This year’s festival artist is Kris Ekstrand, a west coast painter and printmaker. Ekstrand has been long-time Skagit County resident and champion for the arts and environment in western Washington. She has recently relocated to Petaluma, CA and writes, “In California as in Washington, I am captivated by the interplay of contrasting elements: old and new, manmade and natural, the intricate scritch-scratch of surface texture and the beautiful blur of distance.” We had the chance to talk with her about her work and connection to the Skagit River Poetry Foundation.
(Kris in her Petaluma, CA studio)
How has the literary world influenced your work and art-making process?
Reading, writing, and literacy have been an i