Kinship: A Collaboration With Nature

July 17th-September 13th, 2026 | Entry: Free/By Donation

Kinship: A Collaboration With Nature invites viewers into the wonder of nature and time. Bringing together contemporary artists who work with living materials, ecological processes, and forms drawn from the natural world, this exhibition considers how nature itself becomes a collaborator in shaping artistic expression. Rather than fixed objects, the works here unfold through growth, decay, weather, and care—reminding us that living systems are always in motion.

Nature appears here as both medium and framework. Artists engage with organic structures, ecological cycles, and the quiet intelligence of living things to create works that evolve over time. Light, moisture, gravity, and growth become compositional tools, shaping forms that resist permanence and invite attention to subtle change.

Workshops, Opportunities, & Events

Kinship_FrancoiseWeeks_WoodlandFairyHouse_010
Opening Reception
Friday, July 17th  | 5PM-7PM | Entry: Free/All Are Welcome
Learn more
Bonsai Pop-Up: An Exhibition In The Courtyard
Saturday, August 1st  | 11AM-5PM | Entry: Free/By Donation
Learn more
Ekphrastic Poetry Reading
Tuesday, August 4th | 5:30PM-7:30PM | Entry: Free/By Donation
Learn more
Terrarium Workshop with INSIDE
Thursday, August 6th | 5:30PM-8:30PM | PAFAC Members: $95 | General: $105
Learn more
Clay Workshop: Create A Succulent Planter
Sunday, August 9th | 12PM-4PM | Entry: $100 (Includes: Instruction, Materials, Glaze, Firing, & Discounts)
Learn more

Featured Artists:

Françoise Weeks was born in Belgium and started her business in 1996. She has infused her work with a quintessential European reverence for flowers and nature. Combined with creativity and mechanical ingenuity, she has crystalized her singular style of Textural Woodlands and Botanical Haute Couture pieces, garnering a global following. Françoise’s studio is located in Portland, Oregon. Her generosity of knowledge and perspective in use of floral materials, structure and mechanics, in addition to the business of being a florist, unite to create rigorous and exciting learning opportunities for her students to explore all that nature has to offer.

Julie Kim 김미정 is a Seattle based, Korean-American artist. She creates multi-layered watercolor paintings that explore themes of wholeness, transformation, and healing. Her paintings reflect both inner and outer landscapes, guided by an internal practice of slowness and presence. Her process includes foraging natural rocks and minerals to create handmade earth pigments and paints. More than a material practice, this becomes a collaboration and dialogue with the land — infusing each painting with a sense of place, time, and the natural elements. Painting becomes a way of bridging the natural and human-made, the wild and urban, fluidity and structure.

INSIDE began in 2020 as an extension of Jen Van Dyke's family's long-established business, Van Dyke Hardwood Floors. What started as a shared passion for plants between mother and daughter quickly grew into something more. When Jen's daughter stepped away to focus on raising her family, she embraced the opportunity to continue and expand the vision. Today, INSIDE is a boutique specializing in living plant art, terrarium design, and hands-on terrarium workshops. Inspired by the beauty of nature in miniature, Jen Van Dyke creates unique glass gardens that invite people to slow down, connect with the natural world, and bring a little wonder into their homes.

Betsy Peabody got immersed in KELP originally through kelp forest restoration and then discovered that bull kelp material itself provided a wonderful medium for kelp storytelling. After founding Puget Sound Restoration Fund in 1997, she got smitten by raw, natural materials, gathered in the wild along the shores of the Salish Sea. Kelp pickling led to kelp pressing, then kelp weaving, and then kelp sculptures - evolving forms blending art, food, and science. Sculptural forms simultaneously embody the structure of bull kelp and the profusion of life that springs from healthy kelp forests. Weaving material gathered on different shores into one form simulates the act of knitting kelp forest ecosystems back together.

Lil Bit Garden's (Jungim Rose) journey into the realm of creation began with the cherished practice of ceramics. However, her deep-seated environmental concerns sparked a profound shift in her artistic trajectory, leading her to embrace a second, even greater passion: botanical art. Initially, her focus was on crafting miniature nature scenes within jars, employing moss, dirt, and other natural elements. Yet, as her artistic vision expanded, she found the confines of the jar too limiting to fully express her desire to bring nature indoors, where modern life often keeps us tethered. Exploring alternatives, she discovered preserved moss, vibrant and verdant without the need for upkeep. This discovery opened a gateway to endless creative possibilities. Nature, with its boundless beauty, serves as her primary muse, and she endeavors to impart its healing and calming essence through her art. Whether in the form of a petite picture frame adorning a desk or an expansive moss mural adorning a wall, she seeks to evoke the restorative influence of nature in every piece she creates—a pursuit that has been central to her artistic journey from its inception.
Kinship_GreenLeaf (Lilbit Garden)

Thank You Exhibit Sponsors & Partners!