art

A Community of Artists

It seems we far too often see only the finished product. It’s something we don’t tend to consider frequently enough—the work that went into creating a finished painting, sculpture, photograph or story. How many hours does it take to complete a true work of art? How many times did a photographer return to the same place, battling the seemingly unending disappointments of poor weather, bad lighting or any other number of factors, and then one day it’s just there, right before them, waiting to be captured and shared? How many readers sit down to enjoy a magazine or a book and forget the number of drafts, revisions and rewrites that went into creating that story? The more I see of the process the more I appreciate the final product.

This month we released the Fall Issue of the magazine and it got me thinking along these lines. Our cover photograph was taken by Michael Peterson. He had to spend hours out at Stonehenge waiting for the right light, the preferred amount of cloud cover and the perfect angle. I am lucky enough to see the labor of so many talented Columbia Gorge photographers as they submit their best stuff for publication. I am even luckier to get to tell some of them that their effort has paid off, and that they’ll be featured in the magazine. Even after hundreds of photographs, I’m always anxious to click to the next shot and see what’s waiting for me.

Any visitor to the area gets to take in an impressive number of brilliant and inspiring artists. Many residents overlook the galleries, jewelers, museums and studios until one day they are walking around after lunch and something grabs their eyes and sends their minds spinning. When we’re surrounded by so much natural splendor and so many opportunities to interact with this virtual wonderland we call home, it gets harder and harder to slow down and see the awe inspiring works our local artists are putting forth every day.

It’s easy to look past those that toil in studios, in front of a blinking cursor on a white screen or behind the crowds of people clicking shot after shot and hoping to get one good one. They don’t do it for the recognition, though as Rip Caswell recently pointed out to me while I interviewed him for the Fall Issue, the recognition doesn’t hurt. They do it because they love it. They do it because they’re blessed with an ability that not many have. They do it because they know they’re meant to, and they wouldn’t know what to do without it. You would struggle to find a painter or an illustrator that does their art for the money. Even those blessed with the greatest talent seem hard pressed to find financial reward for their work. They’re not complaining—they get something much greater from it.

We at Columbia Gorge Magazine were recently shaken by the fire that claimed photographer Blue Ackerman’s studio in White Salmon. It took not only her work and her place of work, but also the art of several other talented people. I have been lucky enough to work with Blue on a few issues, those staff members who have been here longer than me have been blessed enough to collaborate with her even more. It’s at these difficult times that my heart grows warm to see the sympathy and desire the community exhibits as they reach out to help a local artist.

I am so impressed by the ability of artists to endure. Just a week after the fire, Blue picked up the camera and did a shoot for the magazine that captured everything we needed to properly highlight a well-written story. I know our readers will enjoy the piece and the photographs for what they are on the surface, but we who know the events that preceded that photo shoot get something even more enriching out of it. We get inspired to endure.

Perhaps it’s my bias for the written word, but I think we seem to most often forget the great skill and patience it takes to capture the essence of the Columbia Gorge in writing. It’s just a bunch of black words on a white page, but somehow the best writers make it resonate with a reader. They make the simplest words or ideas sing. I try to read the region’s newspapers on a daily basis, as well as a few of the blogs produced by local writers, and I almost always find myself captivated by something I didn’t know I found interesting before. In our Fall Issue, Lori Russell made canning food a fascinating experience. It’s a gift of persuasion, a talent for pointing out the right things at the right time and an ability to capture someone’s attention with nothing more than 26 letters, ten fingers and the imagination that makes a great writer. I count myself  incredibly fortunate to get to read the rough drafts of our magazine’s featured writers, and then to see the profound transformation that takes place as they perfect each segment, each line, to create a great final product. I don’t know that I’d appreciate the finished work so much if I hadn’t seen the toil that goes into producing it. I have made it my personal challenge to find that in other works of art.

We are often lucky enough to meet and interact with those who do this great work, because they call the Columbia Gorge home. So many of the pieces that adorn the walls of galleries and museums in the area were inspired by the community or the natural beauty that surrounds us. I’m not sure which is a greater talent: the ability to capture the indefinable beauty that surrounds us, or the skill to make the seemingly mundane become interesting. I don’t really care to know the answer either. I’m content to relish in the fact that so much great art comes out of this community, and the fact that I get to see some small part of that often takes my breath away.

Tags: art, artist, blue ackerman, captivate, capture, columbia gorge, column, craft, design, draft, editor, final, fine art, gallery, gorge, inspiration, library, lori russell, matt, media, michael peterson, mundain, museum, natural beauty, pain, Painting, patience, photo shoot, photograph, photography, product, rip caswell, sculpture, shoot, skill, studio, werbach, work, writer, writers, writing

Art on The Interstate

by erika rench

John Maher, a fine arts photographer, walks around to the side of his house at Rowena Dell, Oregon, and points to his newest artwork. There, standing among pine trees, on a bed of needles, is a ladder painted the color of a sunflower. The 18-foot fruit picker’s ladder is out of place here in the wooden glen, so just imagine what 100 of them will look like perched on the hills along Interstate 84. The “Running Ladders” project, set to debut in 2011, is Maher’s first large-scale conceptual art installation, but for thirty years he has challenged his art to question its role in society. “Art is an elevated experience, it should engage people,” Maher says. “If you can take the mundane and show it to be as special as it really is, that’s art’s job.”

Take an everyday farm tool like a ladder out of its environment—its context—and add the right colors to it and, “You create a new context for it and raise people’s awareness of that object,” says Maher. The “Running Ladders” project is a tribute to small farms and an opportunity, through art, to bring relevance to their vital role in our society. For Maher, there is nostalgia in what small farms represent, and he sees a desire for our culture to reconnect with these farms, “to get our hands in the dirt again,” as he puts it. His sentiments go back to the 1960s and the back-to-the-land movement, but Maher believes this new push for creating sustainable communities is much bigger than that. “Farming is a big part of the landscape in Oregon,” he says. “What happens to farms happens to the environment.”

The idea of placing painted ladders along the interstate actually came from another common object seen across Oregon’s landscape: fences. Inspired by the conceptual artist, Christo, who in the 1970s did a project using fabric to create miles of white fence in California, Maher’s “Running Ladders” was conceived on a typical drive home along the scenic highway from Mosier, Oregon. “I had a transformative moment and I want to communicate that to others, many others,” Maher says…

Tags: art, farming, interstate, john maher, landscape, running ladders

Doing it All Again, For the First Time

matt werbach

It’s beginning to look a lot like summer. It didn’t happen overnight this time. The winter, though mild, had its claws in deep, and while spring is finally blooming all around the Columbia Gorge, the Cascade Mountain passes are still getting more than their fair share of snow. For a few long weeks, it seemed as though spring might not make it, and then all at once, the fruit trees bloomed just in time for the annual Blossom Festival, and the green shoots of this year’s leaves are starting to dot the branches of our deciduous neighbors. For some, it couldn’t have happened a second too soon, and for others, there’s an apprehension that comes with spring and summer in this area.

Our local business owners need that influx of spring, summer and early fall tourism more than usual this year. It’s become incredibly repetitive and redundant to say it, but there has been a world-wide economic recession, and when your local economy is so dependent on the presence of visitors from out-of-state or even other countries, it’s no wonder many Columbia Gorge small business owners are anxious and excited for the boon in business that follows the return of abundant sunshine throughout the region. From fishing guides, to winery tasting rooms, to restaurants and our local groceries, there can be no doubt of the imperative role our swelling summer population plays in the continued economic success of the communities that surround the Columbia River.

There’s already a noticeable increase in people, though at this point, many of them are residents who’ve simply come out of hibernation or returned home from warmer winter climates. As I walk the streets, it’s easy to see that there are more smiles, more waves, and with that, hopefully more optimism. They, the visitors, the tourists, the curious, and the adventure seeking, they will come. But May is that precious month that serves as a bridge between the somewhat peaceful and idyllic calm that so many residents embrace, and the adventurous, boisterous summer season that follows.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the last time I tried something new—something “touristy” or “vacationy.” I, like so many of you, live in a place that allows for an endless stream of new adventures, new sports, new restaurants and new art displays. I update the columbiagorge.com events calendar just about every day, and it’s filled with things I have either never tried or have written off as one-time experiences. What better month than May, while the streets and trails are just a bit less crowded, to venture out into the ever increasing sunshine and to explore the Columbia Gorge, my home, as if I’d never been here before.

So you’ve lived here for years, maybe even your whole life, but have you done everything you can to experience the natural playground you have in your own backyard? You’re a windsurfer, kiteboarder and maybe even a stand-up paddler, but have you sailed the river? Maybe you fish, but when was the last time you gave a fly rod a try? Or perhaps you’re a hiker, but have you ever strapped on a pair of trail running shoes with a few days’ supplies and fast-packed your way through the area’s wilderness? I’m sure many of you are nodding your heads, yes, you’ve done all of these things, but I know there’s something out there you haven’t tried, and that very something is what a vacationing guy or gal is going to come here to do. Can you really get bested—get out adventured—in your own backyard?

We’re not all athletes or adventure seekers either, I certainly know that. Maybe you’re a self-proclaimed foodie, a wine aficionado or an art connoisseur. Well, then the Columbia Gorge is your playground too. Have you tried the new varietals at Maryhill or Pheasant Valley? When was the last time you rounded up the family, or perhaps better yet, took your significant other, and headed downtown to your local First Friday Art Walk? And for you foodies, much like the adventure seekers, simply because a few months have passed, I can guarantee that new menu items are featured at a place you haven’t visited in years. I don’t know where, yet, but there’s some new renegade chef who’s taking your old favorite and spinning it in a direction you never thought it would go, and as soon as you or I can find him or her, we’ve got to try it out.

This very spirit—this kind of pioneering attitude—is a huge part of what has made the Columbia Gorge such a success and such a fresh new place, no matter how long you’ve lived or visited here. This May, as temperatures climb and spirits lift, let’s take a few days, a few weekends, and head out into the great-known, to find what we haven’t yet discovered in our neighborhood. Thankfully, we’ll soon be sharing our restaurants and trails with those who play such a huge role in the economic and social livelihood of the Columbia Gorge, but for just a few more weeks, the numbers of residents will far outnumber the visitors. For the next month, I’m going to be a visitor. I’m going to see and experience everything this playground we call the Columbia Gorge has to offer. And when someone approaches me on the street in June or July and asks where to rent the right equipment for this, or to find a guide for that, I’ll know, because I’ll have tried it first hand. Come this summer, I may give a different answer when someone asks me where there’s a good place to grab a bite, or what gallery they’ve got to see before they leave. Let’s all take a little vacation in our own backyards.

Tags: art, columbia gorge events, Dining, Gorge Events, Shopping, wine, Wineries

West Columbia Gorge Chamber

226 West Historic Columbia River Hwy., Troutdale, OR.
503-492-7912

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