Category: Monarch Sculpture Park

Monarch Sculpture Park: Turn at the Butterfly Tree

Giant iron and steel sculptures along the road lured me into a fairyland of natural and manmade art where real birds perched in a stainless steel tree made of butterflies. I walked through a giant green portal that boomed as the wind blew through it and came upon the three little pigs’ houses, giant bugs made of metal scraps, a hand two stories high and a croquet set big enough for a giant.
As I wandered through the Monarch Sculpture Park, located 10 miles south of Olympia, Washington, roosters crowing vied with the bongs and clangs of gongs and musical instruments made of sheets of metal and pipes placed along the grassy paths. I wanted to look everywhere at once.
Beyond a fantasy garden filled with sculptured flowers in wild colors, plastic streamers waved from the trees in the Sacred Grove. I opened a mailbox to find pens and streamers to write my own message to hang with the others.
Opened in 1998, Monarch Sculpture Park has grown to more than 100 stone, metal, wood, ceramic and glass sculptures spread over 80 acres of forest, creeks, ponds and grasslands. The site also includes an indoor gallery and offers art workshops, retreats and residencies.
Founder and director Myrna Orsini says the object is to provide an art adventure for everyone, based on the idea that creative expression has no boundaries. Visitors of all ages can see, touch and play with inspiring, quirky and crazy works by famous artists as well as those just starting out.

The outdoor art is open to the public year-round from dawn to dusk. The gallery is open by appointment. This year’s indoor exhibit, “Censored,” features art that might be rejected by other galleries because of its political or sexual nature.

Throughout the year, residents live and work at Monarch, adding their art to the exhibit and sharing their skills with the local community through arts presentations and workshops.

Orsini, who created many of the sculptures in the park, said she was inspired by art centers in Europe where artists could create art and display their work in outdoor exhibits. She relies on donations, residency fees and volunteers to operate the park. These days, she says, she’s struggling to keep the park open and may be closing this fall, so go soon if you want to see it.
Most of the paths are accessible but they do ramble through mud and tall grass. My feet got wet, but it was worth having soggy socks. As Orsini says, the park is a bit out of the way, but when people find it, they fall in love and keep coming back.
Monarch is located at 8431 Waldrick Road SE, Tenino, WA 98589, (360) 264-2408, http://www.monarchartcenter.org.

Where the wolves howl

They look like big cuddly dogs with thick white, gray or brown fur, but wolves are not like the pups in our backyards, my guide, Mary Ann Murphy told me as toured Wolf Haven International near Olympia, Washington last week. As she filled my head with wolf facts, she called me back every time I took a step toward the chain link fences where the wolves live in pairs.
Remembering how the Arctic wolves in the White Wolf Sanctuary in Tidewater, OR, charged the fence when I raised my camera, I obeyed.

It was one of the first warm days of the year, and most of the wolves napped in their enclosures. They look docile, and wolves are beautiful animals, but they make lousy pets, Mary Ann said. They cannot be house-trained, they tend to vie for power, they like to hunt, and they bite with 1500 pounds of pressure, twice that of the average dog. Most wolves taken in as pets are euthanized before their third birthday, she said.

Many of the 50 wolves at Wolf Haven are being prepared for release into the wild and are not on the tour. But that still leaves plenty of wolves to see. We saw many gray wolves, which are not necessarily gray. The largest, male grays like Jakey in the photo, range from 80 to 110 pounds. The females weigh 60 to 80 pounds. All of the wolves have longer front legs, wider feet, and narrower chests than their dog counterparts to help them run through snow.

We paused in our walk along the graveled path as the wolves began to howl. First one began, then another. Soon they were all howling. Wolves howl to locate each other, to mourn, to ward off predators, and to vocalize their social ranking. As I doggedly headed toward the nearest enclosure to get a picture of a howling wolf, Mary Ann called me back. Must stay on the tour, she said. Grumble, but it’s stressful for the wolves to have people coming through every hour.

Wolf Haven, spread across 80 acres among forests and farmland, opened in 1982. In addition to paid staff, volunteers lead tours and help with summer howl-ins and campouts, photography tours and educational seminars.

Beyond a large picnic area near the entrance lies a wolf cemetery, where rock-covered graves mark the final resting places of wolf residents who have died. Wolves only live five to eight years in the wild, but they can live 14 to 15 years in captivity. They mate for life and grieve just as humans do when their partners die. As I paused to take pictures, I could feel the spirits of those wolves howling softly around me.

I went to Washington to do an article on the Monarch Sculpture Park (very cool). Everywhere I went, people asked if I had been to Wolf Haven yet. It wasn’t on the itinerary, but since it was on the road between Monarch and the motel, I figured why not. I’m glad I didn’t miss it.
Wolf Haven International is located at 3111 Offut LakeRoad in Tenino, Washington. Admission is $9 for adults, $7 for kids age 3-12, and $8 for seniors. The sanctuary is closed to the public on Tuesdays and during the month of February. For more information, call (360) 264-4695 or visit the web site at https://www.wolfhaven.org. The noise you hear in the background on the website is howling wolves. The site offers a five-minute virtual tour, information about wolves and the history of Wolf Haven, and ways to contribute. There’s also a fabulous page with pictures and songs of area birds.