Today and tonight signify Friday, July 17.
SEQUIM — There’s plenty to see — a giant driftwood Pacific octopus, to start — but this art event is more than a show.
The annual Art Jam is something like a Grateful Dead concert, with ample riffing and jamming. But with this event running today through Sunday at Rock Hollow Farm, anybody can join in.
“We’re having two outside art projects,” said Susan Gansert Shaw, co-owner of the barn and yard where the jam takes place. The two pieces, wide open to visitors who want to add to them, are a large graffiti board and a found-object sculpture.
The feeling at Rock Hollow Farm is one of not only creative energy, but also freedom.
Shaw is assembling a group of 10 artists from Sequim and Port Angeles to do their thing, be it sculpting, painting, woodworking or metalsmithing.
“The neatest part is the dialogue between the artists and guests,” said Shaw.
In past years there’s been a lot of “So that’s how you do that,” when it came to mixed-media painting, collage making and building jewelry from silver.
“It’s not a static thing where you just walk in and look at stuff,” added Karin Anderson, who paints with acrylics and creates assemblages in wood.
Last year, Anderson counted 700 visitors to the farm during the Lavender Weekend. They come from all over. And they stay awhile.
“The setting is a huge draw,” she said, looking at the barn, the benches and the green grass all around.
Tammy Hall of Port Angeles is joining in this year with her driftwood creations: the scarlet-painted octopus titled “Under the Boardwalk,” plus a nut-brown rooster and a large, seated wolf.
At the same time Shaw, Lynne Armstrong, Mary Franchini and Terry Grasteit are adorning the barn with a diverse bunch of paintings. Jewelry artists Brian Buntain and Ed Crumley will be working outside.
Larry McCaffrey, a sculptor who is recovering from a stroke, wanted to be part of the event, so he’s displaying a few choice creations in the yard.
Stephen Portner will bring his wooden furniture.Barb Boerigter will have her found-object sculptures, and Cynthia Thomas will show her bronze horses and raptors — while selling and signing copies of her book On the Journey: The Art of Living with Breast Cancer.
To add to the laid-back feeling, local musicians, including Peter Greene and Dennis Blair, also are coming over to play in the afternoons.
“I’m going to be in the middle of a lot of action. So it’s good for me,” said Hall, who is shy by nature. Her fellow artists “have done nothing but help me and encourage me all along.”
Art Jam is a sale too, with note cards for $5, Hall’s driftwood octopus priced at $4,000 and a lot in between.
“We even made jam,” said Anderson. She and Thomas did a batch of strawberry and strawberry-rhubarb preserves to sell for $5 a jar.
