Ballard's history captured on canvas | Arts & Culture

Lina Raymond moved to Ballard just three years ago but she’s got the eye of an old-timer. From the window of her downtown Ballard studio, she's seen condos go up and historic buildings come down.

Rather than simply watch, Raymond painted the changes.

In before-and-after portraits of Edith Macefield’s house, the now-demolished Sunset Bowl, and other local landmarks, Raymond captures on canvas a disappearing world.

“The only constant is change, yada yada. But it seems like, it’s more condensed,” Raymond said.  This change is very, very fast. And where I live, I’m completely surrounded by it.”

The work has apparently touched a nerve. Raymond sold her first painting in the series when she was just taking it outside to photograph it. Her show, "Bearing Witness/adaptation"  opened Friday at Portalis Wine Bar, and is halfway sold-out. It will be up for the next two months, and then it moves to Cupcake Royale, which has room for more of her paintings.

Before moving to Ballard to be near her grown son, Raymond painted Southern California bungalows in disrepair. She wanted to do the same in Seattle, but when she took a scouting trip to Sunset Hill she found prospective subjects were already too cleaned-up for her taste.

“I think I may have missed the window,” Raymond said.

She plans to paint other endangered local icons, like the globe on the P-I building. It’s a kind of catharsis, she said.

“People feel so much affection for these places. There’s sort of a need to do this little wake. It’s like a community wake. “