Artists throng Sou’wester for annual Arts Week

Published 2:52 pm Sunday, March 8, 2026

By Patrick Webb/For the Observer

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During Arts Week, Laura Hoppenjans of Seattle will explore the artistic potential of creating hand-built terracotta crates in an installation called “What We Carry.”

The artists are here.

The seventh annual Sou’wester Arts Week 2026 is underway. The Seaview lodge and trailer campground is awash with creative talent all this week.

And the artists, who have come from all over the United States, Ontario, Canada and some from Italy, plan to show their skills to the public this weekend.

Two events are planned in Ilwaco March 13, with a ceramic showcase at Ilwaco Artworks, 109 First Ave. N from 5-7 p.m. and live performances 7-10 p.m. at the Ilwaco Cider Co., 116 Spruce St. E.

The March 14 agenda features studio tours and art installations from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Sou’wester Lodge, 3728 J Place, Seaview. The action shifts to the Chinook School in the evening for live performances from 7-10 p.m., including a silent auction and dancing.

Events conclude March 15 with student-artist collaborations 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Wave of the Future Preschool, near the Sou’wester at 1306 39th Place, Seaview.

The theme of this year’s festivities is “The Space Between.”

A post on the Sou’wester website summarizes, “There is strength in what moves underneath, in the hush of process, in the soft roots that link us. In a world that keeps us apart, we turn toward the liminal space, a living network of creative crossings. Here we find connection becoming luminous, tender and deeply alive.”

Community

Sora Blue, Arts Week director, said it took her judging team two weeks to select 39 artists and art collectives from 150 applications. About one-third are visiting the Sou’wester for the first time. Coming the farthest are Jodi Sandford and Valter Gosti, performance artists and filmmakers from Perugia, Italy, who attended three years ago.

All the campers stay a week in the restored vintage trailers and attend various social events like potlucks and communal saunas designed to foster community through the week. They have opportunities for collaboration, as well as time for activities like foraging for natural materials and choreographing dances.

The fruits of their artistic labors are showcased to the public during the concluding weekend. Organizers are excited to add two new venues, the Cider Co. and the Chinook School, to the schedule for the first time this year to avoid crowding out the Sou’wester lodge and campground, she said.

Blue said the theme will be interpreted by visiting artists in different ways. “It’s a process. A lot of time we see the artist and their completed works, but this is between the idea and the product,” she said. “We try to keep things really fluid, and want the people to relate to it in their own unique way.”

Artists

The artists selected work in a variety of media.

Jessica Keaveny, from Hillsboro, Oregon, plans to create a photographic installation during the residency, capturing fellow artists and the surrounding landscape in what she calls “moments of pause, play and presence.”

Seattle songwriters Nathan and Sophia Hamer, performing as Babes In Canyon, offer a blend of synth-folk, moody pop, club beats and soaring vocal harmonies.

Drummer-composer Rachel Blumberg of Portland, who has performed with The Decembrists, will demonstrate experimental improvised and composed percussion and keyboard music, often performed with her collaged and stop-motion animated films.

Cellist and multimedia sound artist Elizabeth Byrd of Portland will perform, linking “classical precision” with “improvisational curiosity,” playing music while blending sound recordings from the natural world.

Shelby Natasha, an alt-folk songwriter from Seattle who plays the Guzheng or Chinese harp, will play pieces that blend Chinese and Pacific Northwest cultures.

Comedian Emily June Newton, originally from Australia but now based in Portland, will offer a satirical performance influenced by the role of cults like the Rajneeshees and Heaven’s Gate.

Ceramic artists are also represented. Laura Hoppenjans of Seattle will explore the artistic potential of creating hand-built terracotta crates in an installation called “What We Carry.” Mychelle Moritz of Portland, plans an installation of ceramic tiles woven together with threads collected throughout the week, seeking to preserve “memories stored in the layers of the Earth’s strata.”

Sculptor Haley Lauw, a Florida native now living in Portland, plans to melt and cast pewter plates and cups with beach sand.

Mixed-media artist Lane Bestold of Seattle will showcase “texture, trash and community” with experimental fiber art work promising “unusual textures” and “vibrant colors” created during Arts Week.

Gabriel Jax of Minneapolis, who grew up in Washington near Hood Canal, is a storyteller and video maker who works with puppets and textiles.

Another textile artist is Malia Peoples of Seattle, who will invite visitors to explore the tools, processes and stories behind Kapa making, an Indigenous Hawaiian barkcloth tradition once thought lost.

Fashion designer and gallery curator Claire Rose of Portland works exclusively with up-cycled materials, breathing new life into vintage garments and textiles.

Rose’s artist statement addresses the event’s theme. “In a time of unrest and instability, connection feels fragile, sometimes out of reach. This work sits inside that tension, asking what it means to be embodied, emboldened and safe. These questions live in the making — stitched into textiles and custom garments shaped by care, resistance and place.”

Details of other artists are available online at souwesterlodge.com/artsweek2026.