Frederick Holmes and Company - Gallery of Modern & Contemporary Art

05/11/2026

I find it an interesting bit of self observation that at one time I found the sounds of the city to be exhilarating. When I was living in San Francisco I imagined the noise - sirens, music, yelling, cars honking, construction noise, all of it - to be like the voice of the city and I loved it. But after moving to Seattle, and initially imagining the noise of the street just as exhilarating as I had in SF, I began to tire of it after several years. Perhaps it was my apartment’s proximity to a fire station and its sirens wailing every 20-30 minutes or the medivac helicopters buzzing so low overhead before landing at Harborview Hospital, or perhaps the anguished cries and screams of those being chased by their own internal demons. There’s no fault to be found in Seattle or SF or any other city for that matter. They are a pressure cooker of urban living and while there’s all that noise, great creativity is also found to be squeezing out from the edges like grilled cheese. But experiencing the quiet of the earth with only its own creatures occasionally interrupting the silence is a gift. Sitting in solitude as the sun sets over crimson mountains far away, and to melt into the vast Pacific Ocean is a gift. There’s much we can be annoyed by, angry with, dispirited of, in these times. I have to forever remind myself that while much of it matters, it doesn’t matter all that much. Enjoy the sunset…

05/11/2026

Where’s Freddy…? Sometimes in the morning when I wake in my rig, I forget myself. I saw a bit of S. Washington and spent 4 great days with my friends, Joe Roberts and Tiina Jaatinen, owners of The Royal Block Hotel in Waitsburg, WA - a small and very charming farm town adjacent to Walla Walla. Many great wines were drunk, I assure you. Spent a few nights at Maryhill State Park - too close to the highway and kinda small but it’s right on the mighty Columbia River. All the RVs felt like I was parked at the county fairgrounds. Made my way south to Corvallis, OR and boondocked at a place owned by “Kent” aka Kenbo, who describes himself as a blacksmith but don’t be fooled. He’s a mechanical genius in overalls, Vietnam vet, retired and now playing with everything imaginable…like a big, gray bearded kid. Drove to La Pine, OR way up in high desert, where I stayed for 4 nights among scrub pines and enough sun to work on my tan and finally be able to play with my new solar system - got to nearly 400 amps in just a few hours! Not that I know what an amp is but it seemed cool. 😆 Today thru Friday, I’m on a 50 acre spread overlooking Goose Lake in SE Oregon. Honestly, for a guy snobby about my native California, Oregon’s got some incredible landscape. It’s so quiet here the only sounds are the wind, quails, mourning doves, and the distant mooing of cows somewhere far away. This is so remote a place that the evening sky is absolutely awash in stars! On Friday, I leave for Ashland to see a couple of plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. If you’ve never been - GO! My travel budget has been seriously diminished by the current price of gas (Thank You, My Lord & Savior Trump!) so I’m visiting fewer places but staying longer to enjoy what each locale offers. Cuz my time is free but gas…Thank the stars for Costco where gas is consistently less and a hot dog is still only $1.50.

04/30/2026

The Journey Continues… I’ve been getting to know WA state far deeper in the last month than I ever did in the years living in Seattle. New places, some new faces, and spending abundant time with familiar friends with Joe & Tina at The Royal Block, Waitsburg. Personally curated wine tastings, beach time, a couple of lost weekends, chatting with “Tom”, a guy at a bar on a similar journey, appreciating serene places where time stands still and the only sounds are the wind, the shriek of a red-tailed hawk, and the mourning doves. Life can be beautiful when you let it all in and relish every moment. (Anacortes, Ocean Park, Stevenson on the Columbia River, the Palouse Waterfall, the Roberts “ranch”, Waitsburg, WA)

04/17/2026

The first couple of weeks traveling in the Minnie Winnie. I’ve stayed at a horse ranch, a distillery, learned many things about “My rig”, spent a couple of nights on peoples driveways or service roads, (with their permission, of course, through Harvest Hosts), Two WA state parks Millersylvania & Deception Pass so far,and now at a RV park at the Swinomish Tribal Casino in Anacortes. It hasn’t always been glamorous but every single day has been an adventure of one kind or another. 😎

12/09/2025

07/06/2022

Born Today: July 06, 1887. Marc Zakharovich Chagall (6 July [O.S. 24 June] 1887 - 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist of Belarusian Jewish origin. An early modernist, he was associated with several major artistic styles and created works in virtually every artistic format, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints. In this image: Marc Chagall, Paradise, 1961. Oil on hardboard. H: 43.5 cm, W: 58 cm. Musée National Marc Chagall, Nice © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée national Marc Chagall) / Gérard Blot / ADAGP, Paris - SACK, Seoul, 2018.

07/05/2022

Seattle-based, Latino painter John Andro Avendano (b.1959) in his first solo exhibition in Seattle, presents a powerful body of recent work dedicated to anti-violence. Comprised of fifteen vibrantly colorful paintings in oil/mixed media on canvas and panel, they visually form a refutation of the vio...

07/03/2022

HOT JAZZ AT THE GALLERY featuring THE D’VONNE LEWIS QUARTET with Joe Doria, Skerik, & Andy Coe! Saturday Evening, July 23, 2022 7:00-9:30 Tickets: $22 https://frederickholmesandcompany.com/events/

07/02/2022

JOHN ANDRO AVENDANO: CHAOS IN ORDER (An Exhibition For Anti-Violence) June 30-July 30, 2022. Artist Opening First Thursday Art Walk, July 7, 6:00-8:30pm

07/01/2022

A Preview of July's Solo Show. JOHN AVENDANO: CHAOS IN ORDER (An Exhibition For Anti-Violence) June 30-July 30, 2022
Artist Reception First Thursday Art Walk, July 7, 2022