Hello Membership,
It is time, once again, to vote for your Board of Directors!
Voting will be from now until 4pm, Tuesday, July 9th. Election Results will be announced at the General Meeting at our Washington State Stone Carving Symposium hosted at Camp Pilgrim Firs in Port Orchard on Wednesday, July 10th, 2024.
We have 4 positions on the Board that are up for election. See below for their names in alphabetical order. Board members continuing to serve their 2-year terms: Ellie Hochman, Tamara Buchanan and Markos Weiss.
Thank you to the following Board Members exiting the Board. We appreciate their service to our community: Pat Barton, Batya Friedman, Denny Tsang, Steven Taplin, Jeremy Kester, Deborah Wilson and Cyra Jane Hobson.
Four confirmed nominees have volunteered for consideration to join the board: Oliver Harwood, Aerin Sizelove, Karen Walsh Roe and Michael E. Yeaman
Learn More about the 2024 BOD Candiates:
Read more: 2024 BOD Election Ballot
Oliver Harwood has been involved in stone sculpture for 3 decades, with a passion for building community and art education. Part rebel, part philosopher, first studying History, then Fine Arts, he took his student loan money and headed to Italy where he got into countless adventures, mostly to do with stone. Returning to Canada he finished his BFA and started a life-long mission to share the experience of sculpting stone.
Involved in exhibiting, art tours, symposiums and public art, Oliver continues to challenge himself to develop as an Artist. To Introduce stone carving to the public, especially youth, he established an in-school art program and a product line for carving stone. Oliver has participated in 6+ Washington Symposia and believes in the power of the artist community!
Aerin Sizelove has been a member for the last 4 yrs. She has volunteered to help the Events committee and led the Flower & Garden Show exhibit in 2023. She’s also been a work study at the WA Symposium for 3 yrs.
Aerin has been an office manager and has been in administration roles for about 20 years. She feels her event planning skills would be helpful to NWSSA.
In her words: “I’m super detail oriented and tend see processes and solutions. Things don’t need to be broken to be made significantly better. I love this group so much I just like the idea of being able to help on the board maybe running help Events/Gallery shows. I feel we could be getting involved so much more especially for those who want more exposure.”
Karen Walsh Roe became a member of NWSSA after completing her first stone carving workshop guided by Kentaro Kojima in 2019. She had always created within the fiber arts medium but once introduced to stone carving she was instantly obsessed. Since then she has made lots of dust and attended many of the NWSSA symposiums, including those at Pilgrim Firs, the California Sculptors Symposium, and the Women’s Hand Carving Retreats. Like many of our members, Karen loves the NWSSA community. Almost everything she’s learned about stone carving has come from the amazing NWSSA members that have shared their knowledge and expertise in workshops, online and at stone camp.
Karen says “I enthusiastically support the mission of NWSSA and it has been great to see the ongoing improvements the governing team has implemented in the time that I’ve been a member. After retiring from my 35 year nursing career, I am now focusing on the good times ahead, carving stone in my studio and becoming more actively involved in NWSSA. I have a strong work ethic, and a respect for deadlines and getting the job done. I am hoping that my common sense approach to problem solving, good communication skills and willingness to help out will make me a valuable member of the NWSSA governing team.”
Michael E Yeaman
I am a man of my time…
Deep Time, that is.
I study and experience this Deep Time through the stone of our planet’s 4.5 billion year history. Time and stone have been keen interest of mine since my college days at Stanford. There I obtained degrees in Geology and Geophysics and became aware that my interest in these subjects was more than merely scientific. Although my early career focused on the Earth Sciences, by the 1990s, I began to appreciate the beautiful aesthetics of sculpted stone at various galleries and museums located throughout the footprint of my global energy career. I started sculpting stone in 2005 after I moved to Orcas Island, gradually developing an understanding of how the science and art of stone can be combined to produce sensual three dimensional objects of intrigue.
Most of my sculpted stone is millions of years old and have fascinating geologic creation stories. These stories are reflected in my finished sculptures appearance, whether it is in multicolored igneous mineral refractions or in the traces of ancient life in fossiliferous sedimentary rock
I enjoy sculpting stone dynamically, directly carving into my chosen blocks from a design in my imagination. The stone’s geologic characteristics will often determine how my imagined design will come into being. I adapt my imagined design as I come to understand what this particular stone can offer. Geometric abstract forms combined with geologically remarkable stone produce my most compelling sculptures.
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