PORT ANGELES — The ground out there in the woods is fertile, ready for new art. And Sarah Jane, the new gallery and program director at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, is extending an invitation.
“We’re adding more artwork to Webster’s Woods Sculpture Park, and we’d love to see your ideas,” is her message to artists local and national.
An application awaits now at www.pafac.org/— click on Artist Opportunities — for U.S. artists interested in installing original works in the woods this spring.
Jane encourages individuals and artist teams to submit proposals for existing work that can be moved into the woods or new, site-specific sculpture.
“We’re relaunching the Art Outside event as a Solstice Art Festival,” Jane said, referring to the annual installation of artwork outside the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center (PAFAC).
In 2000, then-executive director Jake Seniuk began the tradition. For more than a decade after that, artists from across North America came here to install their creations in the 5 acres of forest and meadow.
With its walking trails, second-growth forest and north-facing view of the city and Strait of Juan de Fuca, the Webster’s Woods park is open to the public every day of the year, dawn till dusk with free admission.
The 2019 Solstice Art Festival will be free too on Friday and Saturday, June 21-22.
Along with the celebration of new sculptures just placed in the woods, the fine arts center will have interactive experiences for adults and youngsters and a Makers’ Market with artisan booths and local and regional artwork for sale.
Event returns
Art Outside has been on hiatus in recent years. Scores of sculptures still stand: Micajah Bienvenu’s “Pi a la Mode,” for example, and the late Al Adams’ “Salmon Eruption.”
Now Jane and Fine Arts Center executive director Jessica Elliott want to revitalize the woods.
They’ve had four volunteer cleanups over the past year, and are working on fixing up several of the park’s existing sculptures.
Last winter’s storms resculpted the woods in places.
A huge evergreen stretches across the meadow now, as the city of Port Angeles, which helps maintain the park, plans for its removal.
“We’ll have the meadow back in time for the Solstice Festival and for Shakespeare in the Woods,” the July-August festival, Jane said.
“In the meantime, I’ve been thinking of it as Mother Nature’s guerrilla art installation.”
More help is on the way, Jane added.
“We are super excited to be welcoming a crew of AmeriCorps volunteers,” she said, “who’ll work on improving overall conditions, safety and aesthetics of the park.”
For artists and teams who want to locate their original sculptures in Webster’s Woods, the PAFAC has guidelines:
• Art must be suitable for viewers of all ages.
• Sculptures must be able to withstand four seasons and all kinds of weather.
• Artwork must be soundly constructed and firmly anchored to prevent theft.
• Artists, who will receive a $300 stipend, are responsible for transportation and installation of their work in the park between June 10 and June 19.
• Artwork will remain in the park until May 1, 2020.
• Artwork not removed by May 30, 2020, will become the property of PAFAC.
To find out more about Webster’s Woods and other offerings of the Fine Arts Center, artists and the art-curious are invited to visit the place.
They will find art hanging in trees, burrowed in the earth and camouflaged by the trees and ferns.
The PAFAC’s indoor gallery is likewise free to the public.
The photography exhibition “Mothers & Makers” is on display there through April 21, while the gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays.
For details, phone the PAFAC at 360-457-3532, see www.pafac.org/ or visit the center’s Facebook page.
“Pi a la Mode” is among more than 50 works of art in Port Angeles’ Webster’s Woods park. (Diane Urbani de la Paz/For Peninsula Daily News)
