PORT ANGELES — Prepare to frolic through your woods and meadow.
The Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, with its surrounding Webster’s Woods Art Park, belongs to all the people of Port Angeles. With support from the city and various fundraisers, the place is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
Still, many have yet to partake of its charms, said Jake Seniuk, center director.
So he and a small team of volunteers are inviting everyone, of every age, to a free May Day party from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday at the center at 1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
Admission is $10 per family or $5 per person for the afternoon, while food and drink will be for sale and plentiful.
Explore hidden treasure
“Come play!” the flier reads, and Sunday, local artists Sarah Tucker, Anna Wiancko Chasman, Cathy Haight and Barbara Slavik will be among the leaders of frolic in many forms: exploring the scores of art pieces hidden among the trees; making paper flowers, fanciful hats and “magic” wands; and other craft projects and games on the meadow.
Filling the air throughout will be music by the Black Diamond Fiddle Club and Dancing Hands Drum Circle.
To start the festivities, party-goers will be invited from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. to mix clay-dough for “forest peers,” little faces they can then place in the woods.
This celebration of springtime is a chance, Chasman added, for youngsters and their families to experience the joys of nature, art and music together.
“I believe it’s really important for kids to get out in nature,” she said, “and make something of permanence,” such as one of those little forest peers.
Chasman and Haight also will welcome back a group of children who came to the fine arts center last summer for an art project.
The 23 elementary school students from the Olympic Peninsula YMCA’s Y-Kids camp went foraging in Webster’s Woods for plant specimens, then used those to decorate ceramic tiles that have since been installed in the fine arts center’s kitchen.
“The idea was to bring Webster’s Woods inside,” Chasman said.
On that day, grownups and youngsters alike played outdoors — and produced something to beautify the indoors.
Slavik, the fine arts center’s education director, made a tile inscribed with the message “Peace, Love, Art, Forever,” while one of the girls etched hers with “I LOVE Fine Arts Center.”
The campers “said it was their best outing all summer,” said Haight.
More art-play days
This summer promises more art-play days in the ArtPaths Saturday series to start in July.
Slavik plans to announce the dates and activities — to include drawing, beading, print- and collage-making — during Sunday’s party.
Meanwhile, spring is busy, too, at the arts center: ArtPaths Portfolio, a showcase of Clallam County’s top high school artists, debuts in the gallery May 22 and remains on display until July 3, and Art Outside, the annual arrival of fresh art installations in Webster’s Woods, has its opening celebration June 18.
For more information about Port Angeles Fine Arts Center events and exhibits, visit www.pafac.org or phone the gallery at 360-457-3532.
While Webster’s Woods Art Park is open from dawn until dusk daily, the indoor gallery is open from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays.
Admission to both is always free to the public.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
