- Hello, and welcome to another episode of "Everyday Northwest."

I'm your host, Staci Nelson, and today we'll tour across the Pacific Northwest to visit a Port Townsend woodworker who crafts unique furniture inspired by machines and nature, explore the Latin sounds of a Spokane salsa band, and meander among the artists at Coeur d'Alene's Annual Art on the Green.

All coming up today on "Everyday Northwest."

(upbeat music) (Jennifer's introduction in Spanish) - Hola, my name is Jennifer Vigil from Son Dulce.

We are Spokane's very own 12-Piece Salsa Band.

Some information about us, is we're all from Spokane.

We originated here in Spokane in 2006.

So, we've been together quite a while now.

I've got two of my OG's still with me.

And we like to play traditional salsa.

So, there's definitely a market for it here in Spokane.

And we started this band mostly for our dancers.

So, we had some folks coming out, previous bands and what have you, that it wasn't quite traditional salsa.

And for the dancers who are classically trained, that's very important, so we wanted to bring the heat.

So, we started this band and I'm blessed to work with some very wonderful musicians and some very wonderful people, classically trained folks from Spokane.

This was just something that came together organically, and I think it was very unexpected for the community, but it's definitely been received well.

So, we like to play wherever there's enough space for us.

So a band this size definitely needs a large room and a lot of space for our dancers, 'cause they like to move around.

So, we like to play large venues.

We've been playing at Overbluff Cellars, most recently, we've had quite a few shows there.

We just played at the Knitting Factory last month.

And definitely, those are venues that can fit a crowd and a band this size.

Also, we are fortunate enough to play some tunes that were written by some of the greats, Celia Cruz, Buena Vista Social Club, Tito Puente, some of the favorites that, you can't sit still.

You hear the songs come on and nobody can sit still.

So I think the greatest compliment is when somebody comes to us and says, "You remind me of my home."

That means something to me.

Spokane is my home and certainly I wanna bring this to my community and it means a lot to me when it touches somebody to that degree.

(upbeat dance music) (singing in Spanish) Okay, let me introduce the band that makes this wonderful sound of Son Dulce.

We've got Riley on keys, Rob on bass, Jonathan on conga, Tim on bongo, Rick on timbales.

We have Lauren on hand percussion, Chris, sax, Paul, sax, flute and backup vocals, Brendan on trumpet, Jenny on trombone.

(upbeat dance music) (singing in Spanish) ♪ Hey hey hey ♪ Hey hey hey (upbeat music) (gentle music) - [Narrator] Residing in the delightful Olympic Peninsula town of Port Townsend, Washington, Seth Rolland's artistic visions in wood are as mesmerizing as they are functional.

Journey with us as we adventure where form and function create unique works of art.

- I started off woodworking probably when I was a kid.

My mom gave us lots of wood pieces and scrap, and we had lots of craft materials of all kinds to work with.

My mom's an architect and my dad's a landscape architect.

So they both were interested in design and in having us make things and explore the world by creating.

- [Narrator] A true artisan, stretching beyond traditional boundaries, Seth Rolland's artistic endeavor in design is truly timeless.

- We moved up to Port Townsend and found really a great crafts community here, a lot of wood workers, a great lumber yard, Edensaw, that supplies a lot of the Northwest with lumber.

And I started doing craft fairs in Bellevue and Seattle as well as the woodworker show here in Port Townsend.

So I'm working on a piece right now that is based on this model, I often start with a drawing, a sketch, and then work that sketch into a quarter scale and then make a model, and then this is just hot glued together.

So I could swap out the legs and shape 'em.

Each one of these is actually shaped in a different way, and that way I can look at 'em and think about which one I like best before I make the real piece.

But these are based on an arm and a hand, the idea of clasping, and embracing the glass and holding it.

This surface is gonna be carved.

- [Narrator] Seth's inspiration comes from nature.

The organic shapes are an interplay of materials creating the balance between form and function.

- I really like natural stone, and I like the mixture of stone and wood.

So I started off making some small objects that were just mixing stone and wood.

I call these "Rock sandwiches," and just playing around with what the materials looked like together.

And I really liked the effect, especially with the carved wood and the stone and then started designing some furniture pieces that were using the stone in the tables.

So they were beautiful.

They had the aesthetic of some of these pieces, mixing the materials, but the stone was performing an integral function, being in that table, not just an aesthetic one.

I feel that functional objects should be beautiful.

There's no reason that a table just has to look like a functional table and not be something beautiful that you wanna live with and something that makes you a bit.

- [Narrator] Seth and other talented woodworkers in the Port Townsend area have also taken to mentoring aspiring creatives as well.

- Port Townsend is a great community as a woodworker.

There's the Port Townsend school of woodworking, which was started by three friends of mine, I think about 15 years ago and I occasionally teach there.

I was on the board for a while.

It's a really good community, because there's a lot of great wood workers who teach there, a lot of local people.

And we also bring in a lot of wood workers from around the country, and so it's a nice way to get to interact with people that are from other parts of the national woodworking scene while living in a small town at the end of the road.

- [Narrator] As one might imagine, his works have been appreciated by collectors worldwide.

Seth's popularity and presence in artistic, functional woodwork keeps his creativity fresh and his shop busy.

A visit to his website is worth your time, and an adventure in itself.

- At that point, my website was starting to get some traffic and I could do less craft fairs at that point.

And slowly over the last 10 years, I've transitioned out of doing craft shows and towards just getting commissions and sales off the internet.

(bright music) - My name is Katie Solomon, and I have been a long term volunteer with Art on the Green.

Started here when I was probably two years old, and I'm not gonna tell you how old I am now, but long time.

Art on the Green, well it's run by Citizens Council for the Arts and the Citizens Council for the Arts, has actually over the last three years, we've donated over $30,000 in art supplies to our local schools.

And every year we also donate a piece that's part of our juried art show, to one of our local schools, as well as to the North Idaho college, where we host our festival.

- I've been showing here for 30 plus years and demonstrating Raku for that many.

I teach here at the event.

I have taught at multiple other places throughout my 30 years experience, because I've learned my craft through teaching really.

Raku itself was first discovered in Japan, because the Korean tile makers were in a hurry to finish the roof tile.

So they fired 'em and took 'em out of the kiln really quick, and then that process then revealed certain changes that occur when you do that, when you take a red hot piece out of the kiln, and put it in a combustible area.

It will change the surface and it's very fun for a beginner, because you don't have the expectations, you're just here to participate.

- I have had a really good last couple of years, 2022 especially, I've had work in a national magazine, Watercolor Artist," magazine and I've been interviewed for "PleinAir," magazine that will be coming out this fall sometime.

I was awarded the first place in watercolor gouache, for "PleinAir," magazine's monthly competition.

And I've had my work in five major national shows this year, the Transparent Watercolor Society of America, which is a really tough one to get into, the National Watercolor Society, Western Federation of Watercolor Societies, Watercolor USA, and another one that I'm forgetting right now.

That's all right.

It's been a really good year.

I have been a participant at Art on the Green for... Oh boy, 12, 15 years, 14 years maybe?

I started painting in 2007 and 2008.

I entered the juried show for the first time, and I've entered that every year since.

And in 2010, I believe was my first year as a booth artist, and I've had a booth every year since.

I have been playing bagpipes since 1994.

I learned in high school.

And when I moved out to Coeur d'Alene just after college, I joined a band in Spokane for a couple of years, and we've been running it ever since.

Being a booth artist at Art on the Green is a wonderful experience.

It's a fantastic way to connect with my local community.

I live downtown.

My studio is downtown.

Coeur d'Alene is very much my home, and it's just really wonderful to have a chance to be in one place where people know they can come and find me and we can talk about painting, talk about art in general.

I can answer questions about my work and connect with buyers and people who are interested in learning about watercolor.

- The event each year will have anywhere from 130 to 150 artists, and they come from all over the United States.

So we have people from regionally, of course, from Spokane, Coeur d'Alene areas.

And we'll have people as far as from the East Coast as well, that travel here to participate in our festival.

Art on the Green is a hundred percent, volunteer led festival.

So everyone that's here today is here because they love this community and they love the arts, and we're here to support the artists and give this community a great place to come together and celebrate what I think is the best part of humankind.

- Thanks a lot for watching today's "Everyday Northwest."

We look forward to sharing more of the sights, sounds, beats, treats and flavors, from the pages of "Art Chowder," magazine.

See you next time.

- [Narrator] Learn more about the sights, sounds, beats and treats of life in the Pacific Northwest, through "Art Chowder," magazine.

Subscriptions and more information are available at, www.artchowder.com.

Funding for "Everyday Northwest," provided in part by BECU.

People helping people, www.becu.org.

And visit Dry Fly Distillery in Downtown Spokane.

Spirits, cocktails and tasting room, www.dryflydistilling.com.

Also Historic Flight Foundation at Felts Field in Spokane.

Experience history in motion, www.historicflight.org.

And Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture.

The Mac.

www.northwestmuseum.org And also the Art Spirit Gallery in Downtown Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.

Celebrating 25 years of quality, imaginative and inspiring art.

Theartspiritgallery.com.