ŌDE ARTISTS
AYAME BULLOCK
Ayame lives and creates her handbuilt ceramics on orcas island, Washington. Her work is inspired by her personal experiences, but most importantly her Japanese heritage and working surrounded by the serene rustic beauty of the San Juan Islands in Washington state. Ayame’s pieces are made with pinch and coil techniques to give an organic wabi-sabi feel to her work. The slow process of hand building ceramics allows Ayame to focus on subtle detail and give time and intention into each piece. She aspires to create pieces that find balance between rustic and refined. Her work is a reminder to take a moment to slow down, and instills a sense of quiet joy and ritual in the everyday.
ROBIN LEE CARLSON
Robin wants to see, record, and understand the world around her as it unfolds. She wants to know how we are moved by the places we find ourselves. When we experience a place, how do we change it? How does it change us? She believe it is critical to use all of the tools at our disposal to communicate the interaction between humans and everything that surrounds us. Her education is in science, with a Master’s in evolutionary biology. She spent sixteen years working for the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission, managing projects to track and analyze stream habitat restoration projects for salmon and steelhead. In her work with data, she sought to translate complex scientific information into easily understandable stories. In her illustration work, she seeks to do the same with pictures, especially with pictures that show how the world changes over time. Follow Robin’s Anthropocene Sketchbook on Instagram to see more of her work or visit her portfolio.
Art credit: Robin Lee Carslon
SARA CUNNINGHAM FARISH
Sara is the co-founder of Ōde and St. Ōde Press. Her hand-screened fabrics adorn the pages of our book as section dividers. She is also the co-owner and CEO of Outlook Inn on Orcas Island where she has transformed the grand dame building and the gardens on the premises into peaceful island sanctuaries. She passionately practices the art of ceramics, screen printing, and kindness.
Photo credit: Peter Lin Carrillo
ALEPH GEDDIS
The sculptural works of Aleph Geddis live at the intersection of traditional methods and modernist forms, informed by a lifetime fascination with the foundational structures of our world. Growing up on Orcas Island in the Pacific Northwest, Aleph spent many hours with his stepfather, a sculptor, carver and builder of wooden boats. Steeped in this rich environment, his early works drew inspiration from the stylized naturalism of Northwest coast Native carvings, and later, from all he saw on a family trip to Japan.
As his work evolves, there remains a consistent engagement with the simple elegance of natural forms. His recent works are traveling directly into the integral shapes of the Platonic solids, which Aleph experiences as holding a truth beyond human subjectivity, and a magical existence that precedes us and will outlast us, that we get the pleasure of experiencing and interacting with.
A dedicated traveler and artisan, Aleph brings his work with him wherever he goes, continuing to use these forms as a place to explore the paradoxes that surround him, and to make some offering of beauty and integrity back into the world.
photo credit: AJ Ragasa
KATE GEDDES
Kate’s work embraces the expressionist tradition. She wishes to internalize and externalize the human condition, both the psychological and the spiritual. She believes that painting is a ritualistic event, one that relates past, present, and future through the act of remembrance, reflection, and imagining. Using direct reference to Celtic mythology, Catholic iconography and East Indian cosmology, she integrates the primal and ecstatic, the psychic and the
physical. The mystical and bold emotionalism of Goya, Grunewald, and Bacon inspire Kate. They portray startling, shocking images yet they have great tenderness and beauty. It is that tradition to which she
wishes to add her voice.
MARTHA FARISH
Martha came to painting late in life and for her, the urge to create art is both life affirming and life sustaining. There is no greater satisfaction to her as an artist than when one has the feeling that you’ve contributed beauty to the world. She paints because she is trying to find something that is not apparent yet. And, every single time she sits down to paint something, she goes in hoping that she will be surprised—and renewed. And, it works every time.
photo credit: Peter Lin Carrillo
PAUL HUBER
Paul is a creative director, art director, graphic designer and copywriter living and working on beautiful Orcas Island. Before that, he was Creative Director at Lynda.com. He has helped brand everything from gaming consoles for BRIC nations to world-class marathons, and has about as diverse a creative background as you could imagine, well versed and accomplished in the disciplines of branding, graphic design, advertising, direct and relationship marketing, and digital design and experience. He has also been fortunate enough to have received numerous awards over the course of his career—including Communication Arts, Graphis (including a recent Platinum Branding 6 winner), Print, Type Directors Club, Caples, Mead Annual Report Show, AIGA Graphic Design USA and The New York Art Directors Show—all of which can be found in cardboard boxes in his garage next to his spare BMW 2002 parts.