Local artist's work on exhibit in Tacoma

Mindi Katzman's "Preaching to the Choir,"
encaustic on paper on board, 2010, depicts
a scene that will be familiar to West Seattle
residents. Photo: Greg Scheiderer.

I dropped by Tacoma's Brick House Gallery, operated by my friend Peter MacDonald, last Thursday to check out the art of Mindi Katzman. Though I'd never seen her work before, there was something immediately familiar. West Seattle residents will certainly recognize Katzman's paintings that feature iconic totem poles from around the neighborhood, as well as another that includes the Alki Statue of Liberty, a work that is featured on her business cards and the home page of her website.

In addition to those, another painting of a Puget Sound scene in the show, titled "Another Point of View," seemed like a familiar sight. As it turned out, the landscape was painted from a viewpoint at the end of Waite Street, just a short walk away from Weisenheimer world headquarters.

Our cell-phone photos don't do the work justice. Katzman works with encaustic, applying colored wax to the surface. Marvelous, vibrant colors and an interesting texture result.  Many of her paintings feature birds who appear as curious about the scenes depicted as do we, the gallery patrons. Katzman also does some marvelous painted metal sculptures depicting tropical locales. One that had several beds of calla lilies on it particularly caught my eye; don't tell my mom, who used to have a bunch of calla lilies in the back yard, but my sister and I used to blow them up with firecrackers.

Katzman's "Road's End" depicts a
scene from a Waite Street viewpoint
not far from Weisenheimer world
headquarters. Photo: Greg Scheiderer.

Katzman is a delightful sort and we hit it off well. It helped, I'm sure, that she and her husband Michael Dupille, who also played guitar during the reception Thursday, had just returned to the Northwest from a visit to Kitt Peak Observatory near Tucson. Weisenheimer is author of the Seattle Astronomy blog, so we had art and the cosmos as common interests. She seemed interested in our post about the photography of Roger Ressmeyer, now on exhibit at ArtsWest gallery, and hoped to get over to see it before that show closes at the end of the month.

The Katzman exhibit is a celebratory one for the Brick House, which has been open for about a year now. Congrats to MacDonald on the first anniversary and on another excellent show.

You can see more of Katzman's work on her website, and on that of the Brick House Gallery.