BY JACK PENLAND
One of the most amazing places to wake your inner artist is Camano Island’s Matzke Fine Art Gallery and Sculpture Park. Although locals know all about this open air sculpture park, it’s still something of a secret. That might now change with some international exposure. The Australia-based “Food•Wine•Travel” is taking readers on a tour of the garden. You can read about it here.
Author Christine Salins toured the gallery and wrote, “It would be hard to think of a more beautiful setting in which to display these eye-catching pieces,” and I have to agree. You can spend all day among the trees and art. As the shadows shift, the lighting changes, casting the art, literally, in a whole new light.
Salins also points out the rich artistic community that is all over the island. The annual art tour, spread over two weekends in May, is so big, you need both weekends to see it all. She has a theory about why there’s so many artists on Camano Island, she writes that they, “have been seduced by the island’s natural beauty, its community spirit and its solitude.”
She also offers up a bit of art history, explaining about “Waupello,” a 200 acre art colony that existed more than a hundred years ago.
It’s fascinating reading from a blog that was the 2017 winner of Australia’s best travel writing blog.
