PORT ANGELES — The artist wants twigs. And hands to weave them.
Karen White travels from town to town facilitating community art projects: public sculptures often made of sticks, twigs and branches.
She’s worked with residents of Orcas Island, Lakewood, Colo., and Lincoln City, Ore., constructing these natural-art works.
Now Robin Anderson, executive director of the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, has hired White to help build a community sculpture in front of the center at 1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
White will give a free talk on the project at 1 p.m. Saturday at the arts center to encourage local residents to take part in the sculpture’s construction, scheduled for June 12-15.
She and Anderson already are collecting sticks and branches from fruit trees, willows, alders — any tree with slim, flexible limbs and smooth bark.
So to those who are pruning right now, White says: Consider sharing your branches — provided they are no larger in diameter than a 25-cent coin — with the arts center.
Arborists and gardeners are encouraged to phone the center at 360-457-3532.
Port Angeles-area residents of all ages, meanwhile, are invited to White’s presentation Saturday.
There’s no cost to join in building the community sculpture, and White emphasizes that no one needs a speck of art experience, either.
On Saturday, White also will show photographs of projects in other cities, while explaining that each is built for and by its own community.
These sculptures, she added, have no nails, no glue, no string and no rigid ideas going in.
The sculpture, which will be close to the street, will act as a kind of invitation to the fine arts center and its surrounding Webster’s Woods art park.
In addition, a new crop of sculptures created by professional artists also will be installed in mid-June in Webster’s Woods.
This is to be the 14th season of “Art Outside,” the placing of fresh art in the forest and meadow. The new works will be in by June 23.
The community sculpture project and the 2013 edition of “Art Outside” are funded in part by Green Crow, the timber and wood-products company based Port Angeles.
The fine arts center also uses money from donations and fundraising events to pay for the two programs.
To find out more about the community sculpture and this Saturday’s talk, visit www.PAFAC.org and click on the “Free Event!” link on the left side of the home page.
This project, White said, “really is an opportunity for everybody,” as in artists young and not so young and photographers who want to document the construction process.
“The whole purpose is to bring the community together through art.”
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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.
