Darling Nikki

Olympia, WA artist Nikki McClure is best-known for her mad skillz with an X-acto knife. Truly, she's second to none, and her hallmark domestic scenes -- two pairs of feet dangling in a river, for example -- are rendered in lines that are razor-sharp but also incredibly warm. At "Vote for Survival," she shows some new work, originals culled from her forthcoming 2009 calendar "Wake Up." As with her past work, the images celebrate the wisdom and grace of practicality, as in Fix, in which a figure kneels to wrap twine around the cracking handle of a well-used rake in an effort to get it to last through the season. Looking at it, you wonder where your own weak points are. Are you shoring them up, or just leaving them to fester? Then there’s Treasure, which is simply a bird's nest with three eggs, but an emphatic rendering of the strength of woven sticks.
Oct. 10-Nov. 12, 2008