Burien Art 2025
Essa curated a section of gallery wall for Burien Arts at the Highline Heritage Museum. Essa tookover this programming in November of 2024, and began selecting artists in February of 2025.
Stable Habits
John Woodruff
John Woodruff’s exhibtion took place from July through September of 2025. A pleasure to work with John’s photographs are sequenced in the order they are taken to create one larger work mounted on wood or metal. Reminicent of film one can imagine the images dancing and flickering.
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As a continuation of the ideas in John's recent series, Stable Habits is a collection of smaller, more monochromatic pieces that read as shorter, concise visual ideas rather than the lengthy sentences of his larger works. John works primarily in the studio and is meticulous in his processes and planning. Created in-camera, the images of each grid are primarily presented in the order they were created, with the flow of each sequence being an important consideration.
John finds artistic clarity in the habit of repetition and adherence to the inherent rules governing each piece or series he creates. He utilizes the tools and techniques of traditional photography and presents the simple interplay of form, light, and time. These combine into intricate, approachable, and visually captivating compositions that transcend the conventional bounds of photography's traditional modes of presentation.
Originally from Seattle, John studied Photographic Arts and Art History in Salzburg, Austria, and received a BFA in Fine Art Photography from RIT. In 1991, he began a career in photography in New York. He eventually made his way west, continuing his career in Chicago and San Francisco. He now lives in Seattle with his wife and kids. -
Wool and fLowers
Trisha Gilmore
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
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This work is made from a rug tufting machine that is held in both hands and pushes out yarn into a stretched canvas. I draw an original sketch onto the canvas with a Sharpie and then start loading the gun with the color of wool yarn that I have chosen. I shoot the wool into the canvas row next to row, changing the color of yarn when the design requires it. I do not choose the colors I’m going to use ahead of time, but choose as I go. I make these decisions in palette and line similarly like my process of painting pictures. They feel organically alike to me, just different materials. I like to use floral and plant designs as they are abstracted easily and offer lots of color and texture ideas.
Trisha works with Wool and a Tufting gun that pushes the yarn into canvas, inspired by the composition of real-life flora and fauna.
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