Denise Harris and Cameron Snow are 2016’s Island Treasure winners

Published 10:49 am Monday, January 11, 2016

Two new Bainbridge Island artists have joined the historic roster of Island Treasure Award recipients. Denise Harris and Cameron Snow are the 2016 awardees, having been officially approved by the Bainbridge Island Arts & Humanities Council Board last month following the traditional anonymous nomination and juried selection process.

Both awardees agreed they were very surprised, but flattered, to have been selected.

“It’s a great honor,” Harris said.

“It feels like the affection that I have for this community is returned,” Snow agreed. “I love this community.”

Originally conceived in 1999, the Island Treasure Award honors excellence in the arts and humanities and is presented annually to two individuals who have made outstanding contributions in those areas in the Bainbridge Island community.

Candidates for the award must live on Bainbridge and must display an ongoing commitment to their chosen field.

Small-scale sagas

Harris has been a regular Bainbridge Performing Arts contributor both on stage and behind the scenes for more than 30 years. She has, in addition to performing, designed and painted sets for numerous productions and also mentored many young thespians.

A talented singer, Harris performed with Bainbridge Chorale for many years as well.

She designed and carved many iconic business signs at Lynwood Center for such island institutions as Lottie’s Place, Heyday Farm, Village Music, O’Connor Architects, Pane d’Amore, the Treehouse Café and more.

Harris also constructed the one and only Bainbridge Gypsy Wagon, a perennially favorite feature at the annual Harvest Fair. Using the leftover wood, she constructed a concertina and a ukulele and she regularly performs as part of a musical group on Saturday mornings at Lynwood Center.

Harris is a featured artist at Bainbridge Arts & Crafts, where her detailed miniature sculptures are exhibition staples. Her work has also been featured as part of the permanent collection at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art.

“I always liked models,” Harris, who moved to Bainbridge from Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles in 1979, said of her early interest in intricate creations.

“I would take my allowance and go up to the local hobby shop up in the Palisades and buy these little HO scale models.”

Working with her hands — whether in her first career in the restaurant industry or in her art and woodworking projects — has continued to be a passion for Harris.

“This kind of art, this small art, gives me a lot of pleasure,” she explained. “I enjoy the process of thinking about [the piece’s theme].”

To bring someone unexpected happiness, to make the world a bit more understandable or to share a story, Harris said, is the goal of all her work.

Moving pictures

Snow is most renowned for her work in the medium of film, through which she has immortalized many aspects of Bainbridge Island’s unique culture, heritage and environment.

As part of her continuing goal to create a series of videos describing and exploring the environment on and around Bainbridge, Snow worked with an underwater videographer and a local high school marine science teacher to produce “Return of the Plankton” in 2005, a film which toured the country and is still in use in local high schools to introduce students to the underwater world of Puget Sound.

More recently, she has been collaborating with geologist Gregory Geehan, and together they have completed the first two parts of a planned trilogy of documentaries about the historic geological formation of the island.

Snow has also worked extensively with both the Bainbridge Symphony Orchestra — documenting rehearsals and a full performance of “Peter and the Wolf,” plus interviews with musicians — and BIMA. She extensively recorded the founding, construction and early history of the museum and regularly produces profiles of featured artists.

Her other films include “Forest in the City,” a short documentary about how island residents worked together to save the Grand Forest, and also a biographical feature on Kay Sakai Nakao, who was 22 when she, along with her five siblings and parents, was taken off Bainbridge Island to one of the first Japanese American internment camps during World War II.

Snow is also an accomplished painter and illustrator whose work has been displayed at BAC and BIMA.

After moving to Bainbridge in 1998, Snow said she took a few classes at BITV (then called Bainbridge Island Broadcasting) on a bit of a lark, interested in perhaps producing some local programing. There she discovered her love of filmmaking, and proceeded to use the medium and the making of documentaries as a means of exploring and learning about her new home.

“[A friend] said to me, ‘Cameron, if you go down to BIB and you plunk down $25 for membership, you can become a television producer,’” Snow remembered.

“And I said, ‘That sounds pretty good.’ So I went down there.”

Analog gave way to digital technology, and Snow readily changed with the times. She credits online tutorials with the advancement of her technical skills. She has even, as part of her ongoing geological series, taught herself the basics of animation.

“I thought of the videos as a way to explore the island,” Snow said. “I made a list of the things I’d like to know about and maybe make a documentary on each subject.”

Filmmaking, Snow said, is the perfect combination of all of her life’s passions.

“That’s what makes it so interesting,” she explained. “Everything comes together. All the things I’ve been interested in my whole life, like music, there’s the storytelling, the video, the content.”

A question of legacy

Both recipients agreed that their selection was an important personal milestone that allowed them a chance to reflect on their respective careers with greater perspective.

“To leave a legacy of some sort, I think, is important,” Harris said. “I’ve been lucky in that what I do ends up being viewed by people, and that’s really nice that my art has been able to be shared with the public.”

“There are phases in your life when different things are important,” Snow said. “When you’re 40, you’re anxious to further your career. And now I’m in my seventies, and so I think about completing the projects that I have in mind and I’m not as anxious about getting known.”

Filmmaking being such a collaborative medium, Snow added that her work is truly a legacy shared with the experts and artists featured in her films.

“One of the reasons I’m so happy doing films for the art museum is because they use them,” she added. “They show them all the time. That makes me very happy and I think what an opportunity it is to make, even for the archive of the museum, pieces about the artists.”

Harris and Snow were chosen by a group of 10 nominators, who then submitted their names to a five-member jury comprised of individuals drawn from every aspect of the community. Final approval of the awardees is made by the Arts & Humanities Council, maintaining complete anonymity of nominators and jurists throughout the process.

The award celebration event will take place at BIMA on Saturday, Feb. 20.

Each awardee will also receive a $4,000 unrestricted cash prize and a commemorative Island Treasure candle holder by Kent Van Slyke.