PORT ANGELES — Sam Calhoun didn’t enter art shows. She didn’t make visual art, after all.
But then she did. And Calhoun won the $1,000 Best in Show prize in Art Convergence, the annual showcase at one of the Pacific Northwest’s well-known public galleries.
Three-drawer display
“Compartment Heart,” Calhoun’s debut sculpture built from Goodwill purchases, was chosen by jurors Karen Hackenberg and Margie McDonald from more than 40 entries in Art Convergence, the juried exhibition on display now at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center.
“It’s so crazy,” Calhoun said in an interview this week.
Her sculpture, made of wood, leather and rusty metal, depicts a man with a compartmentalized chest of drawers.
Calhoun said she has noticed how men seem to be able to divide up matters of the heart. So there are three such sections, represented by three tiny drawers.
Top drawer: Women.
Second drawer: Food.
Third: Work.
To symbolize, Calhoun drew a shapely nude woman, a drumstick with a bite taken out of it and a hammer.
“I found his heart at Goodwill,” the artist said, referring to the little drawer set.
She also picked up a leather jacket at the Port Angeles store, then found a block of wood.
“It went from there,” she said. Next thing she knew, the man had “kind of created himself.”
A friend urged Calhoun to enter the guy in the fine arts center exhibition.
It was accepted, so she went to the opening reception Nov. 15. The last thing she expected was to win the whole show.
Artists such as Clark Mundy, a veteran copper sculptor whose creation “Ancient Light” is in Art Convergence, congratulated her with gusto.
“I think I will never forget that day,” Calhoun said.
“I’m very happy for her. I like her piece a lot,” Port Angeles artist Tammy Hall said of Calhoun.
‘Chicken of the Sea’
Hall, whose driftwood assemblage “Chicken of the Sea” won the $300 first prize in the show’s three-dimensional art category, is also a sculptor who lets found materials guide her.
On one of her beach sojourns, she spied a driftwood piece that looked to her exactly like a rooster’s comb. All she had to do then was find the rest of the bird, in wood.
Also among the winners are “Fat Tuesday,” Robert McCormack’s painting of a New Orleanian accordion player, which won the $300 first prize in the two-dimensional category.
“Survivor,” Ernst Ulrich-Schafer’s texture-rich photograph of a woman, is winner of the $100 2-D category honorable mention, and “Where,” Pamela Hastings’ mixed-media figure, won the 3-D division’s honorable mention and a $100 award.
All of the pieces in Art Convergence are for sale, at prices ranging from about $150 to $3,000.
“Compartment Heart’s” price is $1,500, and if sold, proceeds might well go toward Calhoun’s January trip to Mexico and Honduras.
She and her husband, Bill, plan to spend a month exploring Caribbean locales from Isla Mujeres to Roatan. That’s certainly where the prize money will go, Calhoun said.
Calhoun plans to keep making art — she and Bill are working on a piece together now — while continuing to work her full-time job as executive assistant for Arts Northwest, the nonprofit network for performing artists across the region.
Calhoun, who’s lived in Port Angeles a dozen years now, is also the volunteer coordinator for the Juan de Fuca Festival of the Arts, the Memorial Day weekend event here.
“Compartment Heart” and the work of the other 38 artists in Art Convergence will stay on display at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center, 1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd., through Jan. 9.
The center is closed today but will reopen this Saturday and Sunday. The indoor gallery’s winter hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Thursdays through Sundays.
In addition, the Webster’s Woods art park is open every day from sunrise till sunset. Admission is free indoors and out.
For information,visit the center’s website, www.PAFAC.org, or phone 360-457-3532.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
