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Spotlight: ‘Someone Was, Someone Wasn’t’ art exhibition
Exhibition: Friday, Jan. 30 to March 20
Edmonds College Art Gallery, 3rd floor of Lynnwood Hall, 20000 68th Ave. W., Lynnwood
Gallery hours: Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m.- 6 p.m.; Friday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.; and Sunday, 1-5 p.m.
Opening reception: Friday, Jan. 30, 2:30-4 p.m.
Free admission
Edmonds College Art Gallery presents Someone Was, Someone Wasn’t, a solo exhibition by ceramic artist Gina Grey. The exhibition explores human fragility, loss and emotional endurance. Vessels and domestic ware serve as metaphors for isolation, shared experience and the passage of time. It visualizes the intricate and often unseen emotional connections shaped by crisis and survival. Clay acts as the accountant, recording pressure and shifts until it enters the fire and becomes frozen, cemented mid-sentence like a moment that cannot be undone.
Grey has received numerous awards, including the Lighton International Artist’s Exchange grant. Her work has been exhibited internationally in Australia, Hungary, Italy and Scotland, as well as throughout the U.S. She has taught at various institutions since 2002 and currently teaches ceramics at Edmonds College.
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Spotlight: ‘Boots on the Ground for Art’
Exhibition through Jan. 31
Open house and presentation: Saturday, Jan. 31, 1 p.m. (doors open 11 a.m.-3 p.m.)
Northwest Veterans Museum, 19921 Poplar Way, Lynnwood (Heritage Park)
Public hours: Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Free admission
The Northwest Veterans Museum presents Boots on the Ground for Art, a veterans’ art exhibition and film. The paintings, created by veterans at The Oregon Society of Artists, honor both military service and art’s role in healing and expression.
The open house will feature a presentation by Randall Vemer, teacher and artist for the program. Light refreshments will be provided.
A companion film will also be available via a QR code displayed at the museum. The museum is ADA accessible.
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Spotlight: ‘Debuts’
Performances: Feb. 14, 7 p.m.; Feb. 15, 5 p.m.
Post-show Q & A: Saturday, Feb. 14
Edmonds Center for the Arts, 410 4th Ave. N.
Run time: 90 minutes with a 15-minute intermission.
Each year, Olympic Ballet Theatre invites innovative contemporary ballet choreographers to create original works for the company.
Debuts features a world premiere, Our Tender Distance by Beth Twigs, alongside Letters for a Restless World by Price Suddarth. The program showcases works both grounded in classical ballet and inspired by modern expression.
Two new works will be presented over two nights only.
Following the Saturday, Feb. 14 performance, audiences are invited to stay for a post-show Q&A session with the choreographers, led in conversation by OBT Co-Artistic Director Oleg Gorboulev. Audience members will have the opportunity to ask questions and engage directly with the artists at no additional cost. The discussion begins immediately after the performance.
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Spotlight: Art Walk Author in Conversation
Thursday, Feb. 19, 6 p.m.
Edmonds Bookshop, 111 Fifth Ave. S.
Edmonds Bookshop is hosting Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, featured local author during Edmonds Art Walk. Lunstrum will discuss her latest book, Outer Stars, a short story collection that won the 2025 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction (UNT Press, November 2025).
Lunstrum is the author of the acclaimed novel Elita (published by TriQuarterly Press/Northwestern University Press in January, 2025) and three short story collections:
- What We Do with the Wreckage, winner of the 2017 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction (University of Georgia Press in 2018)
- Swimming with Strangers (Chronicle Books, 2008)
- This Life She’s Chosen (Chronicle Books, 2005).
Her short fiction has received a PEN/O. Henry Prize, and her work has appeared in numerous journals, including The Sun, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, One Story and McSweeney’s.
Lunstrum has held fellowships from MacDowell, Sewanee, the Jack Straw Writers Program and the Willa Cather Foundation. She serves on the faculty of the English Department at Seattle’s Bush School and Whitworth University’s low-residency MFA.
She will be joined in conversation by Margot Kahn, author of The Unreliable Tree: Poems (Northwestern University Press) and the award-winning biography Horses That Buck (University of Oklahoma) about champion cowboy “Cody” Bill Smith.
Kahn is co-editor of the New York Times Editors’ Choice anthology This Is the Place: Women Writing About Home (Seal Press) and Wanting: Women Writing About Desire (Catapult), a Library Journal Best Book of the Year.
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Upcoming Art Events
‘I Love Being Abroad: Memoirs of an American Chanteuse in Paris’
Thursday, Jan. 29, 6:30-8 p.m. (doors open at 6 p.m.)
Edmonds Waterfront Center, 220 Railroad Ave., Box 717
Cost: $7.50
Tickets
The Edmonds Waterfront Center (EWC) presents an evening with jazz vocalist Julie Cascioppo, featuring her memoir I Love Being Abroad: Memoirs of an American Chanteuse in Paris.
The memoir chronicles Cascioppo’s transformative decade as an American jazz singer in 1980s Paris.
Set during a period when Paris served as a haven for artistic expatriates before globalization reshaped international cities, Cascioppo’s story captures a distinctive cultural moment. Her journey resonates with anyone who has taken a leap of faith and pursued a creative dream against conventional expectations.
Cascioppo continues to perform internationally and teaches voice in Seattle.
Subtitles and closed captioning will be provided. The EWC offers Assistive Listening devices available to check out or connect with your smart phone.
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Fridays and Saturdays, Jan. 30 to Feb. 21, 7:30 p.m.; Sundays, Feb. 1-22, 2 p.m.
The Phoenix Theatre, 9673 Firdale Ave., Edmonds (at Firdale Village)
Run time: 2 hours, 10 minutes with intermission
Rating: PG (for some risqué humor)
Tickets online: $28; $23 for senior/student/military
Shake off the winter blues with wit and romance as The Phoenix Theatre (TPT) presents Love’s Labour’s Lost by William Shakespeare, adapted and directed by TPT’s Managing Director and playwright Tracy Cahill.
Four friends vow to forsake love and distraction in the name of study until romance intervenes. When a group of clever women enter the scene, vows unravel, disguises abound and poetry flies in a battle of the sexes. Filled with mistaken identities, overheard confessions and laugh-out-loud moments, this zany production reminds us how foolish – and wonderful – love can be.
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Teens (ages 13-18): Wednesdays. Feb 4-25 at 6:30-8 p.m.
Adults (18+): Fridays, Feb. 6-27 at 6:30-8 p.m.
Frances Anderson Center, 700 Main St., Room 206
Levels: All levels
Cost: $80 (non-resident added fee is $12)
Looking to loosen up your drawing skills and have some fun? Join Andrew M. for a 90-minute, low-pressure session focused on sketching and creative exploration.
Students will begin with quick warm-ups, then move into guided prompts and a free sketch session, allowing time to refine their ideas. The session concludes with a short discussion of the works created.
Expect to work quickly, make multiple drafts and embrace “bad” drawings – the only way to make good ones.
Premium pencils and paper will be provided; feel free to bring your favorite sharpener or erasers.
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Art Talk with Lane Eagles: Love & Attraction in Renaissance Art
Tuesday, Feb. 10, 7-8 p.m.
Graphite Arts Center, 202 Main St. Edmonds
Free; registration required
In an era when cultural and religious norms restricted depictions of desire, medieval and early modern (Renaissance) artists found creative ways to interpret and portray the sting of Cupid’s arrow. Art historian Lane Eagles will explore how these artists worked within such constraints.
Eagles holds a Ph.D. and a master’s degree in art history and serves on the faculty of the Master of Arts in Museology program at the University of Washington Information School.
*Some images shown during the talk may include nudity.
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We Love to Read Club
Tuesday, Feb. 17 at 2 p.m.
Edmonds Bookshop, 111 Fifth Ave. S.
Ages: 8-12 with accompanying adult
Free
Edmonds Bookshop will host its second We Love To Read Club. Special guests will be local authors Kelly Jones and Diana Ma, talking about their middle-grade books and what it is like to be an author. There will also be fun hands-on activities plus freebies.
All middle-grade readers are welcome to attend with an adult. This is not a drop-off event.
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Jake Bergevin Quartet at Café Louvre
Friday, Feb. 27, 5-7 p.m.
Cafe Louvre, 210 Fifth Ave. S., Edmonds
Cost: No cover
The intimate café vibe invites you to keep the mood easy with an evening of jazz, wine and light treats.
*If you would like your event included in future Art Beat listings, email Nahline Gouin at nahline.gouin@gmail.com.
Based in Edmonds, Nahline Gouin is a freelance writer, ceramicist and arts advocate with experience in art museums and performing arts centers. She continues to create with clay, homeschool her son and write as a creative practice.
Thank you for your Art Beat article, Nahline! How fortunate for all to have such a wonderful variety of artistic expression to be able to experience!
Thank you, Sue! I agree–there are so many artful experiences where we live. We are so lucky.