August Guest Show - "Kumi Pickford & Associates"

 

"Mariko," Pastel Portrait by Guest Artist Kumi Pickford

 

The Guest Show for August is "Kumi Pickford & Associates" and features the pastel portraits of Kumi Pickford and her students: Marlene Adams, Linda Evans-Rigney, Marcia McCreight, Carol McGill, Dolores South, and Terry Woloschuk. (Evans-Rigney and McCreight both accept commission work.) Kumi teaches pastel portrait painting at Elsie Stuhr Center, PCC, Beaverton Lodge, and Hillsboro Park & Recreation District.

 

Pickford has a strong foundation in the classical arts having first studied illustration at Nichibi Art Institute in Japan and then received her BFA in Combined Art from Universidad de las Americas in Pueble, Mexico. Early in her career, she was under contract as a portrait painter for both the US Navy and US Air Force in San Francisco, where she painted portraits of uniformed military personnel. While working in the art materials industry in the Bay Area, Kumi discovered soft pastel and  switched from oil to pastel as a teaching medium.

 

Pastels were widely used for portrait painting in the 18th century, and became a popular medium for other subject matter in the 19 century when the impressionists entered the art scene. Manet, Renoir, Toulouse-Latrec, Whistler, Degas, and Mary Cassatt all worked with soft pastel.

 

The Pickford group exhibit will open on August 7 and run through August 31. The gallery will host an Artists Reception on Saturday, August 10 from 6 to 9. We hope you will attend and meet these talented ladies and view their work.