Art & Melody: Catching up with Barbara Earl Thomas ft. Gretchen Yanover

Since celebrated Seattle artist Barbara Earl Thomas had her career survey exhibition (Heaven On Fire) at BIMA in 2016, she has gone on to have major shows at the Claire Oliver Gallery in NY, and solo exhibitions at Seattle Art Museum, Henry Art Museum, Witchita Art Museum, and Chrysler Art Museum. Hear all about her journey and dive into her latest body of work, The Illuminated Body, a portrait series that weaves an exquisite tapestry of light and color to depict individuals illuminated in moments of creativity. The evening will conclude with a performance by cellist Gretchen Yanover, one of Thomas’ portrait subjects. Seattle’s Yanover creates string atmospheres woven with warm melodies. She performs as a soloist with her electric cello and lopping pedal, along with her classical music life on acoustic cello. Gretchen is a member of NW Sinfonietta orchestra and also serves on their DEI task force. She has performed for TEDx Seattle and Earshot Jazz Festival, has created music for and performed with LeVar Burton, and has had compositions commissioned by Seattle University, Seattle Pacific University, and University of Oregon. Reception following.

Barbara Earl Thomas is a Seattle-based visual artist with numerous national exhibits to her credit and an active art-making career that spans more than 30 years. A skilled painter who now builds tension-filled narratives through papercuts and prints, placing silhouetted figures in social and political landscapes, she pulls from mythology and history to create a contemporary visual narrative that challenges the stories we tell as Americans about who we are. Thomas is also known for her large-scale installations that use light as the animating force and invites her viewers to step inside her world of illuminated scenography. Thomas’s works are included in the collections of the Seattle, Tacoma and Portland Art Museums, Chrysler Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Microsoft, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Washington State and Seattle City public collections. Thomas recently completed commissioned work at Yale University’s Hopper College as well as two major exhibitions, Geography of Innocence, Seattle Art Museum (November 2020 – November 2021), and Packaged Black, a collaboration with New York based artist Derrick Adams at the Henry Art Gallery at the University of Washington (October 2021 – May 2022). Upcoming solo exhibits include Claire Oliver Gallery (November 2022), and Chrysler Museum of Art (February 2023). In 2022 Thomas was appointed as an Associate Fellow at Yale University. In 2016, she received the Seattle Mayor’s Arts Award and, the Washington State Governor’s Arts award, the Artist Trust Irving and Yvonne Twining Humber Award and the Seattle Stranger Genius Award for excellence in the arts. She was also nationally noted for her exhibition “Heaven On Fire,” a major career survey with the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. Her work has been widely featured nationally; with the John Braseth Gallery at the Seattle Art Fair (2016), and at EXPO Chicago (2017, 2018) and Pulse Contemporary Art Fair (2018-21) with Claire Oliver Gallery (New York) Thomas is a graduate of the School of Art, University of Washington, where she received her Master of Arts in 1977. She counts herself most fortunate to have had mentorships with Michael Spafford and Jacob Lawrence who have both influenced her work. She will tell you that these two men were not only supportive but crucial friends in her life.

Cellist Gretchen Yanover wears two musical hats: one as a composer, primarily for her electric cello with looping pedal—and one as a classical cellist. Gretchen went through Seattle public schools, falling in love with the cello’s deep sound in 6th grade. She pursued performance and music education at University of Washington, embracing an interwoven path of teaching and performing. Ms Yanover guided students in music for 17 years, while at the same time growing her own solo performing career. Gretchen started playing with a loop sampler around 2001 and it changed her musical life, inspiring her to improvise and compose spacious string atmospheres woven with warm melodies. . Yanover performs throughout the Pacific Northwest as a soloist on her electric cello, and has also been a member of Northwest Sinfonietta orchestra since 1998. She sits on NW Sinfonietta’s DEI task force, working to make meaningful changes in the classical music culture, along with creating connections in the community.. NW Sinfonietta has featured Gretchen as a soloist on her electric cello on several occasions. Gretchen has been a Visiting Artist at Icicle Creek Center for the Arts, appeared as a soloist for the Earshot Jazz Festival, and presented at TEDx Seattle. She created music for and performed with LeVar Burton for LeVar Burton Reads live, and has had compositions commissioned by Seattle Symphony, Seattle Pacific University, and University of Oregon. Gretchen was the recipient of a Shunpike Artist residency, and was the Town Hall Seattle 2021 Fall Artist in Residence. She is the recipient of a 2023 CityArtist grant from the Seattle Office of Arts & Culture. Yanover has 5 solo albums to date.

https://gretchenyanover.com/bio & https://barbaraearlthomas.com/

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, 550 Winslow Way East, Bainbridge Island, United States