The Museum is pleased to showcase California-based artist Mina Afshari’s photographs for her first museum exhibit. Afshari is a young Iranian woman who longed for freedom not only from the oppressive regime of Iran but also from prolonged family trauma. After arriving in the United States and experiencing the wind of freedom in her hair, she has found beauty and healing in allowing herself to open up to the expansiveness of her new home. The photographs in Let it Shine were created in her Carmel, California apartment, using a single light source—a window—to illuminate farmer’s market produce and flowers. She captures the beauty of the contrast between darkness and luminous light. This exhibit is the story of losing oneself in the dark edge of life but being given another chance to be alive in the most colorful way.
About Mina Afshari
Growing up in Iran, Mina Afshari witnessed even the most basic human rights being denied. She had to fight for her safety against the government, as well as at home, where she experienced physical and emotional abuse. These experiences awoke her to the world at an early age. Now, she’s fighting to reclaim her innocence.
When Afshari was five years old, and her brother was two, they were kidnapped for four months, where she witnessed him being abused. Feeling helpless, her response as a five-year-old was to fight by dumping food on the carpet or throwing clothespins off the balcony.
Throughout her childhood, Afshari was faced with hardships, such as providing emotional support for her father, enduring anger from her mother, caregiving her mother through terminal cancer, experiencing deception and manipulation from extended family, and the death of her brother. From a very young age, she promised herself never to feel again and, through the years, detached and numbed out her emotions as she learned to people please to find safety.
Mina Afshari; A Dance in Light l, 2023; Photographic print. Image courtesy of the artist.
As a teenager, Afshari was compelled to find a corner of freedom for herself, rebelling against the enforcement of Iran’s rules over women’s clothing and head coverings. She cut her hair short, wore boy clothes, and rode her bicycle at night to feel freedom and the wind in her hair. Eventually, she was arrested at gunpoint by Iran’s “morality police.” When they insisted that her family had to bring proper clothing to release her, she defied them, stating that she had no family and no other clothes. Eventually, to her surprise, they released her. She raised her hand for a cab feeling victorious as she walked out wearing the same “inappropriate” clothing she was arrested in.
It was after coming to the United States during her mother’s cancer treatment and grieving the loss of her mother that Afshari entered a gym for the first time and began her slow journey of healing. Through the years, her childhood traumas manifested in illness and hopelessness. She learned that her traumas were at the root of her illness and began to get help through meditation, exercise, and education.
The pandemic gave Afshari a new opportunity to shift her focus. During the shelter-in-place orders, she started taking photographs of produce from the local farmer’s market to promote their services on social media. She became obsessed with capturing the produce in the most flattering way, using light from a single window in her apartment and exploring the contrasts of darkness and luminous light. Picking up the camera was very healing for Afshari, who felt grounded and at peace. She says, “Experimenting with still life photos, I feel I’m reclaiming my innocence again.”
Afshari, currently a university student pursuing a degree in economics, has taken on the role of a research apprentice in the realm of behavioral economics. Guided by her mentors, she employs quantitative methods to explore the intricate interplay between personal history and individual decision-making. Afshari is especially interested in investigating the lives of founders and CEOs as she can personally relate to the resilience and unrelenting resourcefulness of the individuals she studies. Her burning question is to answer what causes us to become compassionate towards each other and what transforms self-preservation into compassion.
This presentation of Afshari’s photographs is her first exhibit at a museum. Afshari’s work is a direct reflection of journeying through trauma and communicates the innocence that exists within each of us regardless of the darkness through which we’ve traveled. She believes that there is immense power within each individual, even when feeling completely helpless and hopeless. Through her work and her story, she hopes that others find their own strength to take positive, empowering actions to gain back what seemed to have been lost.
The Whatcom Museum acknowledges that we gather on the traditional territory of the Lhaq’temish – Lummi People – and the Nuxwsá7aq – Nooksack People – who have lived in the Coast Salish region from time immemorial. The Museum honors our relationship with all of our Coast Salish neighbors and our shared responsibilities to their homeland where we all reside today.
Featuring coastal landscape paintings from Northern California to Washington, spanning the 1880s to present, this stunning exhibition highlights the work of many well-known artists from both regions, as well as several who were underrecognized in their day.
Visitors are invited to examine both the similarities and differences in style in the works from these two regions, which extends from the coastline of Big Sur to the Monterey Peninsula to the Coast Range mountains and northward to the Puget Sound and Cascade mountains. The artists traveled back and forth between the two states and often knew one another, sharing common values about the land and drawing inspiration from the wilderness. The misty, foggy weather patterns are often represented in these works.
The paintings in Coastal Views are drawn from the Whatcom Museum’s collection, the Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey artist Warren Chang, and the private collections of Phil and Mary Serka of Bellingham, Wash.; and Paula and Terry Trotter of Carmel, Calif. Coastal Views is co-curated by Patricia Leach, Executive Director of the Whatcom Museum, and Sarah Clark-Langager, retired Director of the Western Washington University Gallery.
Image credit: Armin C. Hansen; Monterey Harbor, c. 1927; Watercolor; 24 x 25.75 in. framed. From the collection of Terry and Paula Trotter.
The Whatcom Museum acknowledges that we gather on the traditional territory of the Lhaq’temish – Lummi People – and the Nuxwsá7aq – Nooksack People – who have lived in the Coast Salish region from time immemorial. The Museum honors our relationship with all of our Coast Salish neighbors and our shared responsibilities to their homeland where we all reside today.
Susan Murrell; Sift / Shift (detail), 2023. Image courtesy of the artist.
Susan Murrell’s works are meditations on passageways, life transitions, and the constancy of matter. In the summer of 2023, she will create a site-specific installation specific to the Museum’s Lightcatcher gallery. The immersive work employing sand, painting, and sculptural elements will explore our very human proclivity to be co-creators of the landscape as we assign value to materials, excavate and harvest, delineate, and build. The artist states, “We live in a place where various cultures have long negotiated a beautiful, fertile, and difficult landscape in hopes it will sustain us. I’m interested in how the prevalent philosophies and priorities of our time sculpt the physical environment and how this place is more porous, interconnected, and transitory than we often realize.”
Susan Murrell; Sift / Shift (detail), 2023. Image courtesy of the artist.
Murrell’s work also explores how our concept of landscape has changed through technology. The visible horizon traditionally defined our relationship to the world; now, with our expanding perspective, we feel a kinship with microscopic images and aerial views of planets. Vestiges of built environments, architecture, or even scientific illustration have been added to our visual vernacular and create a sense of place for us. Our bodies are quite literally composed of recycled matter from the stars. We are reshuffled molecules. In this context, Murrell considers herself a landscape painter.
Murrell has been awarded residencies at programs such as Yaddo, Ragdale, Arteles in Finland, and Westfjords in Iceland. She has exhibited at Siena Heights University, Boise State University, Schneider Museum of Art, Carnation Contemporary, and Portland State University, among others. Her works are in the University of Oregon and the United States Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division collections, and she is currently a Professor of Art at Eastern Oregon University in La Grande, Oregon.
This exhibition is supported by funds from the Oregon Arts Commission. Additional funding is provided by The Ford Family Foundation and Eastern Oregon University, the Whatcom Museum Foundation, Jean Andresen, and The City of Bellingham.
The Whatcom Museum acknowledges that we gather on the traditional territory of the Lhaq’temish – Lummi People – and the Nuxwsá7aq – Nooksack People – who have lived in the Coast Salish region from time immemorial. The Museum honors our relationship with all of our Coast Salish neighbors and our shared responsibilities to their homeland where we all reside today.
John Cole (1936–2007); Untitled Still Life in Red, c. 1974; Oil on canvas; Gift of Lucille Cole. Whatcom Museum Collection, 2019.10.17.
Art isn’t limited to paint on a canvas. We can see it in the natural world, historical objects, and the architecture around us. We all have the tools to appreciate and understand art. In our new permanent exhibition, Learning to Look, you’ll find that art is everywhere, and art is for everyone.
Comprising of artworks from the collection, Learning to Look, is arranged to break art into seven core elements: line, shape, form, texture, value, space, and color. Through question prompts and interactive activities, the exhibition introduces the world of art to visitors of all ages. By learning to look together, we create a richer understanding of art and its place in our world. Stop in the gallery to learn something new or apply your skills as you explore the diverse works of the collection.
The Museum is offering interactive school tours of this exhibition for K-12 students. Educators can reach out to our Education Department to book a tour.
People of the Sea and Cedar, in the second floor gallery of the Lightcatcher building, shares the history and art of the Northwest Coast people, blending both historical and contemporary perspectives. This exhibit features artifacts from the Museum’s collection, such as Coast Salish artwork and carvings, woven blankets, hand-made tools, cedar hats, clothing, and baskets. The exhibit provides hands-on learning experiences, a Lummi language interactive, and videos showcasing Lummi and Nooksack weavers and carvers. Themes of cultural knowledge, art and symbolism, lifestyles, and community present the Northwest Coast tribes as vibrant, living cultures who honor their past while building cultural and economic futures for their people.
The Whatcom Museum has been making connections with linguistics and Native speakers throughout the Pacific Northwest to expand the Native language component of People of the Sea and Cedar. We will continue to develop our Lummi language translations and recordings together with Lummi Nation instructor Smak i’ya’, Matt Warbus, tribal elders, and Lummi Nation students. We look forward to sharing more.
This exhibit in Old City Hall provides a glimpse into the local history and culture of the Victorian Era, when taxidermy flourished and mounted animals often decorated interior spaces. For the Museum, this collection of birds is also important to the building’s history. If it hadn’t been for John M. Edson, Old City Hall might not be standing here today. While city officials were considering demolishing it, Edson saw an opportunity to not only save the building, but also to create a public museum within its walls. He dreamed of having a permanent home for his bird specimen collection, and the museum became the perfect showcase.
Now, more than 80 years later, the Whatcom Museum has taken this important collection and reinterpreted it as an educational experience. Designed in collaboration with the North Cascades Audubon Society, the exhibit provides opportunities to learn about bird migration, conservation success stories, birds in peril, and the importance of studying bird specimens today. Alongside the interpretive panels and the birds themselves, the Hall of Birds provides a variety of interactive opportunities, including video clips of birds in our local habitats, audio files of Puget Sound-area bird calls, and hands-on activities for children. We look forward to sharing this important collection with visitors for years to come.
The Whatcom Museum acknowledges that we gather on the traditional territory of the Lhaq’temish – Lummi People – and the Nuxwsá7aq – Nooksack People – who have lived in the Coast Salish region from time immemorial. The Museum honors our relationship with all of our Coast Salish neighbors and our shared responsibilities to their homeland where we all reside today.
Join volunteers from the North Cascades Audubon Society in the John M. Edson Hall of Birds on the fourth Sundays of each month. Drop-in between 1-3pm to learn more about birds of the Pacific Northwest, as well as about migration, conservation, birds in peril, and the importance of studying bird specimens today.
The Museum’s 1892 Old City Hall building features a variety of exhibits that tell the stories of the building’s architecture, the city’s early days, logging history, and waterfront industry.
Get a sense of place, and where we are in this fourth corner of the country, through an audio-visual journey of Old City Hall and the early days of Bellingham. Located on the main level of Old City Hall, in the gallery that was once the first mayor of Bellingham’s office in the late 1890s, you’ll learn a variety of historical facts and trivia.
Relive the history of logging in our corner of the Pacific Northwest through photographs, artifacts, and stories documenting both the good and the bad of Bellingham’s timber era during the mid- to late- nineteenth century. Historic video footage takes you back to a time when only the sheer strength of the lumberjacks felled the enormous trees. Learn what it took to be a lumberjack, the long days and hard work. Find out what a “road monkey” and a “river rat” did for their jobs.
Walk into the second floor Allsop Gallery for a lesson on Bellingham’s maritime heritage. From early steam ships, to fisheries, to notable schooners plying the shores of Bellingham Bay, you’ll get a waterfront history overview through photographs, artifacts, interactives, and model ships while looking through the gallery windows to the Bay. See messages visitors have placed in our “Message in a Bottle.” We hope you’ll visit our Maritime Gallery and leave your own message of encouragement.
In 2004, Jim Young visited the Whatcom Museum and learned about the extensive collection of H.C. Hanson original line drawings. Already an experienced model builder, Jim loved the idea of creating intricate, exacting models of vessels that are an important connection to our community. Seven of his Hanson models are now on exhibit, including a fishing trawler, tug, and yacht, all built to scale from the original drawings.
Partnering with the North Cascades Audubon Society, this exhibit features our founding collection of more than 500 mounted birds, with interpretation, videos, and hands-on activities highlighting Pacific Northwest flyway zones, migration patterns, habitats, nests, and more.
Art isn’t limited to paint on a canvas. We can see it in the natural world, historical objects, and the architecture around us. We all have the tools to appreciate and understand art. In Learning to Look, you’ll find that art is everywhere, and art is for everyone. Comprising of artworks from the collection, the exhibition is arranged to break art into seven core elements: line, shape, form, texture, value, space, and color. Through question prompts and interactive activities, the exhibition introduces the world of art to visitors of all ages.
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