Email Connection
Newsletters, special events
and announcements
direct to your inbox.
Enter your email below

104 North Laurel,
Suite 104
Port Angeles, WA 98362
Phone (360) 417-1815
Fax: (360) 457-1089
Email Us

'Nature's Teacher' to show prints at Land Trust Art Party

Paul Blake's gyotaku print "King Salmon."

When Paul Blake catches a fish, it’s just as likely to be used to create artwork for walls or tee shirts as a meal. Blake, who has lived in Sekiu since retiring six years ago, makes direct and indirect prints from fish using the Japanese technique called gyotaku.

Colorful, framed images of a variety of local fish will be on display during North Olympic Land Trust’s second summer Art Party Friday, July 9, from 4:30 to 8 p.m. Blake also will be on hand to talk about the art and process. The art exhibit in the Land Trust office, upstairs in the historic Morse Building, at 104 N. Laurel, is part of the Second Weekend Art Event in Port Angeles. Port Angeles Fine Arts Center also will show one of Blake’s gyotaku art pieces from July 11 to Oct. 3 as part of its Safe Harbors exhibition.

The name gyotaku comes from the Japanese word for fish, gyo, and for impression, taku.  Blake’s passion for teaching, as well as fascination with living organisms and Japanese culture, is reflected in the name “Nature’s Teacher” he chose for a signature seal he had made in Japanese symbols. “I find it hard to get away from the teaching,” Blake said. By sharing the beauty of nature, he wants to inspire people to appreciate and protect nature in a more thoughtful manner. That hope also led him to offer to donate half the proceeds from sales of work on display at the Art Party to help the Land Trust protect special qualities of land.

His art pieces use a process called indirect printing, he explained. “I adhere silk to the fish. Then, in layers, I apply etching ink across the top, hopefully detailing every single scale and detail of the fish,” he said. He mixes each ink color and applies layers of color to the fish “as a traditional artist would build a painting.” To apply the ink, he uses a tool called a tampo, made of silk wrapped around cotton.

He said he might work on larger fish as long as eight hours before separating the silk from the fish and putting the silk in a box where a light bulb dries it over the next month. “Then  I have to wash off the adhesive, blood stains and fish goo from the silk, using every stain remover known to mankind,” he said. Blake likes to put up to three layers of fish prints on top of one another for the fine art pieces. “The layers give a better depth of field and more interest,” he said. “Each silk layer becomes almost transparent. I can add seaweed prints, color washes and other fish to the lower silks.”

Please stop by for cheese (donated by Mt Townsend Creamery) and wine plus meet the artist and consider taking a print home.