PORT ANGELES — Sand sculptures collapse and festivals that feature them die, but the teamwork required to shape the sculptures leaves a lasting impression on those who create them, Arts in Action participants said Saturday.
In what could be the last Arts in Action in Port Angeles after a 49-year run, Colleen Ozbasar called the sand-sculpting process — part of the festival since 2000 — a community service as she wielded a spade on sun-drenched Hollywood beach midday Saturday and gave shape to a sand-boy fishing.
“I’ll miss not doing it next year, but I’m glad for the experience,” said Ozbasar, a member of the Merrill & Ring community team.
The company is taking part in this year’s unjuried event for the third year.
When Ozbasar is with her co-workers, she’s usually behind a desk tapping away at her computer.
This is different.
“It’s team-building,” she said. “We’re a team.”
Arts in Action — which has outgrown the ability of the Nor’wester Rotary Club to organize and manage it, according to one of the event organizers, Doc Reiss — began Friday, lasts through today and includes a food court and about 30 artists’ booths.
The festival hours today are from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Entry is free.
Also today on City Pier, the Olympic Peninsula region of the Porsche Club of America will display some 30 to 35 Porsche cars from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The festival was moved from its usual late-July weekend to early September.
Norm Schaaf, the company’s vice president of timberlands, also was pitching in Saturday to the sound of live music in the background coming from the City Pier parking lot.
“The important thing is we do something together that’s fun,” Schaaf said.
“It’s also a bit of work, but it’s not our work environment.
“We are doing it because we want to be together.
“That’s team-building, so when we have a work project, you have something besides that work relationship that is guiding you.
“It helps to build, I’d say, more longer-lasting cooperation.”
Next to the Merrill & Ring two-part beach sculpture — a boy fishing from a dock and the entwined combination of an orca whale, a seal and salmon — was the community team from Phoenix Dragon Martial Arts School of Port Angeles, now in its second year participating in the event.
The team, which included members of the Sequim High School girls volleyball team, was headed by Dave Ventura, who owns Phoenix Dragon with his wife, Meghan.
Their sculpture had a Seattle Seahawks theme, stadium and all.
“We’re not artist; we’re martial artists,” Meghan quipped.
“This is like a great big family,” Dave added.
“We get to talk about things that we never knew about the person and what-have-you.”
Phoenix Dragon students still talk about past sculptures they’ve built, Dave added.
“We get better every time we do it,” he said.
This year, the community-created sculptures were joined by creations built by two returning masters, Sue McGrew of Seattle and Sandis Kondrats of Latvia.
Although there is no Windermere Sand Sculpture Classic, in which master sculptors compete in a juried contest, the two have built tributes.
One sculpture is in the center of the vendors’ area on City Pier, while another is in front of the Windermere offices at 711 E. Front St.
A third is at the Extreme Sports Park, 2917 W. Edgewood Drive, built for Saturday’s sprint boat races. It depicts a sprint boat being attacked by a sea monster.
The Porsche club will donate proceeds from today’s show to the Captain Joseph House Foundation, which provides respite for families of fallen military members.
Porsche owners who are not club members are invited to bring their Porsches down to the pier to join the show. Registration for car owners is $25. Entry for observers is free.
For more information about the car show, phone 253-853-4003.
This weekend’s festival was announced as its last.
The time and person-power it took to organize the event took its toll on Nor’wester Rotary, said Reiss, managing broker at Windermere Real Estate in Port Angeles, which has sponsored the sand-sculpting portion of the festival as the Windermere Sand Sculpture Classic for 13 years.
Reiss and Steve Zenovic, who had 15 years on the board managing the festival for the Nor’wester Rotary Club, are stepping down after this year.
But Reiss held out hope Saturday afternoon that the event might live on after all.
Nor’wester Rotary Club President Mark Nichols said Saturday that a member of Sequim Noon Rotary has expressed an interest in keeping the event alive.
“We’ll be talking to that board and likely following up with that club to see if there is an ability to do so,” Nichols said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
