Special Events

ALMOST PERFECT: Sept. 24, 25, 26

Don't miss this once-a-year opportunity to get the most for the least. BAC artists slash their prices; you get great deals in paintings, jewelry, ceramics, and everything else we carry; and the artists take home 65%! Win win win win win!

On Friday, Sept. 24, everyone may look, but only BAC members may buy (thank you for your membership!).

Messages from the Land

A collaboration between Bainbridge Arts and Crafts and the Bainbridge Island Land Trust

We had a beautiful day for Art on the Trail, at Blakely Harbor Park! At the left, artists Diana Liljelund and Elizabeth Moga peer through one section of Diana's three-part sculpture, Passages.

On the right, Ellen Wixted demonstrates monotype printmaking, complete with printing press. Below, Melinda West weaves sculpture made from ivy. Melinda pulls the ivy off of trees in the woods, liberating the trees and providing materials for her artwork.

Bainbridge Arts and Crafts and the Bainbridge Island Land Trust are working together to demonstrate the strong connections between art and nature. Collaborating for the first time, these local nonprofit organizations hosted Art on the Trail, an interactive afternoon with artists making art on the land;in October,  BAC will present Messages From the Land, an exhibition of sculpture, weaving, photography, and painting inspired by nature.  Both projects are generously supported by the Fletcher Bay Foundation.

For Messages from the Land: Art on the Trail, ten Kitsap County artists made nature-inspired projects in Blakely Harbor Park, a publicly owned property the Land Trust helped to acquire, and offered demonstrations, workshops, and other participatory activities to the public.

The exhibition, Messages from the Land, will be shown at Bainbridge Arts and Crafts and will feature art made by the Art on the Trail artists. Work for the exhibition may or may not relate to the work done on the trail, but will be inspired by the natural world.

Bainbridge Arts and Crafts and the Bainbridge Island Land Trust have engaged in this collaboration to make Islanders more aware of the activities of both the Land Trust and BAC, as well as to raise funds for both nonprofit groups.

Artists include:

David Franklin - Sculpture

Gregory Glynn – Sculpture 

Diana Liljelund – Sculpture 

Kathleen McKeehen – Botanical drawing/painting  

Elizabeth Moga – Painting  

Sue Skelly – Sculpture

Kristin Tollefson – Sculpture    

Kay Walsh – Photography  

Melinda West – Baskets 

Ellen Wixted – Intaglio printing

Messages from the Land: October 1 – November 1.  Admission to BAC always free.

A Collaboration between Bainbridge Arts and Crafts

and the West Sound Wildlife Shelter

These exceptional paintings are available through a partnership between West Sound Wildlife Shelter and Bainbridge Arts and Crafts. These two organizations, which seem to have little in common, find themselves happily bound together through art, and see their association as reflecting the very best of community on Bainbridge Island.

Bainbridge residents Tom Lonner and his wife, Elizabeth Ward, a Shelter board member, are generously giving The West Sound Wildlife Shelter a number of paintings by Henry J. Dietrich to support the Shelter’s operations. The Shelter turned to BAC as a collegial nonprofit partner for help with the sale of the work.  Together with the donors, we have created an ongoing exhibition and sale of Dietrich paintings which will last far into the future, benefiting both Bainbridge Island nonprofit organizations.

The West Sound Wildlife Shelter and Bainbridge Arts and Crafts sincerely thank Tom Lonner and Elizabeth Ward for their enduring gift.

Henry J. Dietrich

Born in Berlin in 1918, Henry J. Dietrich entered Die Kunstschule des Westens, Berlin’s premier school of design and art, at age 16, intending to be a graphic artist.  By age twenty, he had fled to Shanghai as a Jewish refugee from the Third Reich, where he spent many years tirelessly trying to emigrate to the United States.

Finally in 1948, Dietrich arrived in San Francisco where the first exhibitions of his paintings were mounted at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum. He was hired by The San Francisco Chronicle in their art department where he worked as an illustrator and cartoonist for thirty-three years.

Throughout his life, Dietrich continued to paint as much as possible. After unhappy business experiences with art galleries, Dietrich lost his interest in exhibiting or selling his paintings.  He really painted for himself.  His work is firmly rooted in mid-century European modernism, with strong echoes of great masters of twentieth-century art like Matisse and Picasso. 

From the mid-1940s until his death, Dietrich produced about five hundred paintings.   He kept no inventory of his works, so the exact number cannot be determined. He died on March 27, 2000, leaving an extraordinary legacy behind for us to enjoy.

IMAGE: Henry J. Dietrich, 131. Acrylic on canvas.

BANNER IMAGE : Delila Katzka, Roller Coaster, 2009. Acrylic and mixed medium on paper. Photo courtesy of the artist.