In Bellevue, Honest Abe in green and black

Sonya Clark, Afro Abe Progression. Photo: Abigail Volkmann

Thanks to Art Daily Newspaper for bringing this to our attention: Just east of Seattle, the Bellevue Arts Museum is taking a fresh look at the art of portraiture in a new show called UberPortrait, running June 16-Oct. 18. No Oregon artists are among the 30 featured in the show, but Darrel Morris, whose excellent exhibit of big, representational embroidered pieces ends Sunday at the Museum of Contemporary Craft, will have stuff there.

Like Portland’s Museum of Contemporary Craft, the Bellevue museum specializes in that loosely designed genre of the art world known as craft, so don’t expect Thomas Gainsborough or Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun. The show’s artists, Art Daily says, work in “a broad range of media such as sculpture, ceramics, photography, fiber, performance art and film.”

Fiber piles on fiber to make up that impressive ‘do above on Sonya Clark’s 2008 Afro Abe Progression (one of three), made from a five-dollar bill and thread. It’s 3 x 6 inches, and the photo is by Abigail Volkmann. Nice.

Go ahead, admire it. Spend some time with it. Just don’t try to spend it.