By KATE DANIEL

South Whidbey Record

For Langley resident Kim Tinuviel, colors have always struck a special chord.

The musician, photographer, multi-media artist and painter recalls a childhood filled with symphonic hues and multi-colored melodies, something she continued to experience as a young adult attending Juilliard and which she would later find to be called synesthesia.

Tinuviel described the condition as one in which the senses are both cooperative and somewhat blurred — she sees sound and hears color.

“It has totally guided me as an artist,” Tinuviel said. “I can’t separate it from being an artist … one can be predominant but they are always holding hands.”

Tinuviel has combined encaustic painting, a technique that uses molten beeswax, with her own original photographs to create multi-layered pieces ripe with texture and depth. She will be holding demonstrations of her photo encaustic painting process during Langley’s first Arts Alive, which kicks off this weekend.

The event will be held in locations throughout downtown Langley from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 13. Arts Alive will provide more than 50 artists of numerous mediums with the opportunity to showcase their work while educating the public about their respective mediums. They include sculpting, painting, glass work, animation, print making and children’s art.

“My goal is to create artwork where you’re not sure where the photograph ends and the painting begins and vise versa,” Tinuviel said.

She recently produced two photo encaustic paintings using close-up photographs of Central Asian rugs in Langley’s Music for the Eyes. When layered atop with rivulets of beeswax, the patterns’ dimensions were amplified, making them as inviting to touch as to view.

She explained that her goal is to invite viewers to interpret her work in their own way. What is important, Tinuviel said, is what the viewer sees or feels as opposed to the originally photographed subject.

Gesturing to a painting hung above her studio window, she recalled one instance in which a viewer interpreted the line of trees reflected in a body of water as a toothbrush.

“That doesn’t insult me at all,” she said with a laugh. “I just love that people see other things because it is a deeper understanding. There is not just one way to see things, just as there is not one way to hear things.”

Some artists, such as Melissa Koch of Clinton and Lauren Atkinson of Greenbank, will invite audience participation during Arts Alive.

Atkinson and Koch will be conveying a message regarding the preservation of the monarch butterfly population. They will invite children to create muslin butterflies that will be sewn together to create one.

Tom Lindsay, who creates water and bubble sculptures, will be demonstrating his “evanescent” art form to attendees twice during Arts Alive: at sunrise Saturday morning and during the 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. time frame.

Lindsay, who designs interactive water exhibits for children’s museums, developed a mobile system using tubes and whips to constantly stream bubbles that can last for minutes, as opposed to bubbles created using a “dip system” which last mere seconds. Lindsay explained that the idea was first conceived by another bubble artist, Keith Johnson, but that the mechanism was first produced by Lindsay using Johnson’s concept.

“I like to create things that are really unusual and different and that people haven’t seen before that are fun and interesting,” Lindsay said. “I think as adults we just don’t play enough … I try to do things that allow people to be a kid.”

Standing on the dock of the Langley Marina at sunrise last week, Lindsay showed a small group of bystanders his craft. The translucent orbs, varying in size from individual bubbles a foot or so in diameter to bubble tubes spanning multiple feet, slipped from the lines of Lindsay’s whips into the sea as the sun shone through the spheres with a rosy glean.

“I think of all the things I’ve made that people have enjoyed, these (bubbles) are the most captivating,” he said. “It’s like they’re just almost irresistible.”

As a part of his Arts Alive demonstration, Lindsay said he will likely invite attendees to create their own bubble art. Although Lindsay’s bubble sculpture mechanism is one of a kind, he said anyone could do it with the right tools and conditions.

“I’m just putting the juice here; it just gets born like a child,” Lindsay said.

For information about the event, visit the Arts Alive website.