In tune with art and nature in Port Angeles

PORT ANGELES — Touching artwork is taboo in most museums. Curtly worded signs, uniformed guards, velvet ropes and thick Plexiglas keep patrons from rubbing elbows with the masterworks. Things couldn't be more opposite in Webster's Woods Art Park at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, where visitors are invited to indulge all of their senses in a five-acre forest alive with surprise.

Here, more than 100 sculptures beckon you to sit on, gong, climb over, pet, walk on, sniff and look through them.

Set atop a bluff overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca, in the shadow of the Olympic Mountains, a mixed second-growth forest full of bird song and spring growth is an unlikely and stimulating setting for a sculpture park.

"I see this as a jumping-off place to explore the Olympic Peninsula. Walking through here sensitizes people to take a closer look at the natural environment, to see the artistry of nature and how it's similar to the inventions of man," said Jake Seniuk, director of the art center and curator for the art park.

Indeed, the center is located just five minutes from the main road through Port Angeles, so travelers heading to or from ocean beaches or mountain trails can make an easy side trip here. There are free public tours of Webster's Woods the first Saturday (including this weekend) and third Wednesday of every month, and the park is open daylight hours year-round.

Home as art gallery

Where

Webster's Woods Art Park is in Port Angeles at 1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd., behind the Jones Street water-reservoir tank. Open daylight hours year-round. Admission is free.

Tours

Free tours are offered the first Saturday of each month at 10 a.m. (including this weekend), and the third Wednesday of each month at 2 p.m. In a 90-minute trail walk, director Jake Seniuk shares his curatorial perspective and the background stories to many of more than 100 artworks. Seniuk's commentary will help visitors become more aware of pieces that they might otherwise overlook.

The walk is mostly over dirt trails, may have muddy patches and has some steep sections. It is not wheelchair accessible. Wear appropriate shoes and outerwear.

More to see

Currently showing through April 16 at the adjacent Port Angeles Fine Arts Center: Photographer Steve Wilson's exhibition featuring two extended photographic essays: "Time and the Passage of Trees" and "Symmetry: The Beginning of It All?"

Getting there

From Highway 101 (Front Street) in Port Angeles, turn south on Race Street. Go 1.5 miles to Lauridsen Boulevard. Turn left and drive three blocks to the parking lot on your left. City signs direct you to the Fine Arts Center from Front Street.

More information

360-457-3532 or www.pafac.org

Oregon-born artist Esther Barrow Webster lived more than 50 years in Port Angeles, leaving her estate to the city to establish a fine-arts center. Her former home became the gallery and has been a gathering place for art lovers since 1986.

Regular installations occasionally extended into the courtyard, as did a show featuring "Dancing Figures" by Denman Island, B.C., artist Michael Dennis. This piece became what Seniuk calls a "kick start for working with the outdoors in a more expansive way" — inspiring what opened as Webster's Woods Art Park in 2000. Crafted from 75-year-old salvaged old-growth cedar logging slash, Dennis' wood sculpture evokes a line of life-sized paper dolls.

"To me the figures represent the transformation of the Peninsula from a heavy extraction economy to a more culture-based economy — at least that's what we're trying to instill here," said Seniuk.

The whimsical nature of "Dancing Figures" sets the tone for much of what's found along the park's forest trails, where mesh tutus adorn tree trunks, walking stones cast from a couch pillow make a pathway between installations, painted eyes stare up from between tree roots, Land-of-the-Giants-sized earrings adorn branches, and tiny human figures that seem to have escaped a fairy tale march down the trunk of a young red cedar.

"We're like the forest: Things accumulate, things die and disappear. It's an organic process," said Seniuk, whose annual Art Outside program adds 20 new works to the collection. The artworks play off their locations in the forest, making use of wind movement, changing light and decay.

Installations made of less durable materials gradually melt back into the soil. This transitory nature enhances a sense of discovery along the trails, a common refrain from visitors being, "Did they mean to do that?"

Nature as art

The treasure-hunt aspect of the park is popular with children, whose shouts and laughter could be heard through the trees on a recent sunny Sunday. Webster's Woods is equally a playground for artists, who can experiment in ways impossible within the margins of a museum.

One example is "Anthology" by Seattle artist Michelle Arab. Hoops of steel pipe encircle a group of trees, celebrating the forests of her Alaskan childhood. Viewing the ascending rings from below gives visitors a feeling for the artist's relationship to the environment.

Many of the pieces are built to change with wind and light, such as "Animated Suspension" by Shirley Wiebe of Vancouver, B.C. This hanging layered mesh piece moves to capture light and shadow, sometimes looking like a plywood board or the lines on the palm of your hand — never twice the same.

Most of the trails eventually lead to the "Meadow-phoric Labyrinth" by Port Angeles artists Bill Larson and Kristen Norris. Modeled after the Chartres Cathedral labyrinth and comprised of 4,000 river rocks, the half-mile long spiral walk provides unpredictably changing views of the many artworks situated around it.

"The art here is playful enough to break down the boundaries of suspicion and fear some people have around contemporary art," said Seniuk. "Some people have reticence about viewing art, fearing they'll be thought stupid if they don't 'get it.' These sculptures engage them without being threatening, while still adhering to the principles of contemporary art."

People feel so comfortable here that they sometimes construct their own free-form sculptures, which Seniuk dubbed "kilroys."

These can be as fleeting as a pattern of leaves or as lasting as a large rock balanced on a stump, an offering that has endured for years. Seniuk feels the park is a success when he hears visitors say, "I want to try this at home!"

Helping people feel so in tune with art and nature is an enduring legacy that he's sure Esther Webster would find most gratifying.

Freelance writer Kathryn True of Vashon Island is a frequent contributor to Northwest Weekend. She is co-author of "Nature in the City: Seattle" (The Mountaineers Books).