Plant Practice runs May 2–27

The Miller Library is excited to welcome artists Martha Makosky and Katy Gilmore to display their work in a joint exhibition, Plant Practice, which will be open to the public during regular library hours from May 2 to 27. We will host a Meet the Artists event on Saturday, May 9 from 1 to 3 pm.

Martha Makosky is a visual artist whose work is shaped by a childhood spent in tropical Southeast Asia—and an appreciation for the region’s nature, art, and textiles—followed by three decades living in the temperate Puget Sound. The mixed-media works presented in Plant Practice begin with collage papers hand-printed using stencil, transfer, and relief techniques. Botanical forms are drawn over this ground. Martha then paints over the collage or paints the forms, sometimes sanding and layering again, to build combinations of backgrounds with ghosted textures and focal features, bridging observed nature and abstract surface.

For her third exhibition at the Miller Library, Katy Gilmore presents her project tracing a Northwest year using the Japanese concept of 72 micro-seasons a year, rather than just four. With a page of words and images recording each five-day season, she forms large accordion fold books to display. Gilmore will also offer monoprints of individual flowers and “Flower Pages” – flower images painted on deaccessioned gardening encyclopedia pages.

 

2026 Garden Lovers’ Book Sale–thank you

Thank you for attending our April 10 and 11 Garden Lovers’ Book Sale. In case you missed it, remaining books are now free!