Art of the Pacific Northwest - The Art of Portland, Oregon and Other Regions

This is the second in the series. I must admit that I've stayed in Portland only once. It was a last-ditch effort to fly out of Portland for my honeymoon in the Caribbean when Seatac Airport was fogged in. We made our flight, but alas, and after all that effort, our plane landed in Seattle. Another time, on our way somewhere else, we stopped briefly in Portland to visit a huge fabric store. Of course, we also drive through the city on our way to California every year, stopping in Canyonville. Apparently, I missed a lot of great art!

Portland Metro Region

This post will delve into the art of the state of Oregon and its seven regions. We'll begin with the Portland Metro Region. Since I love sculpture and especially bronze statues, let's start with the Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden in Portland's Grant Park. It's a fountain containing life-size statues created by Lee Hunt of three of Cleary's literary characters (Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins, and Henry's dog Ribsy) splashing around in the water. Henry's cat, Nosy would never be found in a fountain! It's the city's homage to one of its local writers who was born in McMinnville, OR and grew up not far from the park. 

The Oregon Holocaust Memorial located in Portland's Washington Park dedicates and documents both the victims who died in extermination camps at hands of the Nazis during WWII and their surviving family members from Oregon and Southwest Washington. Besides the wall, there are bronze sculptures of everyday objects left behind by those who suffered this tragedy. The memorial is a collaboration of designers, writers, artists, and landscape architects and is owned by the American Jewish Committee. 

Many countries have erected memorials of the holocaust, including 31 states in the United States. On an excursion in Berlin during our Baltic cruise in June 2019, our bus drove by the rather stoic Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Though visually impressive and vast, the monument doesn't mention any of the names of the victims and never acknowledges any specifics of their extermination.

The Ox Cart (1885), Van Gogh

At the Portland Art Museum, you can see lots of iconic artworks by well-known artists -- Waterlilies by Claude Monet (1914-15), The Grand Canal, Venice by Thomas Moran (1899), Number 12 by Jackson Pollock (1950), The Seine at Argenteuil by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1874), and Charrette de Boeuf (The Ox Cart) by Vincent Van Gogh (1884). I enjoy discovering paintings by Van Gogh that I haven't seen before, and not in the two Van Gogh books that I own. The dark colors are similar to those of The Potato Eaters (1884).

Seattle has Jacob Lawrence and Portland has muralist, artist, and teacher, Isaka Shamsud-Din. His Rock of Ages exhibition runs through August 2021 at the Portland Art Museum. His 2019 Juneteenth Calendar is also available online.

I consider murals to be one of the best ways for public art to be displayed. I also appreciate bronze sculptures and statues commemorating local heroes and animal wildlife. On our road trip through Oregon in February 2020, I enjoyed spotting dragon and cattle sculptures along Interstate 5 near Yreka, California. While researching public art in various Oregon cities, I was surprised by how little art is being funded outside of private art galleries and art alliance groups. I included Portland (a much larger city) because of the diversity and breadth of its art, although it was difficult to downselect for my post.

My intention had been to look for art installations in small, quaint villages like Port Townsend, WA. Unfortunately, many of the smaller budget cities promote and commission art to decorate their traffic boxes on downtown streets and in neighborhoods. You'll also see many bus shelters with etched glass.

Mt. Hood & Columbia River Gorge

The nearby volcano in the Cascades Mountain Range is depicted in Mount Hood by Childe Hassam (1908). This is an example of the art of the Mt. Hood & Columbia River Gorge region.

Another painting of Mt Hood is this one by German-American artist, Albert Bierstadt. It may also be seen at the Portland Art Museum.

Oregon Coast

Central Plain (2020), Darren Orange

The Newport Visual Arts Center presents its Online Art Show, containing the works of local artists of the Oregon Coast, such as Darren Orange, who paints abstract landscapes that are also somewhat impressionistic.

Check it out! 

Willamette Valley

Here's some art from the Willamette Valley, Eastern, Central, and Southern Oregon. Jackie McCartin's paintings of vineyards are colorful landscapes celebrating the wine country of this beautiful valley. They are reminiscent of the paintings of Don Tiller, whose work I saw in his gallery on my recent visit to Port Townsend.

Eastern Oregon

Artist, Steve Henderson painted Shades of Turquoise, a painting of the Wallowa Mountains of Eastern Oregon. The colors and softness of his landscape are reminiscent of the artist, Arthur Wesley Dow, art teacher and mentor to Georgia O'Keefe.

Central Oregon

Bend, Oregon has a wonderful site called, Art In Public Places. Here are two of my favorites from this amazing collection of outdoor art in Central Oregon.

Southern Oregon

I found this watercolor entitled, Skywatchers by Southern Oregon Artist, Betty Barss. I hope you enjoyed this tour of art from Oregon. Stay tuned for more art from the Pacific Northwest and artists from Alaska, Idaho, Montana, and finally British Columbia.

Art of the Pacific Northwest Series -- The Art of Port Townsend and the Olympic Peninsula

One of my readers asked that I publish an in-depth series, so I am posting about the Art of the Pacific Northwest. It will include art from cities in Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Idaho, Western Montana, and British Columbia. For example, in my Murals post, I included a somewhat famous building in Portland, OR, where, like Seattle, art is everywhere! Much of the art in the four remaining areas I have never seen in-person either because I didn't stay long enough or it wasn't installed until later. As always, I will try to find a personal connection to the city and its art to make it a more interesting read. 

Let's start with Port Townsend, my all-time favorite Washington vacation getaway spot. It's scenic, historic, recreational, relaxed, and family-friendly.  We enjoy staying at Fort Worden State Park and renting the officers' housing.

Here are two photos that I took and translated into art using the PRISMA App on my phone. The first is of the Olympic Peninsula landmark, Point Wilson Lighthouse (est. 1879) in the style of Piet Mondrian. The second is a view of Puget Sound's Admiralty Inlet from the Officer's Row at Fort Worden State Park, across the parade ground. Notice how the photo app created two focal points for the resulting artwork -- (1) the pink coat of the person climbing the stairs and  (2) the simple white triangle of the sailboat off in the distance.

[from my Art Around Us post in May 2019]

In the past, the starkly furnished houses only displayed black-and-white photographs from the turn of the century when it was used as a military base. Now that they have been renovated, new artwork has appeared. We were pleasantly surprised to see large needlepoint versions of Pinkie by Thomas Lawrence and Sir Thomas Gainsborough's Blue Boy displayed side-by-side in the dining room. My niece and I appreciated them. BTW, prints of these flank the entryway of the Cleavers' home on Leave it to Beaver.

My niece and nephew chose Port Townsend as the backdrop for their weddings, carrying on the family tradition of visiting this treasured place and adding to our collective memories. This photo shows another view of Pt Wilson's lighthouse complete with a moody sky, windswept shore pines, and local groundcover.

There are museums at the fort and in town, some taking donations for entry or with reduced rates with seasonal passports. We've gone to PT for years and hopefully this year I can check out the Jefferson Museum of Art & History (if it's open).

Another tradition is driving or walking to one of the beaches to watch the sunset. You may also visit nearby Fort Flagler on Marrowstone Island and hike to see the old military bunkers there or at Fort Worden, where there's a Marine Science Center down on the dock, adjacent to some of the camping sites.

We also bring colored chalk and draw our own temporary family art on the sidewalks in front of our rental house. Another family tradition!

I spent some time on Father's Day weekend sketching faces and figures with my grand niece. I was inspired by her T-shirt with the face of an alien creature and decided to make one of my own. There was a crazy old nautical spotlight perched atop a closet in one of the rooms we were staying in (The Crow's Nest) at the Palace Hotel. I sketched it into my drawing as some sort of shrinking ray (note the miniaturized horse).

Now for art in and around town...

Also overlooking the inlet, and between Pt Wilson and Pt Hudson, is Chief Chetzemoka Park. Since 1996, the S'Klallam Indian Chief is memorialized in a bronze statue by Dick Brown.

Like the famous "Mitt" sculpture outside Seattle's T-Mobile Park, Gerard Tsutakawa (son of George Tsutakawa) also created the bronze "Salish Sea Circle" (a.k.a. "The Big Nut") for Pope Marine Park.

Downtown, at the bottom of the stairs leading up to Rothschild House State Museum and the Bell Tower, is the Haller Fountain, affectionately known as the Greek sea nymph, Galatea. The statue was once damaged beyond repair, then re-cast in 1992 after a community fundraising effort. She reminds me of Edvard Eriksen's iconic Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen, Denmark, which also suffered vandalism (See my Baltics post). The steps leading upward remind me of the (Gustav) Vigeland Sculpture Park in Oslo, Norway.

On our recent Father's Day trip to Port Townsend, I visited the studio of acrylic landscape artist, Don Tiller. Here is his version of Galatea. I spent a while in his gallery admiring all of his bright canvases and marveling at the movement and the arrangement of colors. We discussed how he sketches his buildings then paints modified versions into his whimsical compositions. He is not a Plein-air painter. All of his paintings are sealed with the addition of a clear topcoat which gives a consistent finish to the varied layers of acrylics.

I was able to take away a few photographs and purchased some souvenir postcards that included bales of hay, as a nod to my brother who enjoys the subject matter. Tiller's colors are warm oranges and yellows that remind me of Van Gogh's wheat fields. 

As with many photos taken in a gallery setting, one can't help but get the sheen of the light reflecting off of the surface. You get the idea of the finish I was talking about.

I was also able to visit the studio of abstract artist, Milo Redwood. I opened the door to his shop and found him sketching and taking advantage of the natural light between the windows and a red curtain. In the window, you can see the green painting with the word, 'Pisces' painted in red in the top right corner. I wish I had seen it before I wrote my Zodiac post.

Milo was working on some small colored pencil designs on Crescent board that had been covered with two coats of black gesso. I told him that they would make great art projects for my fifth-grade students. He recommended using Prism brand pencils. Like researching the hardness of chalk pastels, you need the right softness so that the color adheres properly to the gesso.

We talked about Picasso, Pollock, and Mark Rothko, who he related stories about when a colleague of his met the artist.

Another impressive piece is Leafwing, a steel sculpture installed in June 2006 along Larry Scott Trail, and created by Russell Jaqua who sadly passed away from ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) one week after its dedication.

One of the most recent installations is Matt Babcok's Great Blue statue of a blue heron (with clock) that as of 2015 lives outside the PT Community Center. It bothers me that the clock is at an angle, but I guess it had to be rigidly attached to the canted pipe of the bird's beak.

We stayed in the old Palace Hotel, a city landmark located at the corner of Tyler and Water Streets. The Captain Henry L. Tibbals Building was built in 1889 and housed many businesses over the years. Each room is named after a call girl who worked there when the hotel was a brothel (1925-33), one of many manifestations. It is said to be haunted by at least 10 spirits.

While spending time with family in one of the common area sitting rooms, I enjoyed staring at the uniquely patterned stained glass windows.

Even the third-floor ceiling had large stained glass panels.

So that's Port Townsend in a nutshell! There's much more to see and do. And it's fun to explore and discover hidden treasures. We've been going there for over 30 years and I can still find something I haven't seen.

Born to be an Artist or Bitten by the Bug Later in Life

Bob McLeod

Superheroes like Superman were born with superpowers. Others become superheroes after pursuing other careers and eventually being bitten by a bug like Spiderman. Such superpowers simply developed later in life. Often, the careers we choose or have been chosen for us don't align well with our hidden talents. We may dabble in art as a hobby at first, then with encouragement and training, it turns into a profession, if we're lucky.

I've been doing art all my life. In college, I thought I'd combine art and science and study Architecture. I made it through the first year and a half, then decided to switch to Mechanical Engineering. My technical elective became minicomputers. My career eventually morphed into Software Engineering. It turns out that my superpower was computer programming, a creative endeavor that combines design and coding.

I only recently discovered the Superhero metaphor after watching the Quentin Tarantino Kill Bill movies. During Volume 2, Bill (David Carradine) tries to tell Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman) that she is a natural-born killer. He uses Superman as someone who was an actual superhero, living disguised as a journalist, Clark Kent. He goes on to describe Spiderman as a costume that newspaper photographer, Peter Parker wears as a disguise. To Bill, Kiddo is the real thing and can't escape it; motherhood is only a costume. This got me thinking about famous visual artists whose talents were discovered early and encouraged versus those who took up art as a career later in life.

I found that ~70% of the 25 artists I researched follow the Superman metaphor. The other 30% didn't get bitten by the bug to find their Spidey-Senses until later in life. I maintain that our talents need to be recognized, guided, and encouraged in order to develop. This happens through opportunity, parental encouragement, strong influences, exploration, persistence, trial and error, and sometimes our own internal struggles.

It's the same for Superman and Batman. Bruce Wayne loses both parents early in life and struggles for vengeance as Batman. His desire to thwart evil and a privileged lifestyle affords him an opportunity to use his wealth for good and channel his loss into something positive.

Superman loses both parents before coming to Earth and being adopted by Jonathan and Martha Kent. Unlike Batman, Superman only wants to fit in but needs to find a way to adapt his superpowers to life on his new planet. Some artists lost siblings or parents early in life and learned to express themselves through art. 

The reason we call them Superheros is because of their ability to overcome adversity. For example, Jackson Pollock was adopted following the death of his birth parents just one year apart. His struggles not only produced a great body of abstract work, but his alcoholism led to the fatal car crash that ended his life at 44. A tragic example of a struggling artist! 

Salvador Dali's older brother (also named Salvador) died 9 months prior to his own birth, which haunted him for the rest of his life. That must have led to some crazy dreams!!

     

The Superman Group

Spanish Surrealists Salvador Dali and Joan Miró, French Impressionists Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, and Claude Monet, Jean-François Millet, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, John Singer Sargent, Andrew Wyeth, Newell Convers Wyeth, and Georgia O'Keefe all began their careers as artists, many enrolled in art schools as pre-teens and teenagers. Many came from comfortably well-off, wealthy, or affluent families. Franz Marc, whose Father was a professional landscape painter, abandoned his study of Theology to study art at age 19. Impressionist Camille Pissarro worked as a cargo clerk, then became a professional artist at 21 (on the cusp of a Spidey). Frida Kahlo was a stenographer and engraving apprentice, bound for medical school until a bus accident at the age of 18 caused her to turn her childhood art hobby into a profession. Edward Hopper was a part-time illustrator for an ad agency before turning to full-time painting. Johannes Vermeer was an innkeeper and art dealer who became a great painter while fathering 10 children. The mother of his children must have been a real Wonder Woman!

The Spiderman Group

Jackson Pollock was expelled from several art high schools as a teenager and didn't really develop his art until the age of 24. Vincent Van Gogh was an Art Dealer, Supply Teacher, and Minister's Assistant who wanted to be in the Clergy. At 27, he became ill and began to paint, only to die at age 36. Mechanical Engineer, Alexander Calder was 28 before enrolling in art school, although he came from a family of sculptors. Wassily Kandinsky was a law professor before turning to art at age 30. Henri Rousseau also studied Law and became a tax collector before abandoning his career in his late 40s to paint. Other artists who began studying painting in their late 20s are Pierre-Auguste Renoir who sang in a choir, then apprenticed at a porcelain factory, and Mark Rothko who worked as a labor organizer at first. All of these artists are truly superheroes regardless of my contrived metaphor! It's still fun to learn about their artistic life journeys.

Whether they become reclusive like Batman, Georgia O'Keefe, and Andrew Wyeth or blend in with mainstream America like Superman and Norman Rockwell, artists often turn tragedy into something extraordinary.

Art of the Zodiac & Artists' Astrological Signs

I thought it would be interesting to find art related to the 12 signs of the Zodiac; in addition, to look into the astrological signs of famous artists. An encouraging discovery is that all signs are artistic. Many sources speculate that Pisces is the most artistic of the signs, though some say that it is Sagittarius. I don't put much stock in the ranking of artistic ability or sensibility according to birth sign. However, it is fun to see where your favorite artists are on the astrological spectrum.

GEMINI

"The Two Fridas" (1939), Kahlo

Since we're in the month of June, let's start with Gemini (May 21 - June 20). Curiously, Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy were Geminis. Mary Cassatt, John Constable, Gustave Courbet, Paul Gauguin, and Leroy Neiman were Geminis. As is my doppelganger the ventriloquist, Terry Fator.

Here we have a double self-portrait by Frida Kahlo. It's a rather creepy depiction of two women (twins?) connected by veins flowing between two hearts. The sky background seems appropriate for the location of the constellation Gemini.

I much prefer these Pop Art images of Marilyn Monroe (a Gemini) by Andy Warhol (a Leo). His art was on display at the Palm Springs Art Museum when we visited in 2018.

CANCER

The next sign, Cancer (June 21 - July 22), a.k.a. the Crab is an easy one to depict. Van Gogh's "Two Crabs" (1889) was on display at the National Gallery in London when we visited the UK in 2017. Coincidentally, Frida Kahlo was a Cancer, along with many of my favorite artists, including Marc Chagall, Edgar Degas, Edward Hopper, Gustav Klimt, Amedeo Modigliani, Camille Pissarro, Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, and Andrew Wyeth.

LEO

Our third sign is of course Leo (July 23 - August 22) the Lion. French artist, Marcel Duchamp, and American artists, Thomas Eakins and Andy Warhol were born Leos. In London's Trafalgar Square, around the base of Nelson's Column, are the four 'Landseer Lions' statues created by Sir Edwin Landseer.

VIRGO

"Peasant Woman Binding Sheaves"
(1889), Van Gogh (after Millet)

Famous Virgo (August 23 - September 22) artists were Grandma Moses and my personal favorite, local Seattle artist, Jacob Lawrence. Actress, Salma Hayek, famous for her movie portrayal of Frida Kahlo, is also a Virgo. The closest I can get to Virgo holding wheat is this painting by Van Gogh. He often copied the works of Jean-François Millet and painted the images in his own style. Here, he colorized the woman in blue gathering yellow wheat, colors much like Vermeer chose for his classic Dutch paintings.

"Woman Holding a Balance" (1664), Vermeer

LIBRA

Caravaggio, El Greco, Jean-François Millet, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, and N. C. Wyeth all share the sign of Libra (September 23 – October 22), a.k.a. the scales. Johannes Vermeer's painting is a fine example of one containing scales (hard to see but it's there!).

SCORPIO

Scorpio (October 23 – November 21) is the zodiac sign of painters, Roy Lichtenstein, Claude Monet, Georgia O'Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Bob Ross, and Johannes Vermeer. I am unable to find a painting containing scorpions, although I'm certain that they were used, along with snakes, in some religious art of the Renaissance. Here is a graphical depiction of a scorpion using patterns one might find in Zentangles.

Botticelli (1482), Uffizi, Florence

SAGITTARIUS

Helen Frankenthaler, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Edvard Munch, Diego Rivera, Georges Seurat, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Diego Velázquez were born under the sign of Sagittarius (November 22 – December 21), the Archer or the Centaur. Some sources say that Velázquez was actually born in June, which would make him a Gemini. Sandro Botticelli (a Pisces) painted "Pallas and the Centaur" in 1482. We went to Florence in May 2011, though I can't recall seeing this painting.

CAPRICORN

Famous artists having the sign of Capricorn (December 22 – January 19) include Paul Cezzane, Henri Matisse, and my favorite portrait artist, John Singer Sargent. The most famous Goat I can think of is the one in Marc Chagall's "I And The Village". At least I think it's a goat...maybe a sheep? I'm pretty sure that the smaller animal being milked is a goat (and a large one at that!). This painting depicts Chagall's birthplace, making it even more appropriate for this topic, although he was born under Cancer.

I recently watched Steve Martin's (a Leo) 1987 movie, "Roxanne", starring Daryl Hannah (a Sagittarius) and immediately noticed his character's references to Chagall's Blue Man paintings. He painted several works that fall into that category. Chagall's Over Vitebsk (Above the Town) (1913) was hung prominently over C.D. (~Cyrano de Bergerac) "Charlie" Bales' fireplace in the movie. BTW, also look for one of Giuseppe Arcimboldo's fruit-faced portraits on the wall in C.D.'s home.

Chagall's La Mariée (The Bride) (1912) also appeared in the 1999 movie, "Notting Hill", starring Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts. If you ever get the chance to travel to Nice, France, you need to visit the Chagall Museum. Many of his paintings are so huge that they fill an entire wall!

(1618-1622) Velázquez

AQUARIUS

Aquarius (January 20 – February 18), the water carrier, was the birth sign of Thomas Cole, Fernand Léger, Édouard Manet, and Jackson Pollock. The best I can do is "The Waterseller of Seville" by Diego Velázquez (a Sagittarius). The hippies and new agers of popular culture spoke of the "Age of Aquarius", though the song and lyrics popularized by the movie, "Hair", got it wrong, according to Astrologer, Neil Spencer. Wikipedia quotes him as saying, "Jupiter aligns with Mars several times a year and the Moon is in the 7th House for two hours every day." I'd imagine that even the Barber of Seville (not the water seller) would disapprove of "Hair" until the part when George Berger (Treat Williams) gets his cut off!

PISCES

The Fish sign, Pisces (February 19 – March 20) belongs to artists, Michelangelo, Piet Mondrian, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Winslow Homer. I love the 3D goldfish painted in layers of resin by Japanese artist, Riusuke Fukahori. His painstaking process of painting his goldfish is amazing and the results look truly three-dimensional because they pretty much are.

ARIES

Aries (March 21 – April 19) the Ram belongs to Leonardo da Vinci, Vincent van Gogh, and Raphael. "Shearing the Rams" (1890) was painted by Tom Roberts. Had the flying ram (Aries) been sheared then Zeus' efforts to save the children of Athamus would have been in vain. Only the King's son survived the long trip and sacrificed the ram to Zeus, its fleece becoming the golden fleece. Lucky for Jason, who benefitted from its healing powers.

"Landscape With Steer" (1937), Pollock

TAURUS

Salvador Dali, Eugène Delacroix, Albrecht Durer, Thomas Gainsborough, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Willem de Kooning, and J. M. W. Turner were all born under the sign of Taurus (April 20 – May 20) the Bull. Mexican artist, Diego Rivera may have influenced this unusual painting by Jackson Pollock. It's a departure from his later abstract expressionist drip paintings.