Arts & Entertainment Community

PAL’s new Art in the Park show includes paintings, pyrography and prizes

Creating a natural-feeling art installation on the high walls of PenMet Parks’ brand-new headquarters on 14th Street was a challenge the Peninsula Art League (PAL) expected when it put out the call for art submissions for the inaugural Art in the Park show.

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What the arts organization didn’t expect was the response it got.

“We received 289 entries from 190 artists,” PAL President Colette Smith said in an earlier September interview. “It was amazing.”

People take pictures of the artists featured in the inaugural Art in the Park show, during the show’s reception at PenMet Parks’ headquarters on Oct. 10, 2024. Photo by Carolyn Bick

PAL-PenMet partnership

Earlier this year, PAL and PenMet Parks teamed up to support each others’ missions by blending art and creativity with natural spaces and maintained parks. PenMet Parks — which manages parks and other natural spaces in unincorporated Pierce County west of the Narrows Bridge and east of the Purdy Bridge, except for the city of Gig Harbor — provides spaces for PAL to hold workshops, classes, and festivals, like this year’s summer festival at Sehmel Homestead Park.

In return, as part of this collaborative effort, PAL has both created events meant to encourage people to enjoy PenMet’s many parks, and has made various PenMet spaces come alive with art, including the new headquarters with the Art in the Park show.

The show opened on Sept. 23. The show’s official reception was Oct. 10 at the PenMet headquarters. Like several other PAL shows, it was juried, meaning it was a competitive field wherein artists’ work was judged, compared with other entries, and evaluated, rather than simply being accepted. 

Artist Margaret Henry speaks about her piece, Elusive Autumn Song, on the far wall of the PenMet headquarters during the inaugural Art in the Park reception at PenMet Parks’ headquarters on Oct. 10, 2024. Photo by Carolyn Bick

Many choices

One juror, Sarah Kavage, judged this particular show. Kavage is herself a visual artist whose work focuses on place and land.

She chose 25 entries from 23 artists from among the 289 entries. Kavage, a first-time juror, said the process felt “kind of like opening up a Christmas present on Christmas morning.”

“It was such a really unique experience to kind of get to know this area by looking at all the artwork, and all the people that are out making art on the lawn around the peninsula,” Kavage told gathered artists, friends, and family members the night of the reception. “I’m a relatively new resident of the peninsula. I’ve only been out here a couple of years. Getting connected to this community through this process has been really just a lovely thing to be a part of.”

Art in the Park juror Sarah Kavage speaks during the Art in the Park reception at PenMet Parks’ headquarters on Oct. 10, 2024. Photo by Carolyn Bick

Pyrography, an Art in the Park natural

That night, self-taught pyrographer Margaret Henry won the Commissioner’s Choice Award for her massive elk, entitled, Elusive Autumn Song. Henry said that she started on the path of pyrography — burning images into wood with a very small flame — around 2015. She started small, she said, but her husband, Brian — a painter — encouraged her to keep increasing the size of her images.

“And then he said, ‘Why don’t you do an elk?’” Henry recalled. “He started building that piece of wood for me. And I was like, ‘This is going to take forever. … And six months later, we got it.”

The Art in the Park show runs until Jan. 30, 2025, at PenMet Parks’ headquarters at 2416 14th Ave NW. Visitors will have an opportunity to vote for a People’s Choice Award, which one of the show artists will receive when the show closes, along with $300.

Veronica Davis, left, artist Penny Firehorse (center), and Chris Brown (right) talk about pyrographer Margaret Henry’s piece, Elusive Autumn Song, during the inaugural Art in the Park reception at PenMet Parks’ headquarters on Oct. 10, 2024. Photo by Carolyn Bick