Art Is A Gift 2009

CURRENT EXHIBITION

ART IS A GIFT
DECEMBER 5 - JANUARY 3
Art Is a Gift returns to the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center for its second annual installment on December 5, beginning a month long run through the Holiday Season. The packed exhibition offers artistic riches from dozens of artists from the Olympic Peninsula and beyond, filling the Center’s Webster House with original arts and crafts suited to gift-giving needs and budgets.

“While our regular exhibitions are aimed more at education than at sales, this show is designed with the gift-giving season in mind,” said PAFAC director Jake Seniuk. “A wide and eclectic selection of works in many fine arts and crafts media — paintings, prints, jewelry, ceramics, glass, woodworking, photography, wearables, ornaments and more — afford opportunities to make very personal statements when given to those you care about most. Prices range to fit diverse budgets from the highly affordable to collector’s finds.”

Initiated last year as a PAFAC fundraiser to help meet revenue shortfalls and help the embattled budget, the show also serves as a welcome outlet for the rapidly growing local arts community. More than four-dozen artists have offered some of their most inventive work to create a packed exhibition that will continue all the way through January 3, allowing procrastinators some post Christmas shopping as well.

For the sweet tooth Art Is a Gift will offer selections of Cowgirl Chocolates, a whooping line of spiced confections served up by head cowgirl, Marilyn Lysohir, who is a nationally acclaimed ceramist and veteran of two PAFAC solo exhibitions. Musicians and writers who have performed at the Center, too, are represented with CDs and books that make great stocking stuffers.

Like every PAFAC show, Art Is a Gift is masterfully displayed making a visit to the Center a delightful holiday excursion for the casual window shopper, as well as those with gift list in hand. And as sold items are replenished, the show will transform over the course of the month, warranting return visits.

“In many ways this show is an extension of our annual Strait Art series (coming up again March 21 – May 9) and affords the viewer a great opportunity to sample what’s going on in the burgeoning Peninsula art scene,” observed Seniuk.

“At the same time Art Is a Gift helps to raise funds that makes Strait Art and the many other PAFAC programs possible,” he implored. “While 35% or more of sales support the Center, a sizeable portion of each sale goes back to the artists, too. Although some artists offer higher commissions or outright donations, I feel strongly that the creators should be able to get back some of what they put in through materials and labor. After all, many artists have to exist on the lower rungs of the food chain and we should all be grateful for the delight and wonder that their creations bring us.”

The show includes works by: Judith Bird, Renee Brock-Richmond, Connie Rodibaugh, Linda Crow, Ed Crumley, Bill Dettmer, Jyoti Duwadi, Cindy Elstrom, Karen Hackenberg, Tammy Hall, Pam Hastings, Maggie Hearny, Sandra Howard, Carol Janda, Theresa Killgore, Margaret Lawrence, Barbara Light, Patrick Loafman, Maria Loe, Gayle Lutschg, Leslie Maraz, Charles Partridge, Melissa Penic, Rain Sherman, Jean Sigmar, Cheryl Smith, Jessica Spisak, Diane Stewart, Katya Taylor, Leslie Vella, Harry von Stark, Anne Walsh, Anna Wiancko Chasman and more.

There will be a special Friends of the Fine Arts Center preview and first chance shopping on Friday, December 4 from 5-7 pm. Friends memberships will be available on the spot at the door, beginning at $35 for an annual membership. Shopping for the general public begins at 10 am on Saturday, December 5.

360 - 417 - 4590 | March - November: 11AM - 5PM (Wed - Sun) December - February: 10AM - 4PM (Wed - Sun)