PORT ANGELES — With a new era on the horizon, the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center’s board of trustees is eyeing a refreshed front yard.
In cooperation with the grass-roots organization Revitalize Port Angeles, the center is accepting proposals through this week for a mural on the city water tank outside its gallery at 1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
The deadline to deliver proposals to the center is 4 p.m. Friday; they can be dropped off while it’s open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays.
Leslie Robertson of Revitalize Port Angeles added that this is a volunteer project, so the artists who create the mural would donate their time.
The city, however, has budgeted money for cleaning, repair and a base coat for the tank, Public Works Director Craig Fulton said Friday.
Those interested in submitting a mural proposal are invited to visit www.RevitalizePortAngeles.org.
“We wanted to give everybody in the community a chance to submit their ideas,” said Phillis Olson, trustee and president of the fine arts center foundation.
Revitalize “brought this project to us . . . They take on projects and make things happen,” she said — but the center’s board of trustees will make the final decision about any art on the tank.
“We want to make sure we get the right look,” one that blends with the environment, Olson said.
Center in flux
The mural idea comes at a time when the fine arts center is in flux.
Earlier this year, the city of Port Angeles, which has supported the center since its opening in 1986, eliminated its funding of director Robin Anderson’s position — a $66,000 annual salary — as of Jan. 1, 2016.
The city also will phase out its $27,500 annual contribution to the center over the next three years, while continuing to maintain the building and surrounding Webster’s Woods art park.
The center won’t have a holiday art sale this year, said trustee Anne Dalton. “Dual Nature,” the center’s exhibition of art by Lanny Bergner, Eve Deisher and Ann Chadwick Reid, will stay up through Jan. 10.
Then the fine arts center will close down for one month, she added, to give the board of trustees more time for restructuring.
“We have an ad hoc transition team,” Dalton said, “that is meeting to try to formulate a direction for the future.”
The fine arts center operates on the city’s contribution and on funding from the trust established by Esther Webster, an artist and the wife of Charles Webster, publisher of the Peninsula Daily News’ predecessor, the Port Angeles Evening News.
Donations and revenue from the center’s events, including the week-long Paint the Peninsula festival in September, provide a bit more.
Dalton said, however, that nothing has been decided about hiring a new director, running the center with volunteers or employing some other administrative framework.
And while it’s fun to think about a mural at the center’s entryway, those decisions about running the fine arts center have to come first, Olson added.
“We also need to form some structure,” she said.
“We have a lot to do here.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
