Bellingham artists Maggie Bates and Erin Libby recently featured at Ferndale’s It’s About Time Cultural Arts Center
At the It’s About Time Cultural Arts Center in Ferndale, handmade jewelry and artisanal crafts line the brimming storefront gallery entrance. The for-sale works of local artists cover the walls — digital prints, watercolor and oil paintings and glass statues invite visitors deeper inside.
In the heart of the building lies the gallery, where rotating exhibitions display the works of local artists from around Whatcom County. Two of these artists, featured in a recent exhibit that has now closed, fuse dreamlike surrealism with vivid iconography. Here is a closer look at these local creators Maggie Bates and Erin Libby, and the gallery that brought their work together.
Maggie Bates
Bellingham artist Maggie Bates, 65, credits her experience in the outdoors as a cornerstone of her creativity.
Growing up in rural Wisconsin, she moved to Alaska when she was 22 and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in illustration from the University of Alaska, Anchorage, in the ‘90s. Much of her work is influenced by her time surrounded by the wildlife of these distinct, yet similar places.
“I am a person who is always looking for beautiful things. Trying to express beauty, trying to express connection to nature,” Bates said. “I enjoy my drawings the most when I am expressing some narrative.”
During college in Alaska, Bates attended workshops in Florida hosted by animator David Passalaqua Sr., where she walked the streets of Disney World with a pen, sketching the world around her while carrying a backpack full of work by her favorite artists.
Outside of her travels, Bates spent time working as a summer camp teacher at a Waldorf school. After bringing in a poem she had written for the children to recite, she realized through the children’s enthusiastic reactions that there was a future in writing. After the camp, she tucked the poem away for almost 20 years before revisiting it.
“I finally said ‘You know what? That book keeps popping up in my head,’” she said. “‘I need to do it.’”
In 2022, Bates released her children’s book “Ravens Roost,” a watercolor collection that garnered high praise from Chanticleer Book Reviews and Kirkus.
Bates eventually moved from Alaska to Bellingham in 2004, where she continued to create, influenced by her time studying Celtic art, triskeles and the architectural work of Antoni Gaudi, which she was able to see in Barcelona. Her personal library — a few steps away from where she creates in her home — is lined with books by the likes of Thomas Hart Benton and Egon Schiele.
Bates’ paintings, such as “Stag,” “My House” and “Ravens Roost,” — a piece that shares a name with her book — evoke her love of wildlife and nature while combining physical art and digital animation. Her pieces are often paired with a QR code that, once scanned, transforms the once static scenes into a living story where trees sway in the background and birds fly across the horizon.
“The joy that (people) feel when they go out for a walk or make friends with a new dog. That feeling that they have. That’s what I’m trying to express a lot of times,” said Bates. “I want them to be like ‘I’m in awe of being a human, and you’re a human too. Isn’t it cool?’”
Bates continues to create, having most recently found inspiration in the work of Erin Libby. Her pieces, animations, and her artful children’s book “Ravens Roost” are available on her website.
Erin Libby
Born in 1934, Erin Libby — another Bellingham artist — was thrust into the world of art through her mother, who worked as a prominent society photographer and portrait painter.
When she was 8 years old, she won a scholarship to the Museum School of the Gallery of Fine Art in Columbus, Ohio. At 14, she began showing her work in street fairs in Chicago.
Libby continued to create through her time as a K-12 art teacher in Chicago and by 1966, she had shown her art across Paris, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
“Mama has always had a real talent for channeling her unconscious,” said Libby’s daughter, Celt Schira. “And of course, it’s informed by an entire lifetime of study of art and art history and art technique, and all kinds of media.”
Following her training from the School of Art Institute in Chicago, Mexico City College and the University of Chicago, Libby began working in the toy industry from 1966 to 2003.
Over 38 years, Libby played a crucial role in the design of a range of children’s products. Libby worked with Mattel in the 1960s as the manager of Doll Characterization to design the first Malibu Barbie, creating 27 models with a range of sun tans. After finding the perfect mix of chartreuse and shocking pink, Malibu Barbie was born.
Libby went on to work and guide doll projects like Liddle Kiddles and Sudsy. After establishing her design firm, she went on conducting meticulous experiments that would eventually shape popular products like the first 33 Cabbage Patch Kids and Fisher Price’s first line of dolls, later being asked by the American Girl corporation to create a new master mold for their line of dolls.
Creating what she described as a world of fantasy, whimsy and irreverence, Libby’s exhibition work pulls inspiration from an extensive list of artists. Libby credits the likes of Hieronymus Bosch, Gustav Klimt, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo, whose style choices influenced much of her work.
“I like (my art) to slap back,” said Libby. “I want people to see something.”
Fantastical characters, often blurring the line between human and animal, traverse Libby’s otherworldly landscapes in surrealist fashion, embodying what she describes as a fascination with the world itself.
Assisted by Schira, Libby continues to create, and displays a rotating cast of her work at Bay Street Studios in Bellingham during the monthly First Friday event coordinated by Downtown Bellingham. More information can be found on her website.
It’s About Time
“We’re a bit eclectic. We look for a theme that’s maybe a bit more unusual, that hasn’t been shown a lot, that will give more artists and art forms an opportunity to be seen,” said show curator Alicia Wills. “And also something that might bring in a new audience into the center. People who normally might not go to an art gallery.”
The owner and director, Sasch Stephens, opened the center with the vision of creating an artistic hub for the community. What began as a plan for an artist co-op transformed when Stephens renovated the front of the building and opened the shop while galleries operated in the back.
According to Wills, the center has steadily evolved in the last two years. In that time, many people began discovering the center as it offered regular classes and galleries and began development of the educational space in the basement.
Over the past two months the center has offered classes in cartooning, polymer clay, paper mosaic, crochet, beaded jewelry and T-shirt printing.
On top of their collaborations with local artists, the center works closely with the Ferndale Downtown Association, the Ferndale Chamber of Commerce and the Ferndale Arts Commission to host events when possible. On Aug. 22, the center was a part of the Downtown Distilled event put on by the Ferndale Downtown Association, where eventgoers sampled wine offered by local distilleries while exploring the art collection.
The front entrance of the building houses the most accessible for-sale pieces. Large front-facing windows cast bright sunlight onto the arrays of bracelets, wooden toys, ornamental dinnerware, clothing, sculptures and other assorted crafts, all available to be purchased and brought home.
“Most people are surprised and pleased at the variety that we have there,” said Wills. “They enjoy browsing the shop and then they can go into the gallery and see the current show. Our hope is that people will discover new types of art and learn about the different artists and styles of art in the local community.”
The workshop space is a straight shot from the entrance, in the back of the building. A large wooden table sits adjacent to a small booth, where the paintings and sculptures lining the walls are visible from the entrance.
In the heart of the building, between the shop and the workshop, lies the gallery — framed pieces sit on exhibition walls arranged to display the focus of the current event. Between exhibitions, pieces from the workshop are brought out into the main space and later returned to the workshop area, which in itself doubles as an extension of the gallery.
“We want to offer a range of price points,” said gallery manager Toms Royal, “so we really try to make some stuff very accessible.”
Wills works alongside Royal at the center to keep it bursting with pieces for sale and display, while maintaining their active role in the community.
Plans for the basement include a pottery-forward focus featuring a kiln, slab roller and pottery wheel, though Royal said that the space will be useful in hosting a variety of classes.
In addition, the center now displays the work of over 50 different artists from Whatcom County, including Wills, Royal and Stephens themselves.
As the center works to finalize their upcoming schedule, patrons can follow along on Instagram or Facebook to stay up to date.
“That’s kind of the beauty of what we’re trying to do here,” Royal said. “We’re trying to make it accessible to everybody. It’s an ‘art for all’ concept.”
—By Jae Ranney
Internship sponsored by Puget Sound Energy