The sculpture part at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center
by Alec Clayton
part of a larger article originally published in Art Access, September 2002
The Port Angeles Fine Arts Center and Sculpture Park is a hidden treasure. Even finding it is an adventure (a good map of Port Angeles helps), and when you find it and pull into the parking lot there is still a question as to where the center actually is. To get there you pass through the Portal by Cris Bruch, which is a series of metal thought balloons as in cartoon panels mounted on poles and ranging in height from ground hugging up to 35 feet. From here you walk through a wooded path to the center itself, which is the unique circular home once owned by artist Esther Barrows Webster. Featured inside the center are revolving exhibitions that run an average of two to three months duration. Outside, sculpture park is a leisurely ramble through five acres of woods, home to some 70 works of art.
The Sculpture Park
I always think it is a bit of a cop-out when a writer says, "words cannot do it justice." But in the case of the sculpture park at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center that is absolutely the case. The approximately 70 works of art scattered throughout the meandering trails are all contemporary and inventive, and they nearly all relate in one way or another to the outdoor setting. Abstract work predominates, and the figurative work, unlike most figurative outdoor sculpture, is never corny or trite. Surprises abound. As you wander you are constantly surprised to see something where you didn’t expect it or to see something again from a new viewpoint. You see things that you think for a moment grew in the woods or were left there accidentally; you think, "That’s a strange rock" or "what an unusual tangle of vines" and then you realize it was created and placed there; and suddenly you find yourself looking up into the sky and under rocks, and everything becomes art – even those things that actually did grow there.
There are monolithic forms that grow up from the ground and hang suspended in the air, and tiny works of art hidden in the cracks of tree trunks. Searching them out becomes an Easter egg hunt for adults. A few of the many works that delight and charm are:
- Shirley Weibe’s "Surroundings," pink nylon netting that wraps around tree trunks at a height of approximately 20 feet. They look like tutus. They set the trees to dancing.
- Elizabeth Conner’s "Understory," twigs and branches throughout the park that are wrapped with dayglow colored surveyor’s tape. Words truly fail to convey the experience of spotting these zips of brightness in the woods.
- Claudia Fitch’s "Traveling Hedge," a group of two rectangular metal forms and a circular form floating horizontally at head level, all upholstered with pine boughs.
- Jake Seniuk’s "Skein of Time," a ball of ivy nestled under and arch of vines like a cocoon from which some unimaginable creature will be born.
- Kathleen Kler’s "Forest Peers," tiny ceramic heads hidden in the split between tree trunks.
- David Jacob’s untitled canoe strung on cables between trees with heads floating above and metal salmon on the ground below swimming upstream in a bed of rocks.
Finally, one of the most astounding works was an unidentified plane of bright blue cord strung horizontally between trees like a series of carpenter’s chalk marks. The visual movement of this piece, which is a fast as a shot arrow, leads the eye to yet another unexpected sight, Jake Seniuk’s "Olympic Gold," which is a simple wooden plank painted gold and jutting out from the woods over a bed of ferns.
There are two final explanatory notes that I feel should be included. First, there are no identifying plagues for any of the sculptures. In a way this is a good thing, because it adds to the excitement of finding surprise after surprise. But it is nice to know who did what, and sometimes additional information can help with understanding the art. A case in point being Seniuk’s "Olympic Gold." If I had not seen it pictured in the Arts Center newsletter with title and media described as "metal leaf on springboard" I would have missed part of the meaning. Second, few of the works are permanent and some of them are subject to change due to the elements. Eugene Parnell’s "Sport Utility," for example, was a vehicle made of indigenous vegetation with slices of tree trunks for wheels, but the vehicle has rotten away or been blown away or carted away, and now only the wheels remain. Such changes are a part of the ever-evolving experience of the park.
Top of page © 2002 by Alec Clayton