A simple search for art records turned up a piece of local history
It started as an ordinary morning errand. Nicolette Harrington, a new member of the La Conner Arts Commission, was combing through Town Hall for details about the large paintings that line its walls. But instead of paperwork, she stumbled upon something extraordinary — a forgotten treasure from one of La Conner’s most beloved artists.
Hidden on top a file cabinet, half-shielded in dust, was a 6-by-9 print signed by none other than Guy Anderson, a leading figure in the Northwest School art movement and one of La Conner’s famous “Northwest mystics.”
Compared to Anderson’s vast body of work, the piece itself is “merely incidental,” she said. “It was amazing that it was sitting there unrecognized.”
A gift in blue and black
The piece is titled “Haida Shield” and depicts a black and blue abstract shape. Anderson made prints like it by engraving a shape into a block of wood and rolling oil paints over it. He would then impress a linoleum sheet with the stamp, creating multiple prints with different color combinations.
PHOTO BY NANCY K. CROWELLHe often gave them away as Christmas cards for loved ones, said Deryl Walls, Anderson’s friend and caretaker, and the owner of newly-opened Gallery Dei Gratia in downtown, where Anderson’s collection is housed.
Walls, who often witnessed Anderson’s creative process, said he believes the piece might represent a sheet of copper being cut into pieces. The Haida, an Indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest whose territory stretches from Alaska to British Columbia, used copper as a currency that gained value each time it was displayed, given, traded or sold, according to the Bard Graduate Center. Northwest Natives also used copper to make shields, according to Spirits of the West Coast Art Gallery.
Walls hypothesized that Anderson may have been inspired to create the piece after witnessing the exchange of copper currency at a potluck.
The print discovered at Town Hall bears a personal note from Anderson, now sealed on the back, to the original giftee. Once displayed in the building, it was later replaced and forgotten until Harrington’s chance discovery brought it back into view.
From hidden corner to center stage
Harrington’s husband carefully reframed the print, which now greets visitors at the Town Hall entrance. It’s a homecoming of sorts for the artist who helped shape La Conner’s creative soul.
Anderson was a modernist who used symbolic shapes inspired by religion, philosophy and Salish Sea Indigenous cultures. To Harrington, his works evoke “mystical thinking.”
“He had that bold, effective way of making a figurative representation of what, to some people, would appear as nothing, but it really wasn’t,” she said. “It’s like spilling out secrets.”
Honoring La Conner’s artistic legacy
Mayor Marna Hanneman shared Harrington’s excitement. While she never met Anderson, she acknowledged him as a legend in La Conner, a community where numerous artists moved because of the surrounding landscapes and the local history, she said.
The Arts Commission is now cataloging every piece in the town’s collection, from sculptures to paintings, to create an updated public art tour map. Harrington, a former art teacher, calls the process part scavenger hunt and part history lesson.
“It would be great to inventory these pieces so people know La Conner has these treasures,” she said.
Luisa Loi is a general assignment reporter for La Conner Community News.
