“North Head at Midnight” by Penny Treat for “In the Light,” an exhibit on display through Dec. 10 at RiverSea Gallery in Astoria.

Penny Treat thinks of lighthouses as a metaphor for hope.

“They stand guard with their keepers for all those who go to sea and they continue to save lives, and they gift us with these vivid stories,” she said.

The Long Beach, Washington, artist has carved dozens of woodblock prints that depict the lighthouses surrounding the Columbia River, such as Cape Disappointment and North Head, for a new exhibit at RiverSea Gallery in Astoria.

Together with Marie Powell, a fellow peninsula artist, she has crafted a collection that holds personal meaning.

“My grandfather was a gillnet fisherman, and he lost his best friend to the Graveyard of the Pacific. They would go out gillnetting, and one day, a big storm came up,” she said. “They each had their own boats, and my grandpa’s buddy, his boat started to go down. He threw life preservers, tried to save him, and lost him.”

After that, Treat said her grandfather became a barge captain, hauling sand and gravel up and down the Columbia.

“And then my first boyfriend was an Aleutian Islands, Alaska, fisherman who lost his life to the deadly sea weather, so I guess this art exhibit about lighthouses is quite dear to my heart.”

“In the Light” opens this weekend during Astoria’s Second Saturday Art Walk, and will be on display through Dec. 10.

The exhibit includes more than two dozen of Treat’s hand-painted woodblock prints and oil paintings, plus watercolors, monoprints and mixed media works by Powell, who owns the Marie Powell Gallery in Ilwaco.

“We have done shows together, Marie and I have in the past,” Treat said. “It’s fun to collaborate with somebody else. We’ve done endangered species, we’ve done trees, we’ve done fish.”

And now lighthouses.

“Many of the titles are ‘windblown’ or ‘windswept.’ Actually, one of the lighthouses is titled to emphasize the wind and the strength of the weather,” Treat said. “If one visits a lighthouse, they feel the strength.”