CAMANO ISLAND — I phoned at the appointed time.
“Oh, hi,” Jack Gunter answered in a scratchy voice. “Call me back in five? I was up painting until 4 a.m.”
Gunter is on a roll. In a joyful frenzy. And has been for three months.
“I haven’t done this sort of work in years,” he said five minutes later. “It’s so fun.”
The well-known painter will welcome the public to see his new paintings from noon to 5 p.m. Jan. 24 and 25 at his Camano Island studio.
“This is the weekend between the football games,” said Gunter, a big Seahawks fan. “This is the first legit art opening at my studio on Camano. I’m really excited.”
For those who can’t attend opening weekend, Gunter says he will keep the paintings displayed on Saturdays and Sundays for about a month.
“Just show up.”
The exhibit, “The Pacific Northwest Seen from the Eyes of a Child: Very Recent Paintings by Jack Gunter,” is inspired by a trip the artist made in the fall to Croatia.
“We did a lot of hiking, and my back was hurting, so I was glad when we made a stop at the Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb,” he said. “It was a hoot. It was poignant.”
Gunter described a broken plate smashed against a wall. The museum offers “a chance to overcome emotional collapse through creation,” says its website.
But the best thing about Zagreb, Gunter said, was the Croatian Museum of Naive Art.
“It blew my mind. It was so powerful,” he said. “So, it was there that I felt like I got permission to paint like a child again.”
The folk art displayed in the museum had fun with form, color and perspective, he said. It didn’t play by the rules or put on airs.
“It was perfect in its freedom and its simplicity.”
So Gunter came home, broke, and worried that he would have to “just poop out some paintings in order to pay the rent.”
But the time in Zagreb had inspired him.
For the artists he saw, “a cloud-filled sky was a playground, a bare winter tree, a fractal. The scenes of common life, the only world they knew, glowed like icons painted by a third-grader with 30 years of experience.”
So he got to work.
“I could see new paintings in my head. As an artist, I already paint that way, but I felt a new freedom in painting with innocence,” Gunter said. “I made a list of all the cool things that identify Camano and north Snohomish County as a community.”
These cool things include July 4 at Freedom Park, zip-lining at the Kristoferson Farm, New Year’s Eve parties at Jack Archibald’s house and art openings at Karla Matzke’s gallery, all on Camano Island, the Port Susan Farmers Market and the Soap Box derby in Stanwood and the Arlington Fly-In and the Duck Dash on the Stillaguamish River in Arlington, Gunter said.
The Fly-In painting includes Gunter’s signature flying pigs. Sheep wander through the colorful market painting.
And watching the Duck Dash are people wearing Russell Wilson and Marshawn Lynch jerseys.
“Go Hawks,” Gunter said.
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @galefiege.
If you go
See Jack Gunter’s new paintings, noon to 5 p.m. Jan. 24 and 25, 3311 S. East Camano Drive. More information is at www.facebook.com/events/929310590412334.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
