Sidney welcomed one of its sister cities, Anacortes, to complete its art exchange titled Art Across The Water.
The show saw artists from Anacortes come to Sidney’s Tulista Gallery to display their work.
The exhibit completed the art exchange organized by Sidney Sister Cities Association and Anacortes along with the art commissions. Sidney artists had participated in an art show in Anacortes in November, and so the recent show completes the exchange. The exhibit also celebrates 20 years of friendship, a milestone reached by the Sister City Associations’ international program.
The opening ceremony on May 26 at the Shaw Centre for the Salish Sea saw the mayors of Sidney and Anacortes in attendance along with members of the sister cities associations and arts councils from both towns.
“I think it’s fabulous, it was great. It was a very nice exchange. They (Sidney) came over in November and did Anacortes and it was a very, very popular show,” said Karla Locke, chair for the Anacortes Arts Commission.
There were 31 Anacortes artist’s that took part with 32 pieces on display.
“What we did is we put a call out and we got 31 artists who sent in their stuff and we had a jury and each person did three images for us to select from and we decided since there was 31 artists and 31 pieces that we could bring all of them so we picked one of everybody so everybody could come,” she said.
Among some of the artists in attendance was Gladys Bailey-Hudec, who does mostly wildlife photography.
Not only did Hudec come to Sidney, but she’s been to many places around the world, taking photos of animals in the wild.
“I’ve gone to Africa three times, I’ve gone up to the north to the Arctic…” She said.
She said she prefers winter photography because for example, in North East China, the siberian tigers are more playful in the winter, which is fun for her to photograph along with the contrast of their coats against the snow.
Hudec usually has her photos in print form, but for the art exhibit decided to display her photo of a wolf on a large canvas.
The photo is of a wolf that was in captivity.
“To photograph a wolf or a lot of other animals that I’ve photographed, you’d never get that close to them if they were in the wild.”
Hudec isn’t part of the Sister Cities but hopes to soon join.
