A volunteer operated non-profit, Pacific Northwest Sculptors attempts to provide access to resources for sharing your art with the public and the other PNWS Members, and it’s my belief the PNWS Members are the greatest resource we have access to, so our combined set of skills, attention, experience and perspectives working together is our highest value. The PNWS Board is looking to create and maintain various ways for the Membership to share art and make those connections that support your sculpture practice. In development is a new policy for assigning a “Peer Advisor” to new PNWS Members. The idea is introduce new folks to group activities and our online platforms, like the pnwsculptors.org Member Profile pages. For part of a new Member’s first year, Peer Advisors can help to walk you through how to set up your website Profile. There are several benefits to uploading your words, images, biography to the PNWS website. Primarily, we want to know each other, and build a community around fulfilling common goals.
New ideas and policy are like acquiring a new tool. It will take a while to learn how this will work, but I’m certain it will mean “showing up” to make it happen. We can step away from our individual art practices and rise to the occasion of a studio tour, a raku firing, or a PNWS art show, stepping and pulling ourselves towards each other, like climbing an aspirational ladder. 
Appropriate to a group of sculptors, our network can support relational pathways in three dimensions, with an emphasis on lateral peer to peer relationships. In this analogy lateral ladders are between peers, in a group that aspires to avoid hierarchy. Ladders running sideways are a contradiction to the usual metaphor of a ladder in professional life, a tool for striving to stand out and rise above others, as a “success” in a field of competition. In the usual, default society we are compelled to pursue a vertical path, measuring art by it’s reputation or sales. Professionalism and art as business practice are a finite set of tools, which are definitely of interest to our group, but our network has an even broader capacity, supporting the meaning of art and building community. These goals work/play together and show up whenever our group gets together. Studio tour potlucks are the essential example of our work/play ethos. +++Andy Kennedy Pres. PNWS
Mark your calendars:
*Shelly Durica-Laiche (see article in this issue) March 23
*Cobalt design with paper mache mask making April 13
Cave gallery events International Sculpture Day observed (April 20)
Maryhill campout (see article in this issue) May 3-5
*Russ Ford w/ Raku mask making May 25
Troutdale Arts fest Raku fire June 7
*Chayo Wilson June 22
Vancouver art Music Festival Aug 2-4
Art in the Pearl demo and Raku Aug 31 – Sept 2
*Potluck Studio tours, Saturdays tentatively @3pm