LANGUAGE ARTS

Calendar: Coasting through the slow season

It's quiet at the beach, but there's still plays to watch, photos to see, poetry to hear, and banners to bid on

November 5, 2019 // COAST, LANGUAGE ARTS, OREGON //

It’s the slow season on the Oregon Coast, that time between summer crowds and holiday madness, but enough is happening to provide an excuse to get out of the house.

In Newport, it’s time for the Nye Beach Banner Auction. Many of the 43 artists involved in creating this year’s banners chose to honor Newport’s sister city, Mombetsu, Japan.

Rowan Lehrman, who contributed this banner to last year’s Nye Beach Banner Project, is one of 43 artists participating in this year’s auction.

“It is an honor to create a banner for your enjoyment,” writes Rhona Chase in her catalog statement. “This year’s Sister City theme inspired me to discover the similarities between Newport, Oregon, and Mombetsu, Japan — both port towns that pride themselves on a crab-based economy.”

For the first time, pre-auction bidding will take place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 9 and 10. The auction, with musical entertainment, happens 5 to 8 p.m. Sunday in the Newport Visual Arts Center; bidding closes at 7 p.m.

The 11-year-old Nye Beach Banner Project celebrates local artists, beautifies the community, and raises money to support youth arts education and public art through the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts.

“Walking around the narrow streets of Nye Beach in Newport, it’s hard not to notice the creativity of area residents — banners hang from light posts like beckoning sentries, inviting residents and tourists alike to watch for the next piece of original artwork at the next street corner,” Tom Webb, director of the Visual Arts Center, said in a press release. “We encourage the community to attend the banner auction and support their efforts.”

The auction is free and open to the public.

ALSO AT THE VISUAL ARTS CENTER, the  Oregon Coast Council for the Arts presents Drawing in the Northern Light, an exhibition of photographs and poems by Joseph Ohmann-Krause, in the Upstairs Gallery through Dec. 28. An opening reception will be from 2 to 5 p.m. Dec. 7, with an artist talk at 3:30 p.m.

The traveling exhibition comes from The Little Gallery at Oregon State University. According to the exhibit catalog, the images and poems are inspired by Vilhelm Hammershøi  (1864-1916), a Danish Symbolist painter who painted in the northern light.

Joseph Ohmann-Krause's photographs and poetry, inspired by Danish Symbolist painter Vilhelm Hammershøi, are in the Upstairs Gallery of the Newport Visual Arts Center.
Joseph Ohmann-Krause’s photographs and poetry, inspired by Danish Symbolist painter Vilhelm Hammershøi, are in the Upstairs Gallery of the Newport Visual Arts Center.

Ohmann-Krause, professor of French at OSU, first came upon Hammershøi’s work in 2015 through a catalog of the artist’s paintings. “The term northern light is used here less in geographic or cartographic terms, and more as an aesthetic or visual compass needle,” writes Ohmann-Krause. “The north is less a reference to the polar star than it is to a protection against the direct sun, le plein sud in French, a warm attractive light much favored by Matisse or D.H. Lawrence, or several generations of painters and writers who, in the early 20th century, were drawn southward to the Mediterranean, to colonial Africa or to Mexico in search of more radiance. The northern mists of romantic nationalism had long hidden the industrial squalor that it contained.”

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Portland Book Festival: Sometimes too much is a good thing

The Portland Book Festival moves outdoors to accommodate both the crowds and the profusion of writers

November 5, 2019 // CULTURE, FEATURED, LANGUAGE ARTS //

By KATIE TAYLOR

Literary Arts will pitch a big tent in Shemanski Park on Saturday, November 9, and it will be full of authors and the readers who love them. 

Portland Book Festival (formerly known as Wordstock) challenges the unpredictable outdoors this year, moving its popular “In Conversation” stage out of Portland Art Museum’s Crumpacker Library and into the park, courtesy of Portland Parks Foundation. The Book Fair will also overflow its indoor boundaries to occupy Portland Art Museum’s Sculpture Garden.

“We needed a bigger space and we were using all we had, so we made a new one,” said festival director Amanda Bullock.  

A scene from the book fair of the 2018 Portland Book Festival/Photo courtesy Literary Arts

A circus is a good analogy for Portland’s big annual book event, with its 100+ authors appearing on nine stages all in one dense, delirious, daylong literary orgy.

Malcolm Gladwell is one of the headliners of this year’s Portland Book Festival./Photo courtesy Literary Arts

“It’s intentional FOMO,” Bullock said. “There’s always something happening, a new event starting every 15 minutes. Even if one thing is full, there’s always something else to check out.” So, don’t worry: Everybody’s missing out on something!

This is the fifth year Bullock has organized the festival, more fully realizing her guiding ethos for the event each time. “We want to be a festival for every kind of potential reader. Diversity of voices is important—age, gender, ethnicity, where they’re from, where they are in their career, what their genre is. The density of the festival is a great way to fulfill that dream.”

With that principle in mind, the Festival has added a new genre this year: romance. “It’s an amazing genre,” Bullock said. “People think of romance as Regency bodice rippers, but there are a lot of really modern stories being told through this genre today.” A panel called “Royal Romance: Modern Love Stories” features New York Times bestselling romance writers Jasmine Guillory and Casey McQuiston, whose recent releases both feature royal affairs. The event is moderated by McKenzie Kozman.

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‘Dinosaurs are the gateway drug to science’

Fossil fanatics Ray Troll and Kirk Johnson will visit Salishan Resort to talk about their latest book, "Cruisin' the Fossil Coastline"

October 30, 2019 // COAST, FAMILY, LANGUAGE ARTS, OREGON //

Like many, I always associated Ketchikan-based artist Ray Troll with the crazy T-shirts sporting colorful fish or other wildlife and lines like “Ain’t No Nookie Like Chinookie” or “There’s No Ho Like Coho.” Troll’s art — irreverent, funny, sometimes dark — is an icon of Alaska, and likewise big, bold, and unique.

What I didn’t know was that as much as Troll is known for his wildlife and Alaskan-lifestyle art, he’s also equally well known — at least by some — for his love of fossils.

“It’s a lifelong thing,” Troll told me when we talked by phone this week. “I’ve been drawing dinosaurs since I was 4 years old. People know me for my fishing T-shirts, but my love of prehistoric things has been lifelong. Dinosaurs are the gateway drug to science. I was an early paleo enthusiast. I was using crayons; I still use crayons, but they are professional.”

Paleontologist Kirk R. Johnson (left) and artist Ray Troll have collaborated on a second fossil-filled book, "Cruisin' the Fossil Coastline." Art by: Ray Troll
Paleontologist Kirk Johnson (left) and artist Ray Troll have collaborated on a second fossil-filled book, “Cruisin’ the Fossil Coastline.” Illustrations by: Ray Troll

Troll and fellow fossil expert Kirk Johnson are bringing their latest book, Cruisin’ the Fossil Coastline, to the Oregon Coast. The pair will give a free talk and sign books Nov. 13 at Salishan Resort in Gleneden Beach. The talk is presented by the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, where Troll and Johnson, a paleontologist and director of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, collaborated on the book, a sequel to Cruisin’ the Fossil Freeway. The project took them nearly 10 years to complete, earning them a Guggenheim Fellowship and taking them from San Diego to the northern reaches of Alaska.

“He’s the word guy,” Troll said of Johnson. “I’m the picture guy.”

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Coast calendar: Calling all artists, and arts lovers

Lincoln City seeks new public art; Sitka Center holds a fundraiser; Floyd Skloot reads from his new book; and Cannon Beach celebrates stormy weather

October 16, 2019 // COAST, FAMILY, LANGUAGE ARTS, OREGON //

If you’ve ever driven through Lincoln City on a summer day, it will come as no surprise that every year 8.8 million vehicles travel that stretch of U.S. 101. While that may be discouraging news if you’re sitting in traffic, it’s no doubt heartening to artists who’d like their roadside work to be seen. That the opportunity to do so comes with a commission of up to $120,000 only sweetens the prize.

Lincoln City’s roster of public art includes the Community Center’s swimming tile mural by Ted and Judith Schlicting. The city is seeking proposals from artists to craft a piece for the new Cultural Plaza.
Lincoln City’s roster of public art includes the Community Center’s tile mural by Ted and Judith Schlicting. The city is seeking proposals from artists to craft a piece for the new Cultural Plaza.

Lincoln City is offering one artist the chance to craft the first major piece of art to be installed in the new Lincoln City Cultural Plaza. But don’t spend too much time thinking about it. The deadline for proposals is Nov. 1. Get your request for qualifications (RFQ) here.  

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Calendar: Fiber arts, author talks, musical theater and whimsical cello

It's a busy month in Yamhill County, with art openings, open mics, author readings, romantic comedy, and music ranging from chamber to Latin jazz

October 16, 2019 // FILM, LANGUAGE ARTS, OREGON, YAMHILL //

It’s one of those weeks that illustrates the rich artistic and cultural opportunities that abound even in small Oregon towns — a reminder that one need not live in Portland to see good shows and films or hear authors speak. Let’s get to it, in more or less chronological order:

CURRENTS GALLERY IN DOWNTOWN McMINNVILLE just closed a show displaying the work of many fiber artists, only to follow it with another featuring the work of a single artist. Marlene Eichner, one of the gallery’s many owners, unveiled Just Say Sew on Monday, featuring one-of-a-kind wall hangings, pillows, purses, and screens. Stylistically, the collection is all over the map, ranging from the extremes of abstract and realism, and made using an equally diverse range of techniques. I popped in briefly during the installation and was struck by the painterly look of the pieces. The show runs through Nov. 10. A reception is scheduled during McMinnville’s 3rd on 3rd art and wine walk.

"Happy Place," by Marlene Eichner, was made with mosaic and applique techniques and is based on a watercolor by an artist friend, Joan Weins. Eichner calls it a "stylized representational landscape." Photo courtesy: Marlene Eichner
“Happy Place,” by Marlene Eichner, is made with mosaic and applique techniques and is based on a watercolor by an artist friend, Joan Weins. Eichner calls it a “stylized representational landscape.” Photo courtesy: Marlene Eichner

Eichner has been working with fabrics most of her life. Her mother made all her clothes through high school, and she made her own clothes and dolls in junior high home-economics classes. She has a degree in English literature and worked in California’s public sector after her daughter was born, while continuing to dabble in various artistic forms.

“When I retired at 54, I returned to my sewing roots and started a serious cottage industry, merging art and fabric,” she said. “I have made everything conceivable with fabric, including purses, pillows, banners, room screens, etc., starting with traditional projects and styles and gradually gaining confidence to evolve into serious fine art.”

Marlene Eichner unveiled her new fabric show at Currents Gallery in McMinnville this week. The show runs through Nov. 10. Photo by: David Bates
Marlene Eichner unveiled her new fabric show at Currents Gallery in McMinnville this week. The show runs through Nov. 10. Photo by: David Bates

She focuses on wall pieces using not only traditional quilting/piecing techniques, applique, and mosaic, but also incorporating free-style, free-motion machine thread-painting, and embroidery.  “My interest is in the interplay of light and color when using disparate fabrics to form a cohesive finished product,” she said. “So I play with many genres, from very abstract pieces, to both stylized and detailed representational pieces.”

Eichner said she uses either the highest quality fabric she can find, or she makes it herself in one of three ways: She’ll photocopy items such as textured paper and plant material, scan, and even manipulate them digitally, and then print on treated fabric.

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Happy birthday, Street Roots

Portland's weekly newspaper celebrates 20 years as a beacon of advocacy for the city's homeless, and its crew of vendor poets

October 3, 2019 // ARTSWATCH FOCUS, CULTURE, FEATURED, LANGUAGE ARTS //

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY FRIDERIKE HEUER

“THERE IS A LOT OF COURAGE OUT HERE,” Kaia Sand, executive director of Street Roots, commented recently when introducing women and men at a poetry reading at Gallery 114 ready to present their writing to the assembled guests. The poets were people who are living, fighting, and surviving houselessness. One should add grit, determination, persistence and talent to the notion of courage – both with regard to the presenting poets and the organization that endeavors to support them.

Symbols of the street: the right to speak out.

Many of us might be buying Street Roots on occasion or on a regular basis. The weekly newspaper is produced to provide income opportunities for people experiencing homelessness and poverty, and to act as a catalyst for individual and social change. Vendors pay 25 cents for every paper they sell for $1. For that, they stand days on end on street corners, in all weather, facing who knows how many people who avert their eyes for every one who glances at them, or engages in quick conversation while buying the paper. What stays invisible is the talent and perceptiveness of those vendors trying to connect. What stays hidden is our own timidity to face misery that contrasts with our privilege. Off we rush, having paid a token buck.

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The Artist Series: Writers

In the first of a new series of portraits, K.B. Dixon concentrates his lens on the faces of 10 leading contemporary Oregon writers.

September 23, 2019 // ARTSWATCH FOCUS, CULTURE, FEATURED, LANGUAGE ARTS //

TEXT AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY K.B. DIXON

This is the first in what I hope will be a long series on local artists—in this case, writers, the unusually talented people who work in words, the most common and most difficult of mediums.

The writers here are some of Oregon’s most accomplished and decorated. Their work offers the reader that unique adventure that only the evolutionary miracle of language allows—access to other worlds, both real and imagined.

The visual approach to this new series of portraits differs greatly from my previous series, In the Frame. Here the environmental details are kept to a minimum. The subjects have the frame to themselves and do not compete with the context for attention. This provides for a simpler, blunter, more intense encounter with character.

KIM STAFFORD

Oregon’s Poet Laureate, and Director of the Northwest Writing Institute at Lewis &Clark College. His latest collection of poems is Wild Honey, Tough Salt.

“Among the many forms of wealth,
in the catalog of luxuries, I choose
the right to be forgotten on a quiet
morning such as this….”

– Excerpt from the poem “The Right to Be Forgotten,”
in the collection Wild Honey, Tough Salt

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