West Marin is finding ways to deal with the federal shutdown as conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives hold the national budget hostage to their goal of eliminating the country’s new affordable-healthcare program.

With the Point Reyes National Seashore, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and Muir Woods National Monument temporarily closed, some residents and visitors are paying more attention to the coastal art scene.

At least on the first weekend of the closure, some pieces of national parkland were less closed than others. In the town of Stinson Beach, sybarites continued to use the federal beach but were barred from its parking lot. At Pierce Point, some park visitors simply ignored the “closed” sign in the parking lot. “This was all they put up in the way of a ‘barricade,'” wrote Sarah Paris of San Francisco, who took the photo. She added there were “lots of people parked there and quite a few on the trail.”

Meanwhile, other visitors upon learning they couldn’t explore the Point Reyes Lighthouse decided to explore Point Reyes Station instead. What they found were two art galleries showing a variety of first-rate exhibitions.

Point Reyes Station artist Sue Gonzalez (left) is showing her highly regarded paintings of Tomales Bay at Toby’s Feed Barn Gallery. This painting titled Evening Fog is priced at $4,800.

The exhibition at Toby’s will run throughout October, and Sue will hold an opening reception from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12. The gallery is open until 5 p.m. seven days a week.

Sue at work in the studio of her Point Reyes Station home. She attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison and graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute with a major in painting. She also studied with prominent Beat artist Wally Hedrick at Indian Valley College and with Ted Greer, who in 1981 made a video of Hedrick.

A visitor to Toby’s Gallery is intrigued by Sue’s painting titled Tomales Bay.

Ripples on the surface of the bay are almost always prominent in Sue’s paintings, but that doesn’t make her art redundant. The movement of the water and the play of light upon it are a large part of her paintings’ appeal. Sue is seen here with her painting titled Reflections 2.

A visitor from Australia admires Sue’s painting titled Teachers Beach.

Besides being a painter, Sue is a “reading-intervention” instructor at West Marin School.

The elementary school includes students with a wide range of abilities in English, especially because many of its students come from Spanish-speaking homes, although Sue herself does not despite her last name being Gonzalez.

That’s the surname of her husband Anastacio Gonzalez, who’s known in West Marin for his jars of Anastacio’s Famous BBQ Oyster Sauce.

Here Sue stirs a brush in the paint on her palette while working in her studio.

Also exhibiting his art this month at Toby’s Gallery is printmaker Tom Killion of Inverness Park. Tom works in Japanese-style woodcut and lino-style prints.

Nicasio by Tom Killion.

Vicente Canyon, Big Sur by Tom Killion. Actually it should be Dr. Tom Killion since he holds a PhD in history.

The opening reception for Tom’s exhibit will also be from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 12.

As it happens, just a block away, Gallery Route One also has some fascinating exhibits at the moment. One that I found particularly engaging was a display of works by members of the gallery’s Latino Photography Project.

In the GRO project, professional photographers coach Latinos as they document the immigrant experience, and 10 up-and-coming photographers are represented in the show. This photo by Juanita Romo is titled Mi Primera Comunión.

The Abundance by Ruben Rubledo shows workers with a barge of oyster bags.

Gathering the Harvest by Ruben Rubledo.

The present exhibitions at Gallery Route One also include humorous paintings by Andrew Romanoff of Inverness, grandnephew of the last tsar of Russia, and mixed-media art by Madeline Nieto Hope, who has a wide variety of interests. She holds a Master of Arts degree from UC Berkeley and is the county’s “West Marin education coordinator” for its solid-waste-reduction program.

The exhibits at Gallery Route One will remain up through Sunday, Oct. 20. The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day but Tuesday.

The Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History in Inverness on Saturday unveiled a new exhibit, Inverness Yacht Club. It features photographs from the museum’s archives, as well as a few items loaned to the museum by the yacht club.

The exhibit covers the first Inverness Yacht Club from 1912 through 1940, the in-between years when Del Bender owned the building, the new Inverness Yacht Club of 1949, and the celebration in July 1950 when the club was rededicated. There are also some later photographs.

Meg Linden (right), treasurer of the Jack Mason Museum of West Marin History, and Ann Read with her dog Coco greet guests at the exhibition.

A photo that the late newspaperman Peter Whitney, who had a home at Chicken Ranch Beach, donated to the museum in 1999.

A burgee is the distinguishing flag of a recreational boating organization.

Nautical etiquette holds that members’ boats may fly their burgees while sailing or at anchor, day or night, but not while racing. Or so writes R.L. Hewitt, commodore of the Royal Yachting Association in 1969 and 1984, in Flags and Signals.

Brock Schreiber’s boathouse was built from 1911 to 1914, its wharf in 1908. The boathouse in 1978 was placed on the Register of National Historic Places.

In the early 20th century, weekend travelers to Inverness often got off the narrow-gauge railroad in Millerton and rowed across the bay in skiffs kept on the beach. “Brock Schreiber met the train in a launch if he knew anybody was coming,” historian Jack Mason wrote in Point Reyes the Solemn Land.

“One Inverness pioneer, Mabel Reed Knight, regaled friends for years with her story of getting off the train at Millerton, expecting to be ‘met.’ She shrieked across the mile-wide bay at Schreiber, and unable to raise him, hiked [around the foot of Tomales Bay] the eight miles to Inverness, suitcase and all, ‘with a dog nipping at my heels all the way.'”

“….These years were golden for Inverness. Schreiber’s two launches, the Kemah and the Queen, took excursionists down Tomales Bay; his rental sailboats were at the beck of weekenders.”

Independence Day at Shell Beach in the 1930s.

A sideview of the yacht club with people on the deck circa 1952.

Admiral Chester Nimitz and his wife Catherine at the Inverness Yacht Club in 1950.

During World War II, Admiral Nimitz was promoted to Fleet Admiral of the US Navy and won a series of decisive victories against the Japanese at islands throughout the South Pacific. In 1945 aboard the Battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, the admiral represented the United States in signing Japan’s document of surrender.

Aerial view of the Inverness Yacht Club and Cavalli’s pier (at center) in 1956.

The Small Boat Racing Association hosted by the Inverness Yacht Club in 1976.

The Lark, Spring Maid, and Skip Jack in a 1920 race off Brock Schreiber’s wharf.

Jim Barnett (center) racing his Flying Scot in 1980 with his crew.

The exhibit is open the same hours as the Inverness Library, with which it shares its building, Monday from 3 to 6 p.m. and 7 to 9 p.m., Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 to 5 p.m., Fridays 3 to 6 p.m., and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.