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Losses and Gains
Passing art figures
remembered
as new talent emerges.
By Lois
Wadsworth
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Doug Kinney's simple,
elegant basket is now at the Jacobs Gallery.
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Nov. 3 saw a series of art openings that reflected the quality of paintings, sculpture
and mixed media artworks now displayed at local galleries. Before writing about a
few artists and their work, I want to note the deaths in late October of two major
Oregon art figures, printmaker Gordon Gilkey and painter Frank Okada.
Many printmakers have told me how supportive Dr. Gilkey was to them individually
and in his role as Portland Art Museum Curator of Prints and Drawings for the past
22 years. The museum described Gilkey as "a pivotal figure in the visual arts
in Oregon for nearly six decades." In 1993, Gilkey cemented his legacy with
the opening of the Vivian and Gordon Gilkey Center of Graphic Arts at the museum,
which a spokesperson calls "one of the premiere institutions for prints and
drawings in the nation." The first graduate to receive a Master of Fine Arts
in printmaking from the UO, Gilkey taught printmaking at Oregon State for 30 years.
A memorial celebration will be held Tuesday, Nov. 21 at 2 pm in the museum's grand
ballroom, north wing.
Last February I interviewed Frank Okada, a well-known and respected abstract painter
who settled in Eugene in 1969 when he was 38 years old and began teaching at the
university. UO Museum of Art Curator of Contemporary Art Lawrence Fong said people
came to study here because of Okada. He also noted that Okada was a graduate of the
Cranbrook School in Seattle, "the place to study art" in the 1940s and
'50s. Founded by architect Eero Saarinen, the school was enormously influential,
Fong said, and its graduates "could get jobs teaching anywhere." Okada's
works are in public and private collections throughout the Northwest, including Tom
Getty's collection of four paintings. Getty said he enjoys the intensity of Okada's
paintings every day. "He had a brilliance for color and with it a sense of serenity,"
Getty said. Okada retired from teaching after 30 years and enjoyed the pace of retirement.
"I get up every morning, seven days a week, go in my studio and paint,"
he said. "Frank was quite a delightful person and will be sorely missed,"
Getty said.
Six artists whose work is notable are currently exhibiting in Eugene galleries: recent
work by Michael J. Clark and Hoa-Lan Tran at Due Fine Arts; Portland painters Patricia
Millar and Scott Gellatly at Robert Canaga Gallery; Eugene sculptor Jud Turner at
Provenance and mixed media basket weaver Doug Kinney at the Jacobs Gallery.
Clark's new work includes subjects and techniques that represent a freer use of space,
line and color than his more familiar detailed, abstract colored pencil, gouache
and acrylic pieces. Several stunning cityscapes took my breath away. Painter Hoa-Lan
Tran, Clark's wife, is also showing some of her architectural pieces as well as her
signature portraits of Vietnamese women. The figures are characterized by smooth,
clear lines, elegant facial expressions, and intricately detailed textures.
Millar's paintings are of strong vertical lines of trees. In After Image, the soft
focus background of blue, green and violet has a watery effect on the red-leafed
trees at dusk. Breeze shows a narrow band of deciduous trees, perhaps a wind-break,
moving in wild abandon. Gellatly's serene landscapes are reminiscent of J.M.W. Turner's
use of luminous color and diffused horizon. They are not plein-aire paintings, the
artist said, but rather came from his memory of a four-hour drive through the Columbia
Gorge last summer when wildfires were raging.
Jud Turner's sculptural work still includes freestanding wire creatures, such as
the delightful bull that was snatched up by gallery owner Christy Bishop's mother,
but it also breaks new ground in moving away from found objects toward original pieces.
Port Orford artist Doug Kinney's work is in a show with three others -- his wife
Joyce, who makes sculptural basket forms; Eugene artist Eleanor Myers Morning, who
works in ceramic and mixed-media masks; and Westfir artist Shannon Weber's colorful
woven vessels. Kinney's baskets are traditional in shape and style and speak of exquisite
craftsmanship.
Ecstatic Vision
Salzman's second novel
reaches toward perfection.
By Michael
Kroetch
Lying Awake by Mark Salzman. Knopf, 2000. Hardcover, $21.
 Mark
Salzman's second novel, Lying Awake, is a profound journey into the heart
of religious faith written by a man who has none. His knowledge of Western religion
while growing up came from watching Charlton Heston movies and "A Charlie Brown
Christmas Special," he says.
Lying Awake can easily be read in one night. "It took just under six
years to write and was rewritten so many times I stopped counting," Salzman
told EW. "It was the most painful process I've ever been through -- like
stumbling around in the dark and taking every possible wrong turn."
The narrative concerns a cloistered Carmelite nun who has ecstatic visions brought
on in part by an epileptic tumor in the temporal lobe above her right ear. Her dilemma
is whether or not to have surgery to remove the tumor, which will probably stop her
visions.
Salzman made his main character a nun because their tradition compels a greater obligation
to participate in community life. "I felt a nun whose experiences were creating
a distance between herself and others -- even if it meant growing closer to God --
would struggle more than a monk in the same position."
Research for the book included reading the works of the founders of the Carmelite
Order, but Salzman said his writing remained flat until he actually met some Carmelite
nuns face-to-face. He learned from them what the cloistered life is really like,
which includes minor squabbles over what kind of juice should be in the refrigerator.
"They said that despite their efforts toward sanctity, when life is so simple
and solitary a small common ground like the refrigerator can become a battlefield,"
he says.
Most surprising to him was that the nuns said the biggest challenge they faced was
always doubt. "I thought their faith would be bedrock. Solid. Unquestionable.
But because doubt is my own greatest challenge as an artist, I felt this was something
I could directly relate with. Continuing on in spite of huge doubt is my own greatest
challenge as an artist and requires a kind of faith."
Salzman says during the worst part of his writing struggle he couldn't face his desk
anymore. "Writing in the passenger seat of my car was the only place I could
find that was quiet, comfortable and made it so I had no choice but to work. I drive
a Honda station wagon with a moon roof, and one of the cats became fond of sitting
on it, right over my head, every day while I worked. The view up there was a constant
reminder of how I felt," he said.
In his earlier novel about a cellist, The Soloist, Salzman wrote: "you cannot
make great music happen; you can only prepare yourself for it to happen." By
confronting his own doubt as a writer, Salzman has created an instrument in Lying
Awake that resonates in silence long after it has been put away -- a novel that is
quite possibly perfect.
Booknotes: Congratulations to all Oregon Book Award recipients and finalists:
Judith H. Montgomery won the poetry award for Passion. Craig Lesley
won the fiction award for Storm Riders. Marjorie Sandor won the literary
nonfiction award for The Night Gardener. Melinda Pittman won the drama
award for Wonderbroads. Ellen Howard won the young readers award for A
Gate in the Wall. The awards, given annually by Literary Arts, are the state's
most prestigious literary honors. ..Novelist Agnes Rands and nonfiction writer
Doris Winter Hubbard will read on Nov. 16 at 7 pm, Springfield Museum. ...PETA
founder Ingrid Newkirk will read from Free the Animals on Nov. 17 at
7 pm, Hungry Head Books. ...Carrie Brown will read and sign her new novel,
Hatbox Baby, on Nov. 18 at 1 pm, UO Knight Law Center Room 175. ... Local
psychotherapist and author Gary Reiss will sign Changing Ourselves, Changing
Our World on Nov. 18 at 7 pm, Hungry Head Books. ...Carola Dunn will read
from her latest mystery, Rattle His Bones, Nov. 18 at 7 pm, Barnes and Noble.
...Helen Elaine will read from Artichoke Heart on Nov. 19 at 1 pm,
Borders. ...Poet Dorianne Laux will read from Smoke, her new poetry
collection, and poet and fiction writer John Addiego will read from his novel-in-progress
on Nov. 21 at 7 pm, Eugene Public Library. ...Poets Claudia Lapp, Jenny Root
and Denise Wallace will read Dec. 1 at 7:30 pm, Tsunami Books. ...Poet Ed
Littlecrow will read Dec. 9 at 5 pm, Tsunami Books. ...National Book Award-winner
of Arctic Dreams Barry Lopez will sign his short story collection,
Light Action in the Caribbean, Dec. 9 from 1 to 4 pm at J. Michaels Books.
This will be Lopez' only local signing. ...Authors and Artists Fair, a fund-raiser
for the new library, will feature signings by 32 local authors as well as other events
on Dec. 9 from 7 to 10 pm, Eugene Public Library. ...The City Club of Eugene's new
history of the city, Eugene 1945-2000: Decisions That Made a Community, is now available
through a "print on demand" process. For more information about this collection
of 22 essays by well-known local writers, call 485-7433 or online at www.cityclubofeugene.org
Cherished Moments
On the back side of
40 at Sweet Creek.
By Tom
Dishman
This is, almost to the day, the third anniversary of an event that became for me
a midlife turning point. And I'm not talking about lasik surgery. For my 40th birthday,
I made a solitary retreat to the coast and discovered an easy but magical hike at
Sweet Creek Falls.
Sweet Creek wasn't my planned destination. When I left I didn't know it existed.
My original itinerary called for a cut-rate room in Florence where I could meditate
and journalize about being 40. On the way, I'd take a side trip to find Kentucky
Falls, which I had read about but never seen.
I stuffed the old Mazda with the usual necessities and fetishes. Hiking boots, Gore-Tex
parka, golf clubs, and a soprano recorder; First Things First and a notebook; My
Cousin, the Gastroenterologist by Mark Leyner; smoking jacket, Macanudos, Dewar's,
a loufa, and a plunger (my motto: cheap hotel, be prepared). I stopped at Oasis for
salami, a baguette and Pellegrino and headed out West 11th.
It was drizzling when I left Eugene, but storming as I climbed into the Coast Range.
Kentucky Falls is off Route 126, at the Whittaker Recreation area, about six miles
past the Walton Post Office. In the howling wind and pummeling rain, the Mazda, abused
for over 150,000 miles and with one bad cylinder, lurched and jerked up the steep,
curving roads that climb 3,700-foot Roman Nose Mountain. When I missed a turn and
found myself descending what the Oregon Handbook calls "a hair-raising spur
route to Mapleton," I stopped, reflected, and heeded my newly found 40-year
old sensibilities. "This blows," I said, and turned back to the relative
safety of 126 and Florence.
At the coast the storm had subsided. I settled into the room, poured a tumbler of
scotch, took out the notebook and assessed where I was at age 40 -- alone in a cinder
block hotel room on a dreary night at the edge of the continent. Concluding that
journalizing was way
overrated, I finished the scotch, lit a Macanudo, read Leyner aloud, and played baseball
with the plunger.
Morning was clearer, even if my head wasn't. I golfed, using the lull between shots
to contemplate where I wanted to direct my life. Right to lunch, it turned out. I
met a redneck at the Blue Hen. Still green around the gills, I told her about my
black day at Kentucky Falls. "It's a gray area," she reflected, "but
you might try Sweet Creek."
You get to Sweet Creek Falls by turning south off 126 (left, if you're coming from
Eugene) just before crossing over the Siuslaw into Mapleton. Drive about 11 miles
past some riverfront homes, small cattle ranches, and the occasional double-wide.
On the right you'll see a hiker sign, then a small parking lot and USFS picnic area
at the Sweet Creek Falls trailhead.
The Sweet family were 19th century pioneers who were lucky enough to claim this piece
of paradise. The first quarter of the trail is marked with interpretive signs about
the family and logging days. Easy to walk, well-maintained, with the payoff of a
gorgeous cascade at the end, the trail is a popular spot. But on a rainy weekday
in November, I had the whole thing to myself.
Striding up the trail, I inhaled deep lungfuls of oxygen and marveled at how the
water had sliced and eroded the huge slabs of rock that form the creek bed. For a
short stretch the trail is an elevated iron grate that suspends you over the edge
of the water. A series of shallow cataracts step down over sheets of flat rock. A
side falls merges into a roiling junction with massive granite boulders and deep
blue pools. About a mile up, the trail splits. Go left, and you'll skirt the waterfall
and head up (ironically) toward Kentucky Falls. Stay right and you'll be on the short
stretch that takes you to the base of the voluminous falls.
That's where I sat a long time. I thought some about being 40, but mostly about how
much I crave exploring, the thrill of being spontaneous, and the joy of showing places
like this to my kids. I raced the last shards of slivered daylight back to the car,
ionized with the discovery of someplace new.
If you're open to it, waterfalls -- the moisture, the roar, the constancy -- can
change you. Miraculously, the last two times I've been to Sweet Creek Falls, on the
same section of the road two miles from the trailhead, a black bear ambled out from
the woods, crossing the road 30 yards ahead of our car. The first time, I was shocked
and afraid. The second, I pondered it, welcomed it, cherished the beauty of it. A
little like bad weather in the mountains. And a little like turning 40.
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