Art Outside is the program that has brought a singular open-air art collection to the former Webster Estate. The total number of artworks that have accumulated in Webster’s Woods Art Park since the inaugural 2000 season has crested at more than one hundred and twenty-five. While over the years many pieces have been returned to their creators or succumbed to the elements, the net presence of art in the park has grown steadily through gift, entrenchment and extended loan.

Claudia Lorenz, Compost Person

One of the hallmarks of Art Outside has always been to strive for a balance between sculptural objects and site interventions, with both approaches highly sensitive to the natural environment. The five and a half acres of second-growth forest has been a friendly host to artists’ imaginations. A varied topography that embraces trees and clearing, ridge and hollow, swale and wetland makes for constantly changing sightlines and new landscape frames. Artists are stimulated by our sublime Olympic setting and excited to be able to try out their ideas with the great degree of freedom accorded to them

“Magical, enchanted, whimsical, delightful, transcendent” are a few of the adjectives that escape routinely from the lips of those who walk the discovery trails of this unique “museum without walls.” Recurring declarations by rapturous visitors, promising to mimic this or that artwork in their own backyards, reaffirm the impression that the activities in these Woods communicate on a very fundamental level.

James Lapp, Canticle

The greatest charm of Webster’s Woods, no doubt, is the resonance between artists’ ideas and the self-perpetuating landscape. There is a playful and not-always-distinct border between the artists’ creations, the flora and the natural features of this spectacular property. The transitory nature of many of the artworks makes for a visible evolution in the collection, even for the new or infrequent visitor, as marked through the constant changes manifested by the passage of the seasons.

 

Peter Millett , Yoni

This art has a tendency to make even the most casual observer see nature through a new lens, and in so doing reaches the wellsprings of our connections to the living earth that is often overwhelmed by preoccupations with proxy experiences happening on screens or on the printed page.

Generous annual sponsorship by First Federal Savings and Loan of Port Angeles allows for the creation of twenty new works each season, which are premiered at the Summer Solstice (June 23 in 2008).

 

Proposal Submission Guidelines

 

Art Outside Portfolio

 

Shirley Wiebe, Albino