Jack Ravi is a collage and mixed media artist who creates with found objects. His work, particularly with old black and white photos, aims to transform anonymity into identity, creating visual poems that evoke memory. His work is rooted in curiosity and wonder, and he approaches it as a personal, meditative journey. With a deep reverence for forgotten papers, he celebrates their beauty and potential in his art. Jack Ravi is the author of the book Artful Memories: How to create unique art with old photographs. He lives and works in Scotland and offers classes and workshops online and at various locations.
Visit his website.
The NWCS Online Workshop for 2025 will explore the advantages and methods of digital collage-making. In a 90-minute program, Brazilian-Canadian multi-disciplinary artist Jonny Garcia will introduce us to his work, show us how he creates digital collages, and offer us an opportunity to collaborate on a piece formed from images found online.
From an early age, Jonny Garcia was driven by a passion for self-expression, Garcia immersed himself in various disciplines, including dance, mime, acrobatics, magic, and hypnotism, before delving into the visual arts. Since 2019, Garcia has dedicated his efforts to exploring digital collages, accumulating a body of work comprising over 500 pieces. Garcia’s collages have been featured in various exhibitions such as the Impromptu IV exhibit at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod, Corporeal Gestures: An International Exhibition of Contemporary Collage curated by Clive Knights in 2022, and the Cut/Paste/Resist pop-up exhibition at the University of New Brunswick Art Centre. In 2020, one of Garcia’s collages was incorporated into a school program in the city of Kingston, Canada. The Schwitters’ Army Collection of Collage Art at MERZ Gallery has also included one of Garcia’s collages in its collection. In addition to his artistic pursuits, Garcia holds two computer degrees, as well as a degree in psychoanalysis coupled with clinical experience.
Visit his website and Instagram.
Come join our Annual Northwest Collage Society members retreat, at Warm Beach Camp located near Stanwood, WA. Come for three nights or two nights and collage with your fellow artists at this beautiful location in the woods above the shores of Port Susan. Set up your art workstation at your own work table in a large spacious meeting room. Enjoy demos, community and an awesome 'share' table.
More details and registration form here.
A relatively new NWCS member, Judy Chapman Björling, will brighten our spring by regaling us with stories about her 60 years as an artist, during which color and texture have never ceased to amaze her. From an early age, Björling was fascinated with portraits, often drawing images of her classmates. While studying painting and sculpting at the Art Institute of Chicago (on a National Scholastic Art Awards Scholarship), Björling began to better understand and appreciate the human figure -- the history of a face, the story of a gesture. She would abstract the form, while trying to preserve the essence of a gesture or an expression. Björling still incorporates figures in her work, which usually begins with an abstract painting featuring rhythm and complex coloration, followed by continual adjustment of both the figure and the painting until she perceives that one could not exist without the other.
After a three-decade hiatus from art, during which she received a Masters in Management, taught graduate school and college, and managed a successful consulting business with many Fortune 500 clients, Björling returned to painting in 1989 and sculpture in 1993. She moved to Washington in the summer of 2022, and is now a member of Woodinville Arts Alliance, the Northwest Watercolor Society, Evergreen Fine Arts Association, PaperWorks, and the Northwest Collage Society, as well as the National Collage Society. Björling has received numerous awards, including the NWCS Fall 2022 Award for Where They’re From: St. Petersburg, which was exhibited at the Rosehill Community Center Art Gallery in Mukilteo, and a Purchase Award for Underwater Dreams, which was part of the 2023 CVG Show at Collective Visions Gallery in Bremerton, Washington. Her work is in collections in the United States and abroad.
Erika Bass is a painter and printmaker who uses the collagraph printing technique as a foundation for her mixed-media paintings. Through her botanical imagery, she explores the intricate connections within the natural world, building organic pieces that weave together color, form, and pattern.
Originally from upstate New York, Bass has spent most of her career as a teaching artist in Seattle. She received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and is also a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Her work has been showcased in exhibitions both locally and nationally. She currently teaches fine arts at Forest Ridge School in Bellevue. Bass will share some of her artwork and describe her artistic journey before leading a short workshop in her collagraph technique, which will conclude by 1:30 p.m. All supplies will be provided. Mark your calendars now and be sure not to miss this fantastic make-and-take event!
Visit her website and instagram.
Shoreline Conference Center
18560 1st Ave. NE Shoreline, WA 98155
Meetings are held in the Mt Rainier Room
at the North end of the building. There is ample parking outside the North entrance door.
Join us at 10 am for Meet & Greet before the program begins at 10:30 am.
