The 25 small bronze sculptures Neil Goodman made while summering in Washington State in 1989, entitled “The Bellingham Series,” are characterized by a modest sylvan quality—a sense of desire indulged, and of an artist extending and luxuriously extrapolating a concept. Though these sculptures provide a bit of respite from Good-man’s characteristically complex and rather imposing multileveled bronze ensembles, it would be misleading to view them simply as a summer project—a break from the rigors of his usual effort. This series reflects a sweet liberty within its open parameters, which produced

Janet Carkeek works in ink and pastel on commercial plywood, augmenting and drawing out the natural rhythmic variegation of the grain. There is a kind of benign dignity to this pursuit, a Joyce Kilmer–like complicity with arboreal being; time has etched these patterns into the fiber of the wood, and Carkeek’s practice patiently releases them. Her palette is so discreetly muted, so modest and harmonious, that it never overwhelms nature’s consummate artisanship.

In the earliest of the 12 works that made up this miniretrospective, Carkeek joined pairs of variously grained plywood panels in horizontal