2023 Pacific Northwest Drawers
Ethan Bickel MLA 96 is pleased to announce that ten photos from his series Open Water have been selected for this year's Pacific Northwest Drawers at Blue Sky Gallery: Oregon Center for the Photographic Arts.
Work on this series began in the summer of 2021 as an attempt to capture what it feels like to swim open water in Lake Washington. Bickel had been swimming in open water for over a decade, but since his cancer diagnosis in 2019, the lake also became a place for healing. The experience of swimming open water in summer in the Pacific NW provides a balm to all the senses: the warmth of the sun, the cool of the water, the smell and taste of sun ripened blackberries along the shore, and the saturated colors of the summer sky and landscape. The photos were taken with a small action camera with a waterproof case while swimming.
Blue Sky established the Pacific Northwest Drawers program in 2007 to feature a juried, public archive of original prints by contemporary photographers based in the region. The Drawers program has quickly become a favorite aspect of Blue Sky’s ongoing programming, featuring original prints by more than 60 artists based in Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. The Drawers is a year-long exhibition, changing every April to coincide with Portland Photo Month, and available to approximately 25,000 visitors annually.
To view more information about the Pacific Northwest Drawers, click here.
