Art Stroll Through Port Angeles Fine Arts Center’s Webster Woods Sculpture Garden
Last week I had the opportunity to stroll the more accessible, gradual gravel path in Webster Woods, which offers a dramatic view toward the Strait. I encountered some beautiful large works in the open air exhibit.
Among them was my 2025 Poetry in the Park placard, “Varied Ixoreus Thrush,” as part of “Summer Music.” You may listen to my reading of this poem on the PAFAC website.
Photographs by Laura E. Garrard.
Moth Cathedral by Heather Dawn Sparks.A Seat in the Trees by Jennifer Kapnek
The Chroma Zone by Jennifer Kapnek
A rock providing intelligent prose! When asking, “Who am I, What Should I do?,” perhaps we look to what we love!
My poem, “Contrast,” was selected to exhibit in the 2024 Poetry in the Park in Webster Woods of the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center. The theme was “Colorization,” and how what humans place in Nature affects our responses to and experiences in Nature. One aspect of this marriage, a negative one, has stood out to me late winter into spring – the contrast of naturally occurring white color against green (stark beauty) and trash on the drive between my house in Olympic National Park and Port Angeles, especially along the curvy drive next to magnificent Lake Crescent.
So, this could be considered an ecopoem as well as a witness poem. I hope it brings attention to locals and visitors how litter detracts from our outdoor experiences, even as we drive, and encourages behavioral change. I have never lived in a place with this level of disregard and disrespect for the land in the form of littering. I hate to criticize, however, perhaps locals have become blind to this issue. I discovered that the Park Service plans a clean-up along Hwy 101 next to Park property. They will have to close areas of the road to safely do this. Perhaps then, there may be an effort of other clean-ups along the highway.
Lake Crescent from Log Cabin Resort. By Laura E. GarrardSnowdrops, by Laura E. Garrard.Trilliums, by Laura E. Garrard.Vanilla Leaf, by Laura E. Garrard.Olympic Range, by Laura E. Garrard.
The Port Angeles Fine Arts Center and Olympic Peninsula Authors selected this poem of mine for their “Under the Canopy” 2023 Poetry in the Park outdoor exhibit in Webster Woods.
All photographs by Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2023.
The actual tree I lean against and call “Charlie.”
Artist credits for Webster Woods sculptures (top to bottom, left to right): Brandon Zebold, “Offering;” David Eisenhour, “Watershed Notes;” Micajah Bienvenu, “Pi a la Mode;” Steve Jensen, “Suspended Canoe Adrift;” Community Nature Weaving from Summertide 2023 with assistance from MarySue French; Steve Belz, “Sky Gazer;” Laura E. Garrard, “Butterflies Flurry While I Recline on ‘Sky Gazer’.”
My poem below was selected, by the Olympic Peninsula Writers through a juried submission, to appear for a year in the PAFAC New Growth outdoors exhibit in the Webster Woods sculpture garden. Following a year, it will be moved with other poems to a number of parks in Port Angeles. It’s very exciting to have been chosen! Below is a photograph of me with the installation on the day of the poetry reading.
Here is a recording of my reading:
Laura E. Garrard reading her poem “I Have to Chase That Squirrel,” June 18, 2022.
I Have to Chase That Squirrel
Start at a run from the door
And accelerate to top lope
Just as I reach the base of the Douglas fir
Even if I’m too late to catch it
My instinct must be served
You laugh and shrug
For me, it’s not just for fun
It’s my essence, my expression
My way to tell the world
What kind of dog I am
So free me to do
What I want, what I must
Responsibility, according to whom?
My number one purpose right now
Is to chase that squirrel
Even though I’m scared
I won’t succeed
I must look skyward to see
On which limb the squirrel may be
Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2022
Standing beside my New Growth poetry installation in Webster Woods, June 18, 2022. (Photograph by Michael Nordell.)
My poem perfectly installed in Webster Woods next to a Douglas fir tree at a trail hub. (Photograph by Laura E. Garrard.)
I took these photographs as spring turned into summer on the “Moments in Time Trail,” Olympic National Park. I feel they tie in nicely with the New Growth theme. (Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2022.)
My poetry and photography will exhibit in the show “Nature” at the Center for the Arts Theater Gallery and Glenwood Lobby in Jackson Hole, Wyoming: April 19-June 14. My photograph appears on the exhibit book cover as well. For more information, link to the Center for the Arts Event Page. Join me in celebrating one of the included poems, “The Forest.”
The Forest
We smell your freshness
Taste your salt
Until our skin
Lets you in
I am bound by your beauty
To be bolder, truer
Than the sum
Of my tomorrows
By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021
Feb. 5, 2021
9×7″ Print on Wood, “The Forest,” By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021
Top photo and below photos by Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021
In each woman
Is the womb of the world
Ripe for tears
Ready for mud
Renewing us all
Vigor, sanctity, and child
Larger than her own life
Potential beyond measure
Creativity awaits her dawn
To dredge deep
Hear her welling up
By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021
Jan. 22, 2021
[Top Photo: "Spring in Olympic"; Middle Image: 16x20" Pen & Ink on Paper, "Woman to Child"; and Below Sideshow Photos; all by Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021]
I will consider myself an artist
When staring into beauty is the art
And my striving is not
Art is the experience
If it wants me to recall and record it
So be it
By Laura E. Garrard
Jan. 22, 2021
[Top Photo: "Sunset from a Tree"; Below: First Row, "Sunset on Crescent Lake, panels 1-3," Second Row, "Hugging Alder, panels 1-3," Third Row, "Alder Sunset," by Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021]
“Alder Waves,” By Laura E. Garrard, Copyright 2021
Poetry In Time 