When cultures come together there can be a clash — a difference of viewpoints that creates turbulence and disharmony. Or it can go the other way, with two disparate cultures coming together to create something uniquely its own, a whole that is better than, or at least equal to, the two halves.

The show opening Friday at the Bainbridge Arts and Crafts Gallery fits this latter description. “Intersections: Contemporary Work by Japanese American Artists” highlights the convergence of Japanese heritage and contemporary American art and craft.

Featured in the show are 19 well-known Japanese American artists from across the country, including kite maker Gregory Kono, ceramic artist Reid Ozaki and sumi painter Fumiko Kimura.

Bainbridge Arts and Crafts has worked with the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community and guest curator Michiko Olson to assemble the exhibition.

The participating artists represent a wide variety of media, from painters and printmakers to ceramic artists and furniture makers. The show highlights traditional techniques, materials or aesthetics as they are re-envisioned by contemporary artists.

The exhibition is timed to coordinate with the completion of the first phase of the Bainbridge Island Japanese Memorial, being built on the Eagle Harbor shore from which 227 men, women and children of Japanese descent who called Bainbridge Island home were sent off to internment camps in 1942, where they remained for the duration of the war.

Victoria Josslin, BAC director of education and information, noted that the arts organization held its first organizational meeting in the Japanese Hall in 1948.

The show follows Bainbridge Arts and Crafts mission of working with community businesses and organizations.

“We are pleased to work with the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community,” she said.

All the work in the exhibition is for sale and many of the artists have offered to donate their sales to the memorial effort. In addition, BAC will offer two giclée posters for sale with proceeds going to the memorial fund. Also in the works is a museum-quality publication to document the exhibition.

In connection with the exhibition, Mira Nakashima, architect, designer and daughter of artist George Nakashima, will give a presentation 7 p.m. Oct. 7 at the Bainbridge Library. The Nakashima family were interned at the Minidoka camp in Idaho. Mira is now head of the woodworking studio her father founded in New Hope, Penn. and the show includes a table donated by Nakashima Woodworkers.

Artists in the show are Mark Horiuchi, Michi Itami, Elizabeth Jameson, Louise Kikuchi, Fumiko Kimura, Gregory Kono, Tina Koyama, Fumi Matsumoto, Hibiki Miyazaki, Shinichi Miyazaki, Emily Hanako Momohara, Mira Nakashima, Michiko Olson, Reid Ozaki, Roger Shimomura, Aki Sogabe, Teresa Tamura, Gerard Tsutakawa and Patti Warashina.

There is an opening reception during First Friday, 6-8 p.m. Oct. 6.

Sumi painter Fumiko Kimura gives a demonstration of sumi painting 1-4 p.m. Oct. 8 at the gallery, which is located at 151 Winslow Way E, Bainbridge Island.

Shows opening First Friday

In addition to the multi-artist show opening at the Bainbridge Arts and Crafts Gallery, there are also shows opening at Gallery Fraga and Roby King Galleries in downtown Winslow, and in Bremerton at Collective Visions Gallery and Metro, the Gallery.

Gallery Fraga, 166 Winslow Way E, hosts metalsmith/sculptor William Baran-Mickle in “Busy Lives,” and paintings by Michael Pontieri.

Baran-Mickle’s show focuses on the “impossibly busy” lives of modern families by taking a humorous view of various aspects of daily life.

His work has been shown extensively throughout the country in the last 25 years and can be found in public as well as private collections.

Pontieri has been featured at the gallery several times, and returns with a fresh crop of his inventive and imaginative takes on mythology and contemporary commentary. Or as he calls them, “paintings depicting picnic scenarios predicted but not proven by string theory.” But then, what can’t be predicted by string theory?

Roby King Galleries, 176 Winslow Way E, opens the annual Printmaking Show, an invitational event with a variety of printmaking techniques represented.

Mono printmakers are Lynn Brofsky, Stephen MacFarland and Wendy Orville. Also showing are woodblock artist Jim Meyer, linocut artist Patty Rogers and intaglio artist David Smith-Harrison.

The Collective Visions Gallery, 331 Pacific Ave., Bremerton, opens “Triangle Suite,” with prints, embossments, fabric and acrylic paintings by Bernice Walsh.

Walsh said of the show, “In this show I have chosen the triangle to express in a different way what we are all familiar with — the synthesis of nature and architecture.”

“Triangle Suite” opens during First Friday in downtown Bremerton, 5-8 p.m. Oct. 6.

Across town, Metropolis, the Gallery, 318 Callow Ave., kicks of its annual “Day of the Dead” art show, this year titled “The Dead Never Die.” The open show features work by gallery members as well as members of the community at large. No images were available at press time, but the show is always creative, inventive, and guaranteed to be different from any other gallery in the county.

The month-long exhibit opens with a party featuring live music by local group Rabbit Skin Glue. The festivities begin at 5 p.m. on Oct. 6 and include food and beverages.