NOTE: “Today” and “tonight” refer to Friday, Oct. 2.
SEQUIM — An evolutionary art show, hands-on projects for children and grown-ups and a fiber arts market: Such are the elements of the North Olympic Fiber Arts Festival, this year branching out to Sequim’s new Civic Center plaza.
The festival is a three-day celebration of artists at various points in their careers, from quilters and doll makers to weavers and spinners. Together they compose the “Fostered Fiber – Remembrance, Remnants & Mentors” show opening tonight at the Museum & Arts Center, aka the MAC at 175 W. Cedar St., where admission is free to see creations by more than three dozen artists.
“We have everything this year,” said Renne Brock-Richmond, the artist and teacher who founded the festival a decade ago. The museum is filled with knitted, crocheted, felted, cross stitched, quilted and sculpted work, alongside woven baskets, tapestries, samplers and shrines.
“I am ever impressed by what people enter,” Brock-Richmond said.
“Because I encourage people to share older artwork, we get to experience the evolution of some of these fine artists. Often in juried art exhibitions, they only can enter art that is less than two years old. I think that artists who have created masterpieces two decades or more ago deserve an opportunity to reveal that artwork.
“I also encourage a mix of professional masters and brave newcomers,” she said. “Fostered Fiber” will have its opening reception today from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.; then the artists will be on hand for another public gathering from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday.
Their show will stay on display into October and November at the MAC, which after this weekend’s events is open from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays.
Next up in the festival: the Fiber Arts Extravaganza from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday outside the Civic Center at Sequim Avenue and Cedar Street. This includes the fiber arts market of supplies and finished products, lots of artist demonstrations and activities for all ages.
Sunday brings another slate of demos, only these are designed to pique people’s interest in future workshops. Teaching artists will set up at the MAC from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. to show visitors various fiber methods, be they quilting, felting, knitting or painting on silk. Admission is free to this event, which Brock-Richmond designed as a gathering of would-be students and mentors.
The theme of this year’s festival, she added, is that we foster one another. We make mistakes, we improve and we help the people of the next generation discover their own passions.
Art tells the story of our lives, she said, “and it can start with one stitch.”
