SEQUIM — Olympic Theatre Arts will welcome “Zorina Wolf and Friends” to introduce the public to the joy of African music during First Friday’s Art Walk festivities beginning at 5:30 tonight.
First Friday at Olympic Theatre Arts, 414 N. Sequim Ave., is free to the public. The snack and beverage bar will be open.
Wolf is offering what she calls an “an opportunity to experience joy and healing power of drum and dance. To discover how African music can make you want to get up and move! This performance will share the language of the drum rhythms. You will see how dance steps are mirrored by drum patterns, and how singing connects all these pieces together.”
Wolf has been teaching African drumming and rhythm training to children and adults for 25 years. She has been teaching in Sequim since 2009. The friends who accompany her are students who have also been bitten by the rhythm bug.
First Friday Art Walk offers a variety of venues. The free, self-guided tour of local art venues in Sequim is on the First Friday of every month from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Each month has a color theme. April is pink, a color that “represents encouragement, sweet delight, supportive strength, comforting assurance and productive promises,” said Renne Emiko Brock, who organizes the art walk.
Also during the First Friday Art Walk:
• Sequim Museum & Arts, 175 W. Cedar St., will host a reception for the April Artist of the Month, retired Fire District 3 chief Steve Vogel.
He will be present from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. to share his art pieces. Music will be by Chuck Grall with coffee and cookies served.
Vogel said he enjoyed studying and doing art since his sophomore year in high school — after he was forced into taking an art class as an alternative elective course.
He served with Clallam County Fire District 3 for 34 years, the last 15 as fire chief until his retirement in 2016.
• Sequim Civic Center, 152 W. Cedar St., will be the site of the 2017 Audubon Society’s best avian photography show from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
The Sequim City Arts Advisory Commission and the Dungeness River Audubon Center will host the show.
The public is invited to meet the photographers and see a presentation at 6 p.m.
Light refreshments will be available before and after the presentation.
Entertainment will be provided by Just in Tyme.
The photos will be on exhibit at the center through April 30 from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Selected from more than 5,500 entries, the winning photos were published in the Summer 2017 issue of Audubon Magazine.
Photographers from 49 states and eight Canadian provinces submitted images in three categories: professional, amateur and youth.
Award winners can be previewed at https://tinyurl.com/PDN-winners.
For more information, contact the Dungeness River Audubon Center at 360-681-4076.
• Blue Whole Gallery, 129 W. Washington St., will host a reception for the artists of the month, photographer Ken Dvorak and painter Priscilla Patterson, from 5 to 8 tonight at “Strait Inspirations.”
Dvorak is a self-taught fine art nature photographer. He has been making photographs since the late 1960s and began doing darkroom work in the late 1980s. He switched to a digital darkroom by adding a film scanner and a higher end computer in the late 1990s.
Dvorak works in both black and white and color, printing his own photographs.
Award-winning artist Priscilla Patterson’s April window is entitled “Strait Lines.”
Combining the man-made with nature on the Olympic Peninsula, Patterson has created several new watercolor and oil paintings to show ways we interact with and enjoy our natural surroundings.
In addition to her art, she has released a new book entitled, “Fences- An Illustrated Journey” and two vocal CDs.
Priscilla Messner- Patterson and her husband moved to Sequim from Kodiak, Alaska.
For information, go to www.bluewholegallery.com.
• BirdFest-BirdQuest — This game brings together high school students, merchants and the community to support the Olympic Bird Festival, set for April 13-15 and based at the Dungeness River Audubon Center.
The game runs through April 14. Sponsored by Sequim-Dungeness Chamber of Commerce Merchants’ Group, it challenges participants to find and match the ceramic bird sculptures created by Jake Reichner’s Sequim High School ceramic’s class to the business where they are hidden.
Game cards are available at each of the participating merchants and the chamber office.
Sculpture locations include The Bag Ladies of Sequim at 161 W. Washington St., Blue Whole Gallery, The Cedars at Dungeness’ Stymie’s at 1965 Woodcock Road, Cedarbrook Lavender at 134½ W. Washington St., Fieldnotes at 123 E. Washington St., First Federal at 333 N. Sequim Ave., Forage Gifts & NW Treasures at 121 W. Washington St., Jose’s Famous Salsa at 126 E. Washington St., Purple Haze Lavender at 127 W. Washington St., Robin’s Place at 300 E. Washington St., Sequim Consignment at 154 W. Washington St., Solar City Boutique & Retreat at 135 W. Washington St., That Takes The Cake at 171 W. Washington St., and Wind Rose Cellars at 143 W. Washington St.
Details about the Olympic BirdFest are at OlympicBirdFest.org.
• Forage Gifts & Northwest Treasures, 121 W. Washington St., will feature Keith Ross, a local nature photographer with a concentration on his bird photography, to go along with the BirdFest BirdQuest and the Olympic Bird Festival.
• Cedarbrook Lavender, 134½ W. Washington St., proclaims, “We do Pink for the April 6 First Friday Art Walk!” and weather permitting they will have a “Sidewalk Extravaganza,” with bargain vintage finds. Cedarbrook Lavender Gift Shop is right behind Doodlebugs.
• The Bag Ladies of Sequim, 161 W. Washington St., will offer spring colors and fresh styles of artful up-cycled items as well as Bread and Gravy playing live.
All of the shop’s creations are one-of-a-kind items that are handmade. Each item has a unique combination of felting, hand dying, beading, embroidering and appliqueing. Several other artists’ works are for sale in their shop as well.
• Peninsula Taproom, 210 W. Washington St., Suite 4, will provide locally crafted brews and will add a flower bar component to the taproom during the Sequim Art Walk.
• Wind Rose Cellars, 143 W. Washington St., will offer the local bluegrass/newgrass band Hot Llamas along with award-winning wines. The live music will start at 7 p.m.
For more about the First Friday Art Walk, see SequimArtWalk.com.