PORT ANGELES — When artist and curator Sarah Jane builds a public art show — or a whole year of shows — she thinks of it as setting a big table for dinner.
This is a lavish meal, laid out for grownups and youngsters; people with a variety of taste buds. To whet the appetites, she’ll add some traditional dishes and some exotic, edgy fare.
Jane, at 36 the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center’s freshly hired gallery and program director, will prepare lots of dinners; she’ll lay out dishes by artists locally and nationally known.
Joining executive director Jessica Elliott, she’s now one of two full-time staff people at Port Angeles’ free, nonprofit public art gallery and park.
Jane’s job includes curating exhibitions for the center’s indoor gallery, the Webster House at 1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd., and the surrounding 5-acre Webster’s Woods art park. She’ll also build up the volunteer program, assist in grant writing, make long-range plans for activities, arrange loans and gifts of artwork for the center, and work with Elliott on the budgets for art shows and public events.
Bringing a full-time gallery and program director on board strengthens the fine arts center’s ability to serve the community and region, Elliott said.
“Our mission is to connect people to the arts,” she added.
“Fortunately, because of where we live, we’re in a unique position to engage both our local community and tourists to what the arts have to offer.”
Elliott, as executive director, focuses on fundraising, strategic partnerships, community outreach and raising the arts center’s visibility. Jane, meanwhile, will prioritize art programming and the development of the art park and public art exhibitions.
Jane has moved here from Leavenworth, where she was an art program manager at the Grünewald Guild, an art and retreat center on the Wenatchee River.
She curated shows, scheduled workshops, facilitated the resident artist program, managed the studios and worked on graphic design and marketing, among other tasks.
A native of rural Iowa, Jane earned her master of fine arts degree at the University of Kentucky, and stayed in the Bluegrass State to work as art gallery coordinator and adjunct professor at Asbury College, now Asbury University.
She’s a ceramicist who creates installations and participatory art, and has had exhibitions in Michigan, Oregon, across Washington state and in Vancouver, B.C.
Jane came to Port Angeles for the first time in 2012 when she and her then-boyfriend, now husband Scottie Sinclair, were rained out of their campsite at Kalaloch.
She recalls spending a couple of nights at a motel, walking around downtown and thinking: “This is an amazing place. We would love to live here one day.”
Still, “having grown up in the Midwest,” she added, “the proximity to water, especially salt water, is magical.”
Yet Jane loved her work at the Grünewald Guild; “it would have to be a dream job,” she said, for her to leave it.
This past spring, she was online looking for exhibition opportunities for her own art. She found the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center position on the Artist Trust website, and drove over to interview with Elliott and the board of directors in July.
Jane was hired just as the center dived into its busiest time, with the Shakespeare in the Woods production of “As You Like It” running July 20-Aug. 5 and the Paint the Peninsula festival Aug. 19-26.
Jane’s arrival coincides with a new era for the arts center. It no longer receives any city funding, though the Port Angeles Parks and Recreation Department is still a partner and maintains the facility and grounds, Elliott said.
Withdrawals from the Esther Webster trust, which established the center in the 1970s, provide a small portion of the operating budget. But to continue and expand its public programs, the arts center must rely much more on grants, fundraising events and — most of all — support from the local community.
To learn more about the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, visit its Facebook page or www.PAFAC.org.
