Lys Perhay: Artist + Designer + Historian + Wayzgoose Kitsap artist

🔦 2025 Wayzgoose Kitsap Artist Spotlight

Our 2025 Wayzgoose Kitsap artist lineup includes twelve local artists and groups of creatives. They're participating by designing large-scale artowrk, transferring it to 3' square sheets of linoleum, and carving it out for relief-printing by a steamroller. Working with teams of volunteers, the artwork comes to life on June 7th at the 8th annual Wayzgoose Kitsap Art Festival at Sheridan Park Community Center.

This series of artist spotlights gives a behind-the-scenes look at each artist and their process.

Lys Perhay and her best dog Miss Virginia. (Photo courtesy Kristina Lee of Poppy photography)

Lys Perhay is an artist, designer, and historian from Eugene, Oregon. She received her BFA from Parsons School of Design in 2008 and her MS in Historic Preservation from the University of Oregon. She has been showing and working in the arts for two decades. Lys’s art and design work is simple, approachable, and rooted in the familiar.  She draws inspiration from old objects made by other humans, and the plants and animals of the Pacific Northwest. Her preferred mediums are hand-built ceramics, rowdy paper mâché masks, still life pen illustrations, detailed gouache paintings, and paper cutouts. She is participating as a 2025 Wayzgoose Kitsap artist.

Lys Perhay - in progress! 2025 (photo courtesy Lys Perhay)

In her own words:

MB: Thank you for participating as a linoluem artist at this year's Wayzgoose Kitsap art festival! We're excited to get to know more about you. Tell us about your journey as a creative person.

LP: I’ve always been driven to create. It helps me slow down and process the world around me while beautifying my environment. I started off working as an industrial designer, after a decade of making for other people, I decided to pivot and make my creative practice personal again. I now focus on making fine art. I am working to re-find my artistic voice without the drive of a production and trend focus. MB: What led you to apply as a Lino artist this year?

LP: The opportunity to meet other artists and explore the medium drove me to apply. I wanted to engage with other creatives in the Kitsap arts community. I work in black and white the majority of the time so branching out into Lino cut was a natural medium expansion for me. Getting the opportunity to work at this scale and with the guidance of other expert artists is a dream! MB: What are you most excited about in terms of this experience?

LP: Connecting with other local creatives and celebrating the artistic voice of Kitsap! MB: What is your long-term vision for Arts in our community? 

LP: I would love to see the arts community continue to come together and grow. Seeing the city of Bremerton take steps to solidify the town as a creative hub is a direction I’d like to see continue to expand. MB: Can you give us a little sneak-peak description about your artwork as you prepare to be a steamroller artist at the 8th Annual WK Art Festival coming up in June? Anything you can share about the work itself, or the process so far? 

LP: The theme this year is cultivate. I wanted to pick something that was unique to the region and celebrated cultivation on multiple levels. I’ll be making my print about shellfish, it’s a celebration of aquaculture and the cultivation of our community. I was inspired by the opening of oyster harvest every year at ilahee park. It’s so special to see multi-generational families come out to harvest and cook the shellfish at this amazing public resource! I love our state parks! 

MB: Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers? 

LP: Come hang out with us, be a part of Wayzgoose, volunteer! Donate! Build the community you want to be a part of! Art heart forever!