Join Vashon Center for the Arts for a First Friday Gallery Opening on February 6, from 5–8pm, featuring two powerful solo exhibitions that explore the expressive potential of reclaimed materials and the enduring presence of the human and animal form. The Workings of Scott Fife and Marita Dingus: Faces Reclaimed offer distinct yet resonant approaches to sculpture grounded in process, material, and lived experience.

Vashon Island–based artist Scott Fife transforms cardboard—an everyday, disposable material—into sculptural figures and animals imbued with emotional depth and physical presence. Constructed from layered cardboard, screws, and visible fasteners, Fife’s work emphasizes process as meaning. Human portraits and animal sculptures are presented together, flattening hierarchies between species and inviting viewers into relationships of shared vulnerability, attention, and care.

Marita Dingus, a Seattle-born African American feminist and environmental artist, presents sculptures that center the human face and figure using salvaged glass, metal, fabric, and found objects. Drawing from the history of the African Diaspora, Dingus reclaims discarded materials as a metaphor for resilience, memory, and survival. Presented during Black History Month, Faces Reclaimed situates her work within broader conversations on identity, material culture, and historical continuity in American art.

Together, these exhibitions demonstrate how material reuse becomes a powerful language for presence, persistence, and human connection.