Located past Lake Samish but just before Alger, the Lookout Arts Quarry (LAQ) is many things: a rural arts center, an outdoor festival venue, a campground, a community with permanent residents, and a recovering wilderness. Physically, it’s 61 acres of land that used to be an industrial rock quarry.
LAQ Founder, Board Member, and Lead of the Site Committee Islando Sparks and Board Member and Lead of the Production Committee Nora Hughes answered our questions about this local legend of a site, starting with: how did an industrial rock quarry become an idyllic nature retreat for artists, campers, and festival goers?
Aaron Wigs
Founding
A group of circus and performance artists were fresh off a win in Bellingham’s circus policies and “seeking a gentrification-proof plan for an intentional community of artists and performers.” The old rock quarry that popped up for sale “seemed way too cool to pass up.” Before purchasing the property, the group “rented the site and threw an offroad soapbox derby festival, which would eventually become Sh’Bang!, a now-iconic Northwest festival.”
“The long-term goal [was] building a sustainable, thriving arts-centered community,” they say. “Many years later, LAQ has grown as an organization and is still guided by the same vision of being a peaceful forest retreat with studio spaces and stages, hosting a variety of innovative and inspiring events, grounded in a strong sense of community, equity, and inclusion.”
Picture by Aaron Wigs
Wilderness Recovery
“We started with a trashy post-industrial mining site, and the land we steward has come a long way … Since its purchase in 2007, LAQ has been in a process of restoration and stewardship in accordance with the guiding principles of permaculture,” Hughes and Sparks say. LAQ stewardship is “guided by a whole-systems-thinking,” and includes planting native and biodiverse flora, removing invasives, maintaining a wetland viewing trail and a bird sanctuary, cultivating grazing gardens, wild harvesting, and working with fisheries/habitat specialists.
The land is home to wetlands, ponds, a river, a second-growth conifer forest, nature trails, and plenty of large rocks. Where there once was a deep pitted scar in the landscape from the quarry proper, there is now an 80-foot-deep rainwater lake “used for swimming and aquatic performances.”
Picture by Aaron Wigs
Creativity, Community, and Celebration
LAQ hosts residents, WWOOFer and Artist in Residency programs, campers, and special events.
“Developments for human use at LAQ incorporate natural and structural strategies which limit unnecessary waste, improve the ecosystem, and allow humans to exist in relative balance with their environment,” say Hughes and Sparks.
There are five performance stages, including “an amphitheater cedar stage, a forested Saloon Stage, a floating dock stage, [and] a ship stage,” as well as thematic art buildings, artist studios, kinetic sculptures, and “an independent publishing studio housed out of a 50-foot semi trailer”—plus room for camping.
For the 2024 festival season, LAQ started with their in-house event, Tropism, on May 25-26 and will end with Sh’Bang! on Aug. 30-Sept. 1. LAQ will also be hosting the Salish Sea Butoh dance collective, Social Ecology Summit, multi-day acro yoga event Acro Campout, School for Comedy Beasts, Cascade Dance Party, and music festivals Bigfoot Campout and Whalien/Acorn Fest. There will also be a series of craft workshops by LAQ resident Sulai Lopez. Traveling circuses Shoestring Circus and UP UP UP Inc. are part of the LAQ community, and those circus roots remain at the heart of LAQ’s vision.
“Some of our favorite things about living at a circus arts homestead are seeing the expressions and processes of LAQ’s creative community,” Hughes and Sparkes share. “On any evening there could be a hair hanger dangling from an aerial rig while a clown belts out opera, a death metal speakeasy forest concert, or a 50-foot paper-cut snake being puppeteered by dancers.” 246 Old Hwy. 99 N., Bellingham, lookoutarts.com
