections around the country. She was awarded a 2014 Milliman Foundation research grant for her ongoing “Sistership” project. Shirley Scheier is a Professor Emerta, University of Washington, Seattle.
LarrySommers
Larry Sommers (1953-2009), a founding member of Seattle Print Arts, known for his irreverent political prints, was also owner and operator of Inky Dink Press. Larry was a wonderful mentor, charismatic teacher and Instructional Technician at the University of Washington, and huge part of the Seattle arts community.