Biographical sketch and art
                                                          
Larry Calkins has been recording images with his camera and on paper since his youth, displaying a keen interest and skill in astute observation and interpretation.
He consistantly uses his personal environment or circumstance as the source of his ever increasing record of people and events, and of the inevitable change of time and place.
Larry is familiar with the workings of a variety of cameras, from simple to extravagant to the home made ones. The same kind of extensive expertise is applied to his creative photo processing,  skills he developed as a professional printer at leading photo labs in the Pacific NW.
Larry's is continuously in search of new methods of printing - adding a unique character his own photographs. This search and execution  also expands into his solid photo editing skills on the computer. The resulting images are often integrated into his paintings and sculptures

Yet photography/electronic imaging is only a minor outlet for Larry's creativity. He commonly gets “down and dirty”, working with rusted metal, found cloth, paint medium mixed with beeswax and original pigments, his own carved brushes -  creating those uniquely tactile surfaces and simple, yet elegant shapes, while referring to a snippet of someone’s life story.
His most involved creations take the form of 'artist's books' - using metal, fabric, twine, paper, paint, drawings, photographs, found objects, sculpted objects made of dirt and wax, clay or wood... illustrating a mostly mysterious narrative.

Larry is a very prolific artist and has created a vast body of work, that has been presented and sold in mainstream galleries since 1996, beginning with the
MIA GALLERY in Seattle.  (see “sold work” button at left)

The G. Gibson Gallery is Larry's current representative in Seattle

Other galleries include the
American Primitive Gallery in New York, NY;
the Rice/Polak Gallery in Provincetown, MA, (Cape Cod)
Gallery 500 near Philadelphia, PA 
Mason Murer Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
Tanner-Hill Gallery in Chattanooga, TN and Atlanta, GA
Nichols Berg Gallery in Philadelphia, PA

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Beginning in spring of 2003, Larry Calkins has been Artist in Residence at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA, for several years in a row.
He is also an instructor at Pratt Fine Arts in Seattle and several other reaching venues in the Seattle area, including ArtEast, Issaquah, Winslow Art Center on Bainbridge Island, Kirkland Arts Center, NW Encaustic in Seattle

Larry Calkins was born in 1955 in Corvallis, OR, and grew up in a small logging community named Harlan. He stepped into the family tradition of working within logging operations, but after serious injuries in logging accidents, he decided to pursue his obvious talents in the arts. He also traveled widely throughout the US and Europe.

He lives with his wife of 30 years in a rural area outside of Issaquah, WA, where they enjoy the company of numerous house pets, chickens and 2 mules.
Larry works daily in his studio and metal shop, but often in the sunny, wet, or cold outdoors.


 

artist statement

the need to create and express oneself is powerful and you don't need to look very far to find the tools and materials to do so. art can be made with anything: paper and pencils, found objects like sticks, dirt, clay, photographs, old letters, bits of metal; you can make your own coloring agents. the more you develop your own techniques, the more you will access your original thoughts and expressions. trust your instincts.
when the materials are familiar and accessible, the artists can express themselves more freely, and with little or no expense. imagine the Native American with a pot of plant dye or colored mud or clay and a charcoal stick. simple tools, but the results are elegant depictions of their life and times.

larry calkins
issaquah, wa.