South Puget Sound Community College’s Fine Art Postcard Exhibition, includes 198 works by well-known artists and schoolchildren alike, and the content of the pieces — on the theme “Out of Order” — is as diverse as the artists themselves.
The annual show is the college’s best-attended exhibition and its most important in that it raises money for the college’s Leonor R. Fuller Gallery. It also provides a window into the minds of the contributors.
“The postcard show often is a gauge,” said gallery director Sean Barnes. “It gives us a sense of what people are thinking about, what’s on their minds.”
It is no surprise, then, that the 2026 exhibition, on view through Feb. 6, includes a lot of political commentary.
Flags abound, including Doyle Fanning’s collage in which flags are split by a gold acrylic seam, suggesting the Japanese art of kintsugi, in which broken pottery is repaired with gold, highlighting the beauty of imperfection.
Lynette Charters’ Dear Mom (in memory of Josseli Barnica) combines a flag with a drawing of Barnica, who died in 2021 in Texas after being denied medical care during a miscarriage due to the state’s restrictive abortion laws.
There are numerous references to kings, ranging from Lee Miller’s No King, showing a row of protesters holding a banner, to SPSCC art instructor Crisha Yantis’s figure of a rat wearing a crown and holding a chunk of gold.
The exhibition also includes many pieces that explore various meanings of the phrase “out of order.” Barnes’ watercolor contributions include an image of a horse facing a cart and one of a dog walking a person. There are two images of toilets and one of a broken television set.
There are chickens and eggs, including Syn Hannen’s Psychic Chicken, depicting the popular chicken-themed vending machine at Orange Dracula in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. (The machine is, of course, out of order.)
“There’s always whimsy,” Barnes said. One example: Gail Ramsey-Wharton’s collages of robots assembled from illustrations of vintage household items.
“As a viewer of the show, you have to open your mind a little bit and ask yourself how a particular piece addresses the theme or not,” Barnes said. “Some of the works are art for art’s sake, and some of the folks take the opportunity to speak to something that’s important to them. Sometimes the meaning is right there on the surface, and sometimes we have to think about it a little more.”
Barnes enjoys thinking about the pieces and discussing them with gallery visitors, and he’s also happy that the show draws so many contributors whose art helps to fund the gallery. This year, 84 people submitted work.
“Folks are in huge support of the exhibition,” he said. “Every year, I’m astounded at the numbers.”
WHAT:
SPSCC 2026 Fine Art Postcard Exhibition
WHEN:
Through Feb. 6, with closing reception from 6 to 8:30 p.m. Feb. 6. The gallery is open from noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
WHERE:
The Leonor R. Fuller Gallery at The Kenneth J. Minnaert Center for the Arts, South Puget Sound Community College, 2011 Mottman Road SW, Olympia
LEARN MORE:
https://spscc.edu/art-gallery
AUCTION:
https://postcardexhibit2026.ggo.bid