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The Ferndale Arts Gallery’s featured artist this month is Peggy Jane Murray, who works in both watercolor and print techniques to create her whimsical, kimono-clad animals.
When not painting, the artist uses a technique known as serigraphy, whereby the artist presses ink through a stencil onto paper. Each successive color requires its own stencil and is printed separately. The process demands weeks or even months to complete an image.
When she was a student at Humboldt State University in the ’70s, Murray began painting her own dog. He had saved her from an intruder and she painted several pieces in homage she ventured into anthropomorphism, using a number of dogs and cats to represent loved ones, friends and herself. Recently, she has begun to turn outdoor wildlife into human-like images and settings, including great blue herons, eagles and Roosevelt elk.
Murray’s prints and paintings are included in numerous collections, including the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, the University of California, Davis, and the UNICEF Restoration Project in Krakow, Poland.
Recently, Murray has been working on a small scale. Over the last few years, museums have asked for small scale works for their fundraisers. Just before the pandemic, her husband adopted Snickers, a five-pound rescue kitty. The tabby cat seemed the perfect
model for a small painting. In the last year, Peggy Jane has continued to produce a series of small, intimate portraits of various cats, dogs and even a goat. The iconic goat is wearing a kimono and holds a bouquet of daffodils. Both small and large paintings are now
available at the Ferndale Arts Gallery.
The member-owned Ferndale Arts Gallery is located at 580 Main St., and is now open daily from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call 707-786-9634 or visit Ferndalearts.com.