OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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Abdullah Albohalika
Empty I-405
Photography: Digital photographic print
$850
Not in Use
When the coronavirus started to spread earlier this year, we sacrificed our social trait to maintain public health and safety. As social beings who thrive on bonding, distancing was a huge blow that left us as empty shells; deserted, hollow, and tempted to break the rule set for us by our experts as one of the few weapons we can use to fight against this invisible monster. Closed buildings and empty streets are evidence of our awareness of the situation. These Google Earth photos show how these frequently visited places are now abandoned. No people, no shared moments, nothing. Spaces as empty as some of us might feel in these tough circumstances.
© 2020 Abdullah Albohalika
albohalika.com
Greg Bal
Spirits of Braceros
Photography: Digital photographic print
2020 Gene & Cande Buccola Art About Agriculture Purchase Award, sponsored by Gene and Cande Buccola, and the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Spirits of Braceros
I see the future of agriculture in Oregon being much the same as it has been in the past: reliant on cheap manual labor. This work uses photos of Braceros, Mexican farm workers brought to the state during WWII due the scarcity of labor to work the fields. The images of the Braceros are from Oregon State University's archival collection. The photo of the cabbage field is from a farm south of Woodburn, OR, perhaps the same field in which some of the people in the photo worked.
About the Artist:
Born in India, Greg has a deep respect for other cultures and uses photography as way to humanize and connect people. Having worked on behalf of indigents as a public defender for most of his life, he now uses photography to address issues of social justice and diversity.
© 2020 Greg Bal
gregbal.com
David Paul Bayles
We All Live Downstream #2
Photography: Archival pigment print
$900 framed / $600 print only
We all live downstream.
The quality of water available to us is determined by the actions of our upstream neighbors. Each of the fields in this series of photographs is adjacent to, or within a few hundred yards of, a stream or river.
When I first moved to the Willamette Valley, I viewed the shifts of color in the farms and fields as beautiful mosaics, containing artistic qualities of tension and harmony.
When I realized these were chemical georgic landscapes, the result of an almost ‘paint by numbers‘ application of herbicides, the feeling of verdant harmony dissipated. I was left with the fading dead colors of yellow and orange.
BIO
David Paul Bayles lives and photographs in western Oregon. His work has been published in numerous magazines including Orion, Nature, Terrain, Audubon, Outside, The L.A. Times Sunday Magazine and others. Public collections include The Portland Art Museum, Santa Barbara Art Museum, The Bibliotheque Nationale, The Harry Ransom Center, Wildling Museum and others. His book Urban Forest, Images of Trees in the Human Landscape was chosen by The Christian Science Monitor as one of their seven favorite photography books of 2003. The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley created the David Paul Bayles Photographic Archive in 2016 as a permanent home for his entire life’s work.
© 2020 David Paul Bayles
davidpaulbayles.com
David Paul Bayles
We All Live Downstream #3
Photography: Archival pigment print
$900 framed / $600 print only
We all live downstream.
The quality of water available to us is determined by the actions of our upstream neighbors. Each of the fields in this series of photographs is adjacent to, or within a few hundred yards of, a stream or river.
When I first moved to the Willamette Valley, I viewed the shifts of color in the farms and fields as beautiful mosaics, containing artistic qualities of tension and harmony.
When I realized these were chemical georgic landscapes, the result of an almost ‘paint by numbers‘ application of herbicides, the feeling of verdant harmony dissipated. I was left with the fading dead colors of yellow and orange.
BIO
David Paul Bayles lives and photographs in western Oregon. His work has been published in numerous magazines including Orion, Nature, Terrain, Audubon, Outside, The L.A. Times Sunday Magazine and others. Public collections include The Portland Art Museum, Santa Barbara Art Museum, The Bibliotheque Nationale, The Harry Ransom Center, Wildling Museum and others. His book Urban Forest, Images of Trees in the Human Landscape was chosen by The Christian Science Monitor as one of their seven favorite photography books of 2003. The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley created the David Paul Bayles Photographic Archive in 2016 as a permanent home for his entire life’s work.
© 2020 David Paul Bayles
davidpaulbayles.com
Rich Bergeman
Kelp for Dinner #1
Photography: Digital photographic print
$400
The two photographs in this exhibit are intended to reflect two different aspects of the show's theme: “Tension/Harmony.” In the pinhole photograph titled “Kelp for Dinner No. 1,” I want to call attention the strain the world's growing population is putting on our traditional agriculture and aquaculture industries, forcing us to look farther afield for our food sources--including to the seacoast, where we are turning to kelp and seaweed as a source of nutrients. In “From Windmills to Wind Turbines,” a photograph of an abandoned homestead in the ghost town of Goodnoe Hills, Wash., I offer up a wistful look not only at the passing of time, but also at the ironic contrast between a broken-down windmill in the foreground set against the wind turbines marching along the distant horizon--a contrast between the scarce resources that doomed hundreds of homesteads on the Northwest Frontier and the modern-day harnessing of the region's wind resources that help light its new cities.
© 2020 Rich Bergeman
richbergeman.zenfolio.com
Rich Bergeman
Windmills to Wind Turbines, Goodnoe Hills, Wash.
Photography: Digital photographic print
2020 Paul & Reese Lamb and Brenda & Gordon Hood Art About Agriculture Purchase Awards, sponsored by the Lamb Foundation, the late Brenda and Gordon Hood, and the College of Agricultural Sciences.
The two photographs in this exhibit are intended to reflect two different aspects of the show's theme: “Tension/Harmony.” In the pinhole photograph titled “Kelp for Dinner No. 1,” I want to call attention the strain the world's growing population is putting on our traditional agriculture and aquaculture industries, forcing us to look farther afield for our food sources--including to the seacoast, where we are turning to kelp and seaweed as a source of nutrients. In “From Windmills to Wind Turbines,” a photograph of an abandoned homestead in the ghost town of Goodnoe Hills, Wash., I offer up a wistful look not only at the passing of time, but also at the ironic contrast between a broken-down windmill in the foreground set against the wind turbines marching along the distant horizon--a contrast between the scarce resources that doomed hundreds of homesteads on the Northwest Frontier and the modern-day harnessing of the region's wind resources that help light its new cities.
© 2020 Rich Bergeman
richbergeman.zenfolio.com
Nancy Bryant
Sliced Beets
Fiber Arts: Cotton fabric hand dyed by the artist
$800
Sewing has been a passion of mine since childhood. I find great joy in beginning with a piece of fabric and creating something that speaks to the viewer.
A career of 30 years was spent teaching and creating apparel and costumes for the theater. In 2005 I changed direction with a new focus on creating art quilts.
I enjoy experimenting with a wide variety of media and techniques. These include curved piecing, dyeing, bleaching, stenciling, rusting, stamping, printing, silkscreening, felting, and other processes to alter the fabric.
Many of my fiber pieces are inspired by leaves, trees, and flowers. Trying to capture the exquisite colors and textures of nature's bounty in fiber is an exciting challenge. How does one create a sense of blowing wind with stitching, or of sunlight glinting off a tree with narrow strips of fabric? At times my goal is to create a realistic depiction of a natural scene. For other pieces, I strive for a more abstract image of nature.
Other themes for quilts that I enjoy creating focus on geometric shapes – circles, triangles, rectangles or narrow strips - and whimsical themes such as flying hearts, kites against a dark sky, or fanciful flowers. For these pieces, I love to work with bright colors and strong value contrasts.
Creation can be a painstaking process, sometimes agonizingly slow, yet sometimes amazingly spontaneous. At times that means stopping work on a piece until I feel I am ready to try a new solution. I believe in asking for input from other artist friends when I feel that some part of a piece bothers me. In the end, I am always grateful that I hung in there until I was satisfied with the end result.
© 2020 Nancy Bryant
Ron Bunch
Dry Land Patterns
Acrylic
$400
I am a multi-media artist. I paint, draw, collage paper and glue it to surfaces. For decades I have interpreted and recreated my perceptions, memories, and emotional states into imagery. Patterns are a reoccurring theme in much of my work. I am strongly influenced by Oregon landscapes and my work often references the interplay of natural and human made forms.
Landscapes are a deep interest because of my rural upbringing and career background in landscape architecture and land use planning. Many of my remembered landscapes come from growing up in Central Oregon and being associated with farming and ranching. They reference my life-long connection to place and experience.
I am self-taught. I paint and construct collage in both representative and non-representative styles. My body of work is somewhat balanced between each. I also occasionally do fabric design and hand-build ceramics. I work out of Radius studies in Portland’s SE Industrial District and work is frequently shown in local and regional venues. Examples of my work and process can be seen on Instagram, @rbartbunch.
© 2020 Ron Bunch
Instagram.com/rbartbunch
Ron Bunch
Something is Happening in the Garden
Mixed Media Collage: Hand-painted (acrylic) archival tissue mounted on board with acrylic medium.
$1800
I am a multi-media artist. I paint, draw, collage paper and glue it to surfaces. For decades I have interpreted and recreated my perceptions, memories, and emotional states into imagery. Patterns are a reoccurring theme in much of my work. I am strongly influenced by Oregon landscapes and my work often references the interplay of natural and human made forms.
Landscapes are a deep interest because of my rural upbringing and career background in landscape architecture and land use planning. Many of my remembered landscapes come from growing up in Central Oregon and being associated with farming and ranching. They reference my life-long connection to place and experience.
I am self-taught. I paint and construct collage in both representative and non-representative styles. My body of work is somewhat balanced between each. I also occasionally do fabric design and hand-build ceramics. I work out of Radius studies in Portland’s SE Industrial District and work is frequently shown in local and regional venues. Examples of my work and process can be seen on Instagram, @rbartbunch.
© 2020 Ron Bunch
Instagram.com/rbartbunch
Susan Eileen Burnes
Bridge
Fiber arts
$1200
Following a career as an administrator in a psychiatric hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, Susan Eileen Burnes switched her focus to art and developed the first generation of her abstract fiber artworks. She also served as the vice president of the Textile Art Alliance with the Cleveland Museum of Art. In 2001, Susan moved to Rogue River, Oregon, where her current home was built. For the last fifteen years, she has served as Chairman of the Exhibition Department at the Grants Pass Museum of Art.
Susan creates layers of color as pastel pigments and acrylic paint are applied over a textural base of hand stitched fiber, while forms and patterns express the basic structure of material life. Her original artwork has been featured in exhibitions, galleries and private collections in nine states and Europe.
Artist’s Statement
Inspired by the rhythms and patterns of my environment I work to express the underlying order of life, listening intently to the artwork as it develops and informs direction. As I require the quiet, empty spaces to breathe, to dream and to create, my artwork is a realization of these natural processes. Through my art I intend to convey the experience of unity and harmony through the repetition of simple geometric forms in linear patterns.
These words by Constantin Brancusi express a guiding principle that I have pursued in my work. “Simplicity is not an objective in art, but one achieves simplicity despite one’s self by entering into the real sense of things.”
© 2020 Susan Eileen Burnes
susaneileenburnes.com
Kathleen Caprario
bioDIVERSITY-Sand Water Life 1
Mixed media collage, cut outs, gold leaf, and mounted on basswood veneer wood panel.
$650
My bioDIVERSITY mixed media collage work has evolved from and continues to ask the question, "How am I shaped by my environment?" and seeks to reconnect personal and cultural identities with the land. Repeated and abstracted forms observed in nature reference the patterns of natural areas and consider their mixed-use in the American West where collaborative spaces intersect and recreation, wildlife and resource management interact.
The landscape of Eastern Oregon is a study in dramatic extremes—colors, textures, forms— that evoke wonder and delight. My two residencies at the Playa Foundation at Summer Lake gave me the opportunity to witness, first hand, the consequence of water in the environment for both the natural and commercial sectors.
The work is created using mixed media collage, cut outs and, in the case of “bioDIVERSITY - Sand Water Life 1” composition gold leaf, and is mounted on basswood veneer wood panels. The painted and stenciled, repeated and abstracted forms directly observed in nature reference the patterns of mixed-use, and the resource-richness and diversity of the Summer Lake region that includes the Summer Lake Wildlife Refuge and numerous ranching enterprises. The cut outs reference the contour of the mountainous ridge line that provides context and backdrop for the rhythmic pattern of the abstracted pattern of the playa. The awareness that those shapes, patterns and tensions perceived are the result of tremendous change and ongoing flux, inspires me.
With gratitude, artist residences at the Playa Foundation in May 2011 and August 2016 and the receipt of a Ford Family Foundation Mid Career Artist Residency Award have supported the work. Thank you.
© 2020 Kathleen Caprario
caprarioart.com/home.html
Katy Cauker
Carpenter Hill Orchard and Vineyard
Acrylic
2020 Carey L & Glen S Strome Art About Agriculture Purchase Award, sponsored by the late Gayle Strome and the College of Agricultural Sciences.
My art has consistently revolved around giving solid form to ideas and emotions. I look to the natural world for images symbolic of thoughts and emotions to further my understanding of myself, communicate with my viewers, and explore how art at once creates and comments on contemporary culture.
I am particularly drawn to the natural stone and rock formations found along the coastlines, and discovered while hiking in wild areas and the occasional quarried stones found at landscape supply yards. Rocks in general speak of the history of the earth and take on characteristics unique to their individual areas due to geologic changes and their composite make up. Their shapes and demeanor often mimic animal forms giving them a feeling of life within that radiates out as their presence dominates the landscape.
There are many myths and stories throughout the world’s early cultures that reflect this shared sense of the innate life locked within, they also tell stories of life turned to stone, and stone attributes taken on by warriors for protections.
The marble sculpture by Italian sculptor extraordinaire, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, interpreting the Greek myth of Daphne and Apollo adds an appealing twist.
Encased in marble are Apollo and Daphne captured at the very moment of their metamorphosis.
My paintings here in the Art About Agriculture exhibition allude to rocks as the foundation of Carpenter Hill, and their mineral content required for the growing of healthy plants. Rocks are a constant reminder of the long history of the natural world and its resilience.
© 2020 Katy Cauker
katycauker.com
Katy Cauker
Dine Out
Acrylic
$533
My art has consistently revolved around giving solid form to ideas and emotions. I look to the natural world for images symbolic of thoughts and emotions to further my understanding of myself, communicate with my viewers, and explore how art at once creates and comments on contemporary culture.
I am particularly drawn to the natural stone and rock formations found along the coastlines, and discovered while hiking in wild areas and the occasional quarried stones found at landscape supply yards. Rocks in general speak of the history of the earth and take on characteristics unique to their individual areas due to geologic changes and their composite make up. Their shapes and demeanor often mimic animal forms giving them a feeling of life within that radiates out as their presence dominates the landscape.
There are many myths and stories throughout the world’s early cultures that reflect this shared sense of the innate life locked within, they also tell stories of life turned to stone, and stone attributes taken on by warriors for protections.
The marble sculpture by Italian sculptor extraordinaire, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, interpreting the Greek myth of Daphne and Apollo adds an appealing twist.
Encased in marble are Apollo and Daphne captured at the very moment of their metamorphosis.
My paintings here in the Art About Agriculture exhibition allude to rocks as the foundation of Carpenter Hill, and their mineral content required for the growing of healthy plants. Rocks are a constant reminder of the long history of the natural world and its resilience.
© 2020 Katy Cauker
katycauker.com
Jeanne Chamberlain
Diamond Sage
Oil
$750
I paint mostly out of doors and mostly from direct observation. The two pieces in this show were painted near Diamond, Oregon in the fall of 2019. I have long visited Harney County, both to bird and to paint. I appreciate the land forms and the quality of light in the high desert.
© 2020 Jeanne Chamberlain
Jeanne Chamberlain
Top of Diamond Grade
Oil
$750
I paint mostly out of doors and mostly from direct observation. The two pieces in this show were painted near Diamond, Oregon in the fall of 2019. I have long visited Harney County, both to bird and to paint. I appreciate the land forms and the quality of light in the high desert.
© 2020 Jeanne Chamberlain
Carol Chapel
Lichen on a Branch with Beetle
Mixed media drawing on botany-dyed paper
2020 Margaret Hogg Art About Agriculture Purchase Award, sponsored by the late Margaret Hogg and the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Here’s a confession. Sometimes when faced with written material about art, I read like this: blah, blah, art, blah, blah, media, motivation, blah, blah.
You get the idea.
To avoid having you join me in my bad habit I’ll keep this short.
All my work is autobiographical.
Whatever flits past by consciousness, that’s it.
I know we are a part of Nature not apart from Nature.
In the natural world I have never seen an awkward form.
© 2020 Carol Chapel
carolchapel.com
Karen J. Clark
Passion Flower Bud Rot
Oil, encaustic, and fabric
$800
Decomposition and regeneration are at the heart Karen’s work; in other words, life and death. The seedpod is tenaciously devoted to self-preservation and their forms describe unabashedly how they go about this. Decomposition and what it attracts – mostly fungi – look other worldly. Karen finds both ends of the life spectrum fascinating.
Making a good likeness of these things is the first step for Karen. Then the quality of media – waxy, goopy, rough, colorful, wet, dry intervenes, which changes the focus – less about realism and more about a community of objects and shapes which depend on each other. She uses oil, encaustic, and other things such as crochet and fabric to create a variety of textures in her paintings. Karen aims to create images that peak interest in both the subject and it’s making.
© 2020 Karen J. Clark
karenjclark.com
Karen J. Clark
Seed Pod with Insect eggs, on Seed Pod with Leaf, on Mid Century Modern Grass
Oil, encaustic, tissue paper, vinyl, and fabric
2020 Margaret Hogg Art About Agriculture Purchase Award, sponsored by the late Margaret Hogg and the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Decomposition and regeneration are at the heart Karen’s work; in other words, life and death. The seedpod is tenaciously devoted to self-preservation and their forms describe unabashedly how they go about this. Decomposition and what it attracts – mostly fungi – look other worldly. Karen finds both ends of the life spectrum fascinating.
Making a good likeness of these things is the first step for Karen. Then the quality of media – waxy, goopy, rough, colorful, wet, dry intervenes, which changes the focus – less about realism and more about a community of objects and shapes which depend on each other. She uses oil, encaustic, and other things such as crochet and fabric to create a variety of textures in her paintings. Karen aims to create images that peak interest in both the subject and it’s making.
© 2020 Karen J. Clark
karenjclark.com
Bets Cole
Hemp Harvesters
Charcoal
$1200
Although agriculture has traditionally been, and remains, a male-dominated industry, women have played a significant role on farms and ranches over the centuries. This drawing, based on a photograph of female hemp harvesters in the early 20th century, demonstrates their contributions to Oregon State University’s history of leading hemp research. Today, that research tradition has been renewed with the establishment of the Global Hemp Innovation Center. With new federal resources designed to encourage and empower women working in agriculture, the future of hemp research and cultivation could see significant growth in female-led innovation.
© 2020 Bets Cole
betscole.com
Jon Jay Cruson
Valley and Knoll
Acrylic
$1800
Interpreting the Landscape
Time and again I find myself where the road leads me not knowing exactly what I will discover yet finding the inspiration from what comes over the horizon.
Over the past 10 to 15 years I have responded to the vast spaces, clear skies, and bright colors of the farmland and open country side.
Traveling the countryside, I stop along the way creating one-minute sketches with a Sharpie. These sketches (more like gustier sketches) are not always literal. They are my impressions of what I see. Back in the studio, I compose these sketches creating my own landscape.
Being out in the field gives me such a different perspective. Sometimes I'm standing at the top of the hill looking down and at other times I'm at the bottom looking up.
© 2020 Jon Jay Cruson
Jonjaycruson.weebly.com
Owen Dell
Chive Flowerbud
Photography: Digital photographic print
$600
About this Image
This chive inflorescence, with the flowers just breaking through the surrounding caul, was photographed in spring of 2020. There’s a certain magic to the glow of new life emerging, to renewal, to the beginnings of the next cycle.
Technical Details
Sony A6500 mirrorless body, Tamron 18-200mm lens @ 18mm, ISO 100, f/22, 1/10. A flash was used to render the background dark. Processed with On1 PhotoRaw. Photo taken March 24, 2020, 2:50 pm.
About the Artist
Owen Dell is a devoted semi-professional photographer. He is also a licensed landscape architect, author, and educator. Owen lives in Corvallis, Oregon. Contact Owen for information about his photographs or to be added to the email list for new collections as they are made. Visit his website at owendell.smugmug.com.
© 2020 Owen Dell
owendell.smugmug.com
Tallmadge Doyle
High Tides Rising XXII
Printmaking: hand-pulled print media - woodcut, line etching from copper plate, hand painting with India ink and watercolor. Printed on Hanneumulle German Etching rag paper.
$1200
In my current work High Tides Rising and Underwater Garden series I explore ecological shifts due to rising sea levels. I have recently immersed myself as an artist-in-residence in several remote locations in North America: Ucross and Brush Creek Foundations both in Wyoming, Playa Art Science Foundation in the Oregon Outback, and Kingsbrae International Artist Residency (KIRA) in New Brunswick, Canada.
While at KIRA I lived within a 28 acre botanical garden at sea level on the Bay of Fundy where the highest tides in the world occur. I was mesmerized by this lush extraordinary place and also saddened by the reality that it may be covered by the ocean in a couple decades due to rising sea levels.
My work involves being present to the bodies of water and land, to absorb the colors, smells, sounds, and light qualities of environments rich in geological history. I layer this collected sensory information with both real and imaginary cartographic elements of an environment. This invented imagery is a mapping of sorts, an approach that allows me to combine a current reality with references to geological periods in the distant past and into the projected future of rapid climate change.
© 2020 Tallmadge Doyle
tallmadgedoyle.com
Judy Findley
Red Caution
Watercolor
$800
I believe I was imprinted to love agriculture from an early age. The early years of my life were spent on a farm in Nebraska where the tall corn made my 6'2" dad look small. I was in the first grade when we moved to Colorado and I missed the big gardens we had enjoyed on the farm.
As a young married person, I was delighted to find myself in Oregon while my husband finished a graduate degree at OSU. The opportunity to pick strawberries, blueberries, green beans! Wow! I loved it all.
As an artist, I love how agriculture changes the landscape with the seasons. I love the designs the tractors leave as they groom the fields, harvest the crops, etc. as well as the rows of vines or orchard trees marching up and down the hills. I consider it a privilege to live in Oregon.
I have done art all my life. As a youngster I drew on anything I could find, but especially liked an empty chalkboard. As a student nurse, I covered the margins of my class notes with sketches and doodles, saying I could listen better with a pen in my hand . I created signs and posters for any group that I belonged to because it was a way to "do some art".
It was years later that I enrolled in a graphic Arts program at LBCC and had drawing classes, which I loved. I took workshops from well- known watercolor artists and honed my skills. James Kirk, Carolyne Buchannan, Charles Reid, Judy Morris, to name a few.
I treasure the two watercolor/sketching trips I took to France, spending time in
Provence, the Dordogne Valley and Burgundy. Pleine Aire painting with Vistas and Vineyards is also a great way to interact with agriculture in our area.
As an artist, I keep a lookout for those unexpected glimpses of beauty that we often walk right by. It is a joyful thing to sit outdoors quietly observing and trying to capture the beauty that is right before our eyes. To capture that moment, or to enlarge that tiny detail so that it can be enjoyed long after the moment has passed, is what keeps me returning again and again to my paints and sketchbook.
Memberships and associations:
Corvallis Art Guild
Watercolor Society of Oregon
Oregon Women for Agriculture Purchase Award, which appears in This Bountiful Place, Art about Agriculture
© 2020 Judy Findley
Judy Findley
Spring Broccoli
Watercolor
$400
I believe I was imprinted to love agriculture from an early age. The early years of my life were spent on a farm in Nebraska where the tall corn made my 6'2" dad look small. I was in the first grade when we moved to Colorado and I missed the big gardens we had enjoyed on the farm.
As a young married person, I was delighted to find myself in Oregon while my husband finished a graduate degree at OSU. The opportunity to pick strawberries, blueberries, green beans! Wow! I loved it all.
As an artist, I love how agriculture changes the landscape with the seasons. I love the designs the tractors leave as they groom the fields, harvest the crops, etc. as well as the rows of vines or orchard trees marching up and down the hills. I consider it a privilege to live in Oregon.
I have done art all my life. As a youngster I drew on anything I could find, but especially liked an empty chalkboard. As a student nurse, I covered the margins of my class notes with sketches and doodles, saying I could listen better with a pen in my hand . I created signs and posters for any group that I belonged to because it was a way to "do some art".
It was years later that I enrolled in a graphic Arts program at LBCC and had drawing classes, which I loved. I took workshops from well- known watercolor artists and honed my skills. James Kirk, Carolyne Buchannan, Charles Reid, Judy Morris, to name a few.
I treasure the two watercolor/sketching trips I took to France, spending time in
Provence, the Dordogne Valley and Burgundy. Pleine Aire painting with Vistas and Vineyards is also a great way to interact with agriculture in our area.
As an artist, I keep a lookout for those unexpected glimpses of beauty that we often walk right by. It is a joyful thing to sit outdoors quietly observing and trying to capture the beauty that is right before our eyes. To capture that moment, or to enlarge that tiny detail so that it can be enjoyed long after the moment has passed, is what keeps me returning again and again to my paints and sketchbook.
Memberships and associations:
Corvallis Art Guild
Watercolor Society of Oregon
Oregon Women for Agriculture Purchase Award, which appears in This Bountiful Place, Art about Agriculture
© 2020 Judy Findley
McKenzie Floyd
Shelf Life
Textile sculpture and acrylic paint
$850
Artwork Statement
For hundreds of years, strawberries have been selectively bred and hybridized for traits such as size, flavor, color, and disease resistance. Despite this careful and long-standing cultivation, harvesting methods have not changed significantly due to the berries’ delicacy. Additionally, they still have a relatively short shelf life and are subject to rot. As recently as this year, new strawberry varieties boasting significantly longer shelf lives have been introduced. Such innovations in agricultural breeding could result in increases in profits for producers and retailers, as well as a reduction in food waste. This piece addresses the dichotomies inherent to every organism’s existence – life and death, growth and decay – and the delicate balance between them that must be maintained in the agricultural industry.
Artist Statement
I believe in science and its role as the foundation of all we see around us, including art. Art is inexorably entwined with history, technology, and economics, and therefore it cannot be made in a vacuum. I am curious not only about the end result of the artistic process, but every element that goes into it. I have made, conserved, analyzed, written about, and taught art. I have crafted artists’ tools and re-created artistic processes that were used centuries ago.
I interweave each of these approaches into my creative process. In the studio, I work with paint, fabric, and found objects. I revel in the use of instruments, from sewing machine to paintbrush. I love the tactility of fabric, how it allows for manipulation, shape, and embellishment. It is the pulling of threads, the mixing of paint that gives my work depth and meaning. Rooted in a foundation of plein air painting, my art is based on the observation of natural and human beauty.
© 2020 McKenzie Floyd
Eric French
COVID Tension Threatens Dairy Harmony
Photography: Digital photographic print
2020 Betty Brose Art About Agriculture Purchase Award, sponsored by Betty Brose and the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Covid Clouds Threaten OSU Dairy and Fields
The window to my photography always narrows to MOOD. I have become obsessed with micro-observing everything I see during outdoor excursions. Sentiments, lighting, distance from subject,, horizon line, and most importantly, subject matter... all race through my mind as I pause (usually for no apparent reason to others that accompany me) and seriously observe a potential subject to photograph. I stand there analyzing with all the above factors and if I am moved emotionally, I prepare the framing for a take. I choose from three cameras, each technically different than the other when trying to maximize and image toward the MOOD that I desire. These are: Iphone; Nikon DSR; and a hand built Camera Obscura.
In the case of my art presented for this exhibit, I was immediately moved by something but initially I could not make out what it was. Then I saw the dichotomy between the nasty and ominous clouds and the PEACE AND HARMONY of the OSU Dairy and its fields, gently blowing in the breeze. At this point, I wanted to maximize the affect that I needed. This occurred with exposure and time of day. Once I had an image that I was pleased with, I post-processed to assist in my desired exposure, contrast, image softness and deciding then that I needed to make the print stark, to maximize the effect of the ominous clouds over the dairy. In addition, to assist the sentiment, I elected to make the image a pure black and white a-la Ansel Adams, without the sepia enhancement that is seen in most black and white prints today.
Falling in line with the selection of the Dairy, it represents the essence of what a properly run dairy should be in the FUTURE. There should be no substitute for the natural process of the essential products from any dairy for public consumption. The future means to keep the products pure, and not to succumb to technologies that enhance the products with additives or processes that change the nutritive composition. At the same time, the future means to continually seek innovation of non-obtrusive advances through science.
© 2020 Eric French
Priscilla Hanson
Point Counterpoint
Mixed media
$850
Tension, harmony. Point, counterpoint. At first glance, the triangular shapes of Mt. Hood and the barn are two points in opposition, but on further reflection they speak of a balance between the natural forms of the wilderness and the built environment of agricultural production. We overlay natural forms with grids and boundaries and names, which facilitates our use of them. The fertile land fanning out from the mountain has been divided into acreage and planted with orchards. Fruit production excels in the Hood River Valley. Point Counterpoint portrays the harmony, the balance between the two points.
© 2020 Priscilla Hanson
phansonart.com
Susan Harrington
Umpqua Mariposa Lily
Oil
$2500
I am an oil painter in Portland, Oregon and I create work that is about humanity’s relationship to the environment.
The painting included in this show is from my latest project, a series of paintings that focuses on some of the endangered plant species that are native to Oregon and are threatened due to urban and agricultural development, cattle grazing, recreational activity, habitat loss, wildfire and climate change. The piece in this exhibit is of the Umpqua Mariposa Lily, a plant that lives primarily in the Umpqua River basin in Douglas County, where it occurs in at least 15 locations. It has been categorized as endangered due to habitat loss driven primarily by cattle grazing, logging and agricultural development.
I’ve painted this series based on the botanical style of the late 18th century placing the plant front and center in the foreground with a suggested landscape behind it. The botanical paintings of that time were created to document plant species (no photography yet), to assist botanists to categorize them and expose scientists around the world to plants of countries foreign to them. I’m not intending my paintings in this series to be botanical “studies” - where the concept or idea of the painting is about the details of the plant itself, although they are accurate enough to be regarded that way. Rather my purpose is to bring these endangered plants to people’s attention to create greater awareness to the fact that these beautiful plants are threatened – mostly due to us and how we live - and that we could lose them forever without most of us ever having seen them or even known their names.
If you’d like to see more in this endangered plant series as well as my other paintings, please visit my website at: www.susanharringtonstudio.com.
© 2020 Susan Harrington
susanharringtonstudio.com
Eileen Hearne
Valentines Painting 2
Acrylic
$150
Being involved in a fishing family has been a rewarding and sometimes heart breaking adventure. We bought our boat in 1990 experiencing many years of tension and harmony. The ocean can be very generous in her gifts and also very harsh. We’ve lost many friends to the “Davey Jones Locker “over the years. Our family has seen many more regulations, permits and quota shares have become a reality. Fishing is multigenerational and a close, yet, competitive community. Our boat has participated in scientific research over the past 10 years. The scientific community and the fishing community work together.
I like to paint many of the boats I see every day in the harbor. There is always a changing array. We have a working harbor. Seeking to capture the hard work, perseverance and dedication to the industry I pick up my paint brushes and attempt to portray the industry. This is our work place. We’re here to provide the public an excellent, fresh, protein product. Everyone loves to eat fish when they come to the coast, it’s a good education to see the boats in the harbor at work. Often fishermen display the flag on their boats as a sign of pride in their work and country and I like to include that in my paintings.
Painting is my hobby and friend. I have taught art in afterschool programs and the visual arts center in my town. It’s important for kids to know they have a friend in art. Everyone ends up spending some time with themselves and art is a good way to get to know oneself.
Some of my paintings can be seen in the Fish Peddlers Market’, Gino’s and Main Sail on the Bayfront in Newport, Or.
© 2020 Eileen Hearne
Don Hudgins
Now What #4
Printmaking
$800
The imagery I create in my prints and paintings, is reflective of the struggles and challenges facing people in everyday life. The deeply personalized images serve as metaphors for existence and autonomy as a human being.
“I really like your prints. At first, they don't strike me as funny,
then they strike me as very funny, then they are a little too close to home.
I like their thought-provoking quality.”
- Deanne Beausoleil, Director, Gretchen Schuette Art Gallery
Now What? Is about making the next decision once you attain a goal. What did Br’er Rabbit do once he was cast into the briar patch? Does he make good on his escape or is he destined to be captured once again. Is he free? Or someone’s dinner?
The bunny, which is recurrent in many of my images, is sometimes a stand in for myself and sometimes a metaphor for humanity as a whole.
My prints are created utilizing block printing on a manual speedball roller press using water-based inks and acrylic paints. Color effects are achieved by multiple passes through the press with brayer, brush and stomp applications to soft carve printing blocks. While similarities exist within a series of prints; each print is a unique work unto itself. I do not produce giclee or other reproductions, thereby maintaining the authenticity and integrity of each print.
© 2020 Don Hudgins
donhudgins.com
George Johanson
Floaters
Acrylic
$5000
Floaters
“Floaters” is one in a series of paintings that I have done over the past several years involving figures and floatation devices. As with a lot of my work, the inspiration starts with something I observe, an event or my viewing some particular subject.
In this case it was the yearly “Big Float” celebration at the waterfront in Portland. The variety of shapes and forms of the various inner tubes and floating devises were a visual feast. And the juxtaposition of people with these devises became very provocative visually.
In developing paintings around his theme, I began to think about people and water and the relationship of that to the warming climate and rising seas. In this particular painting there is an ambiguity about who the rafters are and about what they are doing. Are they fishing, paddling, having fun, or are they survivors of some kind of flood? The sky suggests the aftermath of a storm and the shapes in the foreground, while they are sharply rendered, and seem specific, are open to interpretation. Floating houses? bottles? ships? Their shapes form some kind of flotsam, some kind of debris.
These are the overtones that interest me. And the extremes of weather, pollution, the uses and abuses of water are all factors that have a profound effect on, and relationship to, agriculture.
© 2020 George Johanson
johansonfinearts.com
Mary Josephson
Vertumnus and Pomona 4
Ceramic
$3200
Using commonplace events as connecter and metaphor, I seek universal elements to mirror our humanity, those things that bind us together-community, family, wilderness, animals, agriculture, work, and play- rather than divide us. I include people of diverse ethnicity, often painting people whose color or age or gender renders them invisible. My work tells the stories of people caught up in the heroics of everyday life, the commonplace events that add color and meaning to existence, with an emphasis on hope in what the future may be.
This work is from an exhibition entitled Vertumnus and Pomona. Vertumnus was the Roman god of seasons and change, Pomona, a wood nymph was guardian of cultivated orchards, fruit and harvest.
© 2020 Mary Josephson
maryjosephson.com
Bob Keefer
New Growth 2019.4
Photography: Hand colored black and white
$600
I grew up in the American West and have always been entranced by our powerful landscapes. Using a traditional medium – hand-colored black and white photography – in a contemporary way, I've examined such topics as the persistence of old-growth stumps in the Northwestern rain forest and the role of tourism in shaping our relationship to the land.
My work grows out of a fascination with the interplay between the cool Modernist process of photography and the more personal art of painting. My hand-colored photographs are made the old-fashioned way – no Photoshop – using paint and brushes on large black and white prints.
Enjoy!
© 2020 Bob Keefer
bobkeeferphoto.com
Bob Keefer
Replanted Fir 2020.6.1
Photography: Hand colored black and white
2020 Margaret Hogg Art About Agriculture Purchase Award, sponsored by the late Margaret Hogg and the College of Agricultural Sciences.
I grew up in the American West and have always been entranced by our powerful landscapes. Using a traditional medium – hand-colored black and white photography – in a contemporary way, I've examined such topics as the persistence of old-growth stumps in the Northwestern rain forest and the role of tourism in shaping our relationship to the land.
My work grows out of a fascination with the interplay between the cool Modernist process of photography and the more personal art of painting. My hand-colored photographs are made the old-fashioned way – no Photoshop – using paint and brushes on large black and white prints.
Enjoy!
© 2020 Bob Keefer
bobkeeferphoto.com
Betty LaDuke
Kale Harvest
Acrylic on shaped and routed panel
Gift of the artist, in commemoration of the farmworkers of Fry Family Farm, Medford, OR
2020 Art About Agriculture Advisory Council
Bountiful Harvest
In 2010, Betty LaDuke was invited to observe and sketch the flower harvest at La Mera Gardens (Fry Family Farms) in Talent, Oregon. This experience served as an awakening to the marvel of local agricultural production and the people that make it possible. Sketches from regular visits to the Fry Family Farms blossomed into numerous large paintings on shaped and routed plywood panels that celebrate the dignity and pride of farmworkers during all phases of agricultural production across a wide variety of produce. In 2012, the Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport acquired Celebrating Local Farms and Farmworkers, a selection of twenty-six panels, for permanent display. Betty LaDuke’s 2016 book, Bountiful Harvest: From Land to Table (White Cloud Press) shares her artworks and story along with stories from agricultural workers, orchard and vineyard owners, and the Ashland Food Cooperative.
Betty LaDuke (née Bernstein) was born in 1933, The Bronx, New York City, to Jewish immigrant parents from the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and Poland. She grew up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood where early influences in her arts education included classes taught by distinguished African-American artists, Elizabeth Catlett and Charles White. College scholarships led LaDuke to study art at Denver University (1950), the Cleveland Art Institute (1951), and at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel, Mexico (1953-1954). In Mexico, she explored the diversity and heritage of the region, as well as visited the studios of prominent Mexican muralists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo. LaDuke founded her professional artist studio practice in Guanajuato, Mexico, and lived for one year with the indigenous Otomi people of the Ixmiquilpan Region where she painted murals that depicted Otomi heritage. In 1956, Betty LaDuke returned to the United States, where she met Sun Bear (Vincent LaDuke), gave birth to her daughter (activist community organizer Winona LaDuke (b. 1959)), and earned her Master’s Degree from Los Angeles State College (1963). In 1964, Betty and Winona moved to Ashland, OR where she taught in the Art Department at Southern Oregon University until retiring Professor of Art Emeritus in 1996. Betty LaDuke married Oregon State University Entomologist, Peter Hughes Westigard (1933–2011) in 1965, and had her son, Jason Westigard in 1970. In 1972, a sabbatical from teaching enabled LaDuke to spend a month in India sketching the people and their connection to nature, food production, and heritage; a trip that inspired annual travels throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America that focused on sketching the experiences of indigenous women, their cultural heritage, and agricultural practices. LaDuke captured these experiences and sketches in numerous books, including Compañeras: Women, Art, & Social Change in Latin America (City Lights Books, 1985), Women Artists: Multi-Cultural Visions (Red Sea Press, 1992) and Africa: Women’s Art, Women’s Lives (Africa World Press, 1997). LaDuke’s work with Heifer International’s study tours from 2003 to 2009 culminated in the Dreaming Cows series of sixty-two artworks and the book, Dreaming Cows: The Paintings, Murals and Drawings of Betty LaDuke by Susan Jo Bumagin (Heifer International, 2009). LaDuke donated the series to Heifer International’s World Headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Betty LaDuke’s artworks can be found in many public and private collections throughout Oregon, including Coos Art Museum, Grants Pass Art Museum, Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Pacific University, Portland Art Museum, Rogue Valley International Airport, Southern Oregon University, and the Art About Agriculture Permanent Collection (College of Agricultural Sciences, Oregon State University). LaDuke was the recipient of Oregon Arts Commission’s 1993 Governor’s Arts Award for individual contribution to Oregon culture, and the United States Society for Education Through Art 1996 Ziegfeld Award for distinguished leadership in arts education.
© 2020 Betty LaDuke
bettyladuke.com
Betty LaDuke
Kale Weeding
Acrylic on shaped and routed panel
Gift of the artist, in commemoration of the farmworkers of Fry Family Farm, Medford, OR
2020 Art About Agriculture Advisory Council
Bountiful Harvest
In 2010, Betty LaDuke was invited to observe and sketch the flower harvest at La Mera Gardens (Fry Family Farms) in Talent, Oregon. This experience served as an awakening to the marvel of local agricultural production and the people that make it possible. Sketches from regular visits to the Fry Family Farms blossomed into numerous large paintings on shaped and routed plywood panels that celebrate the dignity and pride of farmworkers during all phases of agricultural production across a wide variety of produce. In 2012, the Rogue Valley International-Medford Airport acquired Celebrating Local Farms and Farmworkers, a selection of twenty-six panels, for permanent display. Betty LaDuke’s 2016 book, Bountiful Harvest: From Land to Table (White Cloud Press) shares her artworks and story along with stories from agricultural workers, orchard and vineyard owners, and the Ashland Food Cooperative.
Betty LaDuke (née Bernstein) was born in 1933, The Bronx, New York City, to Jewish immigrant parents from the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and Poland. She grew up in an ethnically diverse neighborhood where early influences in her arts education included classes taught by distinguished African-American artists, Elizabeth Catlett and Charles White. College scholarships led LaDuke to study art at Denver University (1950), the Cleveland Art Institute (1951), and at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel, Mexico (1953-1954). In Mexico, she explored the diversity and heritage of the region, as well as visited the studios of prominent Mexican muralists Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo. LaDuke founded her professional artist studio practice in Guanajuato, Mexico, and lived for one year with the indigenous Otomi people of the Ixmiquilpan Region where she painted murals that depicted Otomi heritage. In 1956, Betty LaDuke returned to the United States, where she met Sun Bear (Vincent LaDuke), gave birth to her daughter (activist community organizer Winona LaDuke (b. 1959)), and earned her Master’s Degree from Los Angeles State College (1963). In 1964, Betty and Winona moved to Ashland, OR where she taught in the Art Department at Southern Oregon University until retiring Professor of Art Emeritus in 1996. Betty LaDuke married Oregon State University Entomologist, Peter Hughes Westigard (1933–2011) in 1965, and had her son, Jason Westigard in 1970. In 1972, a sabbatical from teaching enabled LaDuke to spend a month in India sketching the people and their connection to nature, food production, and heritage; a trip that inspired annual travels throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America that focused on sketching the experiences of indigenous women, their cultural heritage, and agricultural practices. LaDuke captured these experiences and sketches in numerous books, including Compañeras: Women, Art, & Social Change in Latin America (City Lights Books, 1985), Women Artists: Multi-Cultural Visions (Red Sea Press, 1992) and Africa: Women’s Art, Women’s Lives (Africa World Press, 1997). LaDuke’s work with Heifer International’s study tours from 2003 to 2009 culminated in the Dreaming Cows series of sixty-two artworks and the book, Dreaming Cows: The Paintings, Murals and Drawings of Betty LaDuke by Susan Jo Bumagin (Heifer International, 2009). LaDuke donated the series to Heifer International’s World Headquarters in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Betty LaDuke’s artworks can be found in many public and private collections throughout Oregon, including Coos Art Museum, Grants Pass Art Museum, Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Pacific University, Portland Art Museum, Rogue Valley International Airport, Southern Oregon University, and the Art About Agriculture Permanent Collection (College of Agricultural Sciences, Oregon State University). LaDuke was the recipient of Oregon Arts Commission’s 1993 Governor’s Arts Award for individual contribution to Oregon culture, and the United States Society for Education Through Art 1996 Ziegfeld Award for distinguished leadership in arts education.
© 2020 Betty LaDuke
bettyladuke.com
Bill Marshall
Hazelnut
Gouache painting on paper
$250
After completing my formal education at the San Francisco Art Institute in the early 1970’s, I began a career as a professional artist exhibiting sculpture, paintings and drawings in San Francisco and Portland galleries. Then, after the birth of our son in May, 1983, we moved to Albany, Oregon, and I began to apply my art background to landscape architecture, designing and building gardens, and outdoor living spaces for clients in and around the Willamette Valley. A profession I still enjoy to this day.
With my love of both art and science, and a passion for the outdoors, I enjoy exploring the many waters of the Pacific Northwest with fly rod, sketchbook, and camera in hand. This interest in fly fishing, nature, and the Northwest landscapes has become an important inspiration for both my paintings, and garden designs. However almost anything; a dried leaf, winding trail, the vast Willamette Valley fields, an Albany street scene, or a corner of our garden can become the subject for the next painting. I believe the more one paints, and draws, the more one becomes sensitized to finding potential art in unlikely places.
A medium alone can sometimes stimulate inspiration to experiment. I enjoy using mostly water based media including acrylic, watercolor, gouache, and casein, with the choice of the medium dictated by the subject, light, outdoors or in, and the type of expression desired. I have recently returned to using ink washes to establish value studies in monochrome before moving on to the finished paintings in color. An excellent practice for learning the values of colors, and simplifying the process of designing an image, especially while out in the field.
A word about technology and art, and how it has influenced my directions:
Having started my professional life in the early 1970’s, information about art movements and influences was nothing like it is today. So, by comparison, it was somewhat limiting, and many times biased in terms of what was considered “important art”. With the internet today, an artist can visit almost any museum in the world, research an artist, and/or art movement of the past, or present, see high resolution images of old masters and contemporary artists alike.
When used properly, such a tool can continually help to improve one’s work, enabling making choices with more wisdom. And there’s no end to the inspiration available at a touch/click.
However, there has to be a balance between spending time online, and spending time at the easel, with the easel‐time always being of the greater value to one’s progress, and overall satisfaction.
Currently I find myself drawn to the work of the realist artists of the mid to late 19th, and early 20th centuries. And most recently, the work of Russian realists whose work had not been easily accessible until now via the internet. Most notably the work of Ivan Shishkin, whose many forest paintings and drawings remind me so much of our own landscapes here in the Northwest. And then later, the more painterly expressions of Joaquin Sorolla, John Singer Sargent, and Anders Zorn. Studying these artist using the web has led to many others that were not nearly as famous, yet just as outstanding in their accomplishments with paint and brush.
So during these unsettling times, I feel so very fortunate to be able to practice my art, and exhibit the results in any way possible.
© 2020 Bill Marshall
deviantart.com/caddisman
Loren Nelson
Flooded Hops Field, Oregon
Photography: Digital photographic print
$550
Bio
In 1972, Loren Nelson picked up a Deardorff 4X5 view camera, and began to organize the world on a four by five inch piece of frosted glass. Nelson has photographed with film, and used a traditional darkroom to produce selenium-toned silver gelatin prints. But recently, he has switched to a digital workflow, using 35mm digital cameras and an iPhone to more spontaneously respond to his surroundings, and printing resulting images with archival pigment inks on fine-art papers. Portfolios include landscapes, seascapes, botanicals, and “Under Wraps”, a series on plastic-wrapped buildings.
Loren Nelson’s photographs are in numerous public and private collections, including the Portland Art Museum; the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Salem, OR; and the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts, Tampa, FL. He is represented by Wall Space Gallery in Santa Barbara, CA; and by the Portland Art Museum/Rental Sales Gallery in Portland, OR. Nelson is a member of the Portland Photographers’ Forum, and has been published in View Camera, LensWork, B&W, and Shots Magazines.
Artist statement
"If you want to learn what someone fears losing, watch what they photograph." ~Anonymous
This quote resonates with my approach to photographing, especially in recent years, as threats to our environment are becoming more and more apparent. For many years I have been content to make carefully composed photographs that celebrate the beauty of our natural world. But lately, I feel an urgency to photograph elements of nature that are in observable danger of disappearing. I am currently working with Willamette Partnership providing images for The Oak Accord, a voluntary conservation agreement by landowners in the Willamette Valley, focusing on their commitment to preserving and restoring Oregon's oak savannahs. My print in this show reflects concerns as to how climate change will affect long-established planting and harvest seasons.
© 2020 Loren Nelson
lorennelsonphoto.com
Cozette Phillips
Presence of Absence
Cast metal
2020 Brenda & Gordon Hood Art About Agriculture Purchase Award, sponsored by the late Brenda and Gordon Hood and the College of Agricultural Sciences.
My work is both reflective and formative, highlighting humanities past, present and future influence on our constantly changing environment. As a metalsmith and sculptor, I interpret natural forms by combining materials such as Steel, Aluminum, Bronze and Recycled Plastics to evoke the impact of industry and development on the natural environment. The tension between material and form speak to the perpetual transformation of our landscapes, emphasizing that nothing is static or fixed which highlights the precious nature of the earth’s resources and habitats.
© 2020 Cozette Phillips
cozettephillips.com
Cozette Phillips
Synergy
Bronze, polyurethane, and wood
$1450
My work is both reflective and formative, highlighting humanities past, present and future influence on our constantly changing environment. As a metalsmith and sculptor, I interpret natural forms by combining materials such as Steel, Aluminum, Bronze and Recycled Plastics to evoke the impact of industry and development on the natural environment. The tension between material and form speak to the perpetual transformation of our landscapes, emphasizing that nothing is static or fixed which highlights the precious nature of the earth’s resources and habitats.
© 2020 Cozette Phillips
cozettephillips.com
Erik Sandgren
Anabiosis
Pen and ink
2020 Curtis Family and Sheldon L. Ladd Art About Agriculture Purchase Awards, sponsored by Larry and Shelley Curtis, James and Stella Coakley, and the College of Agricultural Sciences.
In this series of images I have tried to suggest my sense of the granularity of life: of discrete yet recombinable elements shared between living things. Much of the science and technical knowledge about the recombination of nature’s bit interchangeable bits and pieces has been developed in my own lifetime. And yet, all the ancient stories place us in a world of great commonality with animals. There is a foreknowledge there. Awareness of both together is terribly exciting. On the other hand, Mary Wollstoncfraft Shelley’s Frankenstein also deserves fresh reading. Frankenstein is not limited to what you may remember from its simplistic cinematic interpretations. There is a tale of real imagination about the role of unintended consequences vis a vis the powers of technology and science. What is our human role in the future of species design and natural diversity? I feel we are on the edge of new realities long anticipated - including but not limited to Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale (“Is not the art that mendeth nature, Nature?”) and Shelley’s Frankenstein. Organic Machine and Anabiosis in which one animal is generated within another allude to our view from the cusp of unforeseeable changes. The nature of “husbanding” and the very nature of nature are in question.
© 2020 Erik Sandgren
eriksandgren.com
Erik Sandgren
Organic Machine
Printmaking
$950
In this series of images I have tried to suggest my sense of the granularity of life: of discrete yet recombinable elements shared between living things. Much of the science and technical knowledge about the recombination of nature’s bit interchangeable bits and pieces has been developed in my own lifetime. And yet, all the ancient stories place us in a world of great commonality with animals. There is a foreknowledge there. Awareness of both together is terribly exciting. On the other hand, Mary Wollstoncfraft Shelley’s Frankenstein also deserves fresh reading. Frankenstein is not limited to what you may remember from its simplistic cinematic interpretations. There is a tale of real imagination about the role of unintended consequences vis a vis the powers of technology and science. What is our human role in the future of species design and natural diversity? I feel we are on the edge of new realities long anticipated - including but not limited to Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale (“Is not the art that mendeth nature, Nature?”) and Shelley’s Frankenstein. Organic Machine and Anabiosis in which one animal is generated within another allude to our view from the cusp of unforeseeable changes. The nature of “husbanding” and the very nature of nature are in question.
© 2020 Erik Sandgren
eriksandgren.com
Deb Stoner
Blueberries, Blackberries, and Indigo Pear Drops
Photography: Archival pigment print
$1050
I make high resolution still life photographs of natural objects that tell a simple story of beauty. My complex compositions reward the curious as they discover details of the natural world they may never have seen. Drawn to imperfections in natural objects that point to their lack of artifice, I seek tiny phenomenal and ephemeral events to choreograph in real time.
A few years back, I received an email from Dr. Jim Myers asking about a certain variety of tomato depicted in one of my photographs shown at Portland International Airport. I replied that I thought it was the Indigo Rose, to which he replied, “Yes, it is!” and so revealed his involvement in developing that particular variety at the Vegetable Breeding Program at OSU. He invited me to visit the farm to see if there was anything that might be of interest to me to photograph. So started a remarkably interesting series of images that I made from the extraordinary fruits, vegetables and flowers at the farm. Dr. Myers also introduced me to Shinji Kawai, a faculty research assistant at OSU, whose farm in Brownsville is home to a half acre of haskap berries that are part of a project started by Prof. Emeritus Maxine Thompson with plants brought from Siberia and Japan. An invitation to visit Shinji’s farm was a delight in exploring the fruit’s unusual shapes, color, and, of course, taste! I’ve learned that my work relies on the kindness and curiosity of interested people, and am so grateful for these wonderful connections that makes my own work grow and evolve.
© 2020 Deb Stoner
debstoner.com
Deb Stoner
Haskap Berries from Shinji’s Farm
Photography: Dye Sublimation on aluminum
$1150
I make high resolution still life photographs of natural objects that tell a simple story of beauty. My complex compositions reward the curious as they discover details of the natural world they may never have seen. Drawn to imperfections in natural objects that point to their lack of artifice, I seek tiny phenomenal and ephemeral events to choreograph in real time.
A few years back, I received an email from Dr. Jim Myers asking about a certain variety of tomato depicted in one of my photographs shown at Portland International Airport. I replied that I thought it was the Indigo Rose, to which he replied, “Yes, it is!” and so revealed his involvement in developing that particular variety at the Vegetable Breeding Program at OSU. He invited me to visit the farm to see if there was anything that might be of interest to me to photograph. So started a remarkably interesting series of images that I made from the extraordinary fruits, vegetables and flowers at the farm. Dr. Myers also introduced me to Shinji Kawai, a faculty research assistant at OSU, whose farm in Brownsville is home to a half acre of haskap berries that are part of a project started by Prof. Emeritus Maxine Thompson with plants brought from Siberia and Japan. An invitation to visit Shinji’s farm was a delight in exploring the fruit’s unusual shapes, color, and, of course, taste! I’ve learned that my work relies on the kindness and curiosity of interested people, and am so grateful for these wonderful connections that makes my own work grow and evolve.
© 2020 Deb Stoner
debstoner.com
Amanda Triplett
Cell Wall
Fiber Arts: Salvaged fiber and thread
2020 Betty Brose and Margaret Hogg Art About Agriculture Purchase Awards, sponsored by Betty Brose, the late Margaret Hogg, and the College of Agricultural Sciences.
Making art in the space where fine art and craftwork intersect, I manipulate, layer, and embroider salvaged fibers into abstractions of biology. I create sculptural, performative, and installation works about human relationships to biological narratives.
Stitching, crafting and making were a fundamental part of my upbringing. My mother introduced me to sewing as a child, teaching me about cross-stitch, needle point, and machine sewing.
Within the act of stitchwork there is a deep connection to my family and my ancestry, threads sewn to mark the passage of time.
Recycled materials are central to my process and inform the themes I work with as an artist. I disassemble salvaged textiles like towels, sweaters, and t-shirts, treating the natural aging and deterioration of the fiber as a part of the creative process. Using needle and thread, I manipulate and sew the fiber into new form. Making becomes a mending practice, a way to rework and renew ubiquitous materials into something unique and beautiful. The resulting pieces are organic and biologically inspired, utilizing the natural tendency of fabric to crease and flow.
Utilizing surface, texture and vivid colors as my main tools, the work addresses ecology, the complexity of the internal human landscape, and identity.
In my current series, the work explores patterns, colors, and shapes shared between biological organisms. These patterns that make up our own human biology are echoed in the accretions of coral reefs, and repeated by clusters of mycelium in the forest floor. My work replicates these patterns, looking for the common threads.
© 2020 Amanda Triplett
amandatriplett.com
Yolanda Valdes-Rementería
Tension and Harmony
Acrylic
2020 Roy D. Nielsen and Margaret Hogg Art About Agriculture Purchase Awards, sponsored by William Cook and Gwil Evans, the late Margaret Hogg, and the College of Agricultural Sciences.
The farmworkers started working with tension at 4:30am before the sunrise.
Of course, been in Oregon many times: cold, rain, the attitude, dark days, snow…etc…plus the tension of La Migra...
But harmony.....How????
Because while they are working they are praying, singing, joking, laughing, and they are thinking of the future…Yes!... the FUTURE of their families.
The children’s education and better understanding...
Each day is a new beginning...
Scared, with tension...but with the passion and the vision that their children will have better lives.
Value, respect, appreciation, and accessibility in Agriculture. Better understanding of the hard work of the farmworkers. Risk and uncertainty are ever present in the cultivation of food and fiber. In view of our current crisis, the pandemic has brought a great challenge to this process. The full impact is yet unknown but we can sense that agriculture could change dramatically. It is the hope that the dialogue that develops from facing the problems will result in a spirit of cooperation throughout Oregon. We are in this fight together.
The Art About Agriculture exhibit’s theme "tension/harmony" presents an interesting challenge. To create a visual image of these words that are not very concrete is a undertaking. However, the suggestion of conflict is evident and the process of compare and contrast becomes a helpful tool. The painting TENSION AND HARMONY grew out of an exploratory approach to create an image of chaos and tranquility, of division and unity. The viewers Interpretation of the painting is very important for it measures the value of a visual language that allows people to connect with themselves and each other in...."Tension and Harmony".
My interest in art began at an early age in my native city of Ensenada Baja California, Mexico. My first teachers encouraged me to paint what was around me. Soon I developed a love of nature and found inspiration in its many forms. The ideas for my artwork is often a direct response from the landscape done in the plein air tradition, painted on site. My work as an artist stems from my fascination with the role culture plays in the many ways it enhances our lives. While my paintings are representational, I often explore compositions in an abstract way. In recent paintings I have used this approach because it makes me feel more open, feel more free to create and to be more willing to accept change as the work progresses, and be more playfully flexible. Abstraction also seems to enjoy a wider base of interpretation. It challenges the viewer to understand meaning and at the same time, it is more inclusive, more universal.
© 2020 Yolanda Valdes-Rementeria
Morgan Walker
The Farmer’s Dream
Oil
$4750
I was born in the deep South, into a family that had been farming for generations. In my youth I often worked with my father, raising cattle and then catfish in one of the first aquaculture operations in Louisiana. My grandparents raised soybeans, cotton, sugarcane, and dairy cattle. That all ended for me when I went to college, joining my brothers and cousins in the first generation of my family who would not farm their own land.
College brought its changes, and the world was changing, too. My long stint in higher education left me more confused than when I started. I knew I needed time to think seriously, and hit upon the idea of riding a bicycle across America as a way to do that kind of thinking. There was no particular schedule or plan involved, and I came to Oregon because my best friend in New Orleans had worked for a while in a lumberyard in Eugene. If I got to the West Coast and was completely out of money, I had someone to contact for a job. I never took that job, or the spontaneous offer of a position in the marijuana industry I got almost as soon as I rode in, but I did have a sense, in Oregon, of having arrived someplace. That was 1982. There followed a good deal more wandering, but always a return, and Oregon is the place I was married, bought a house, raised a daughter, and became an artist.
Almost all of my work deals with nature, mostly people in nature, and I nearly always start with the setting, or the world of it, to create a space to work in. In that sense, the pictures are theatrical, and have a built-in sense of narrative. I don’t ask that the narrative be coherent, because in my experience so much of life doesn’t make particular sense, at least in the way most people mean that, as having a single concrete and simple explanation. There is always a narrative in the things I make, generally very simple and direct- “There is this, and this, and this”. I have stories, simple or complex, that build as the paintings build, but there is no need to know them. I’m happy for them to simply be there, no libretto, but things seen, natural objects. They have to work visually or there is nothing to them. It’s a painting. The composition, the color, value structure… all of that has to be right, and is more important than meaning, in the sense of an explanation. The physical painting does have to be concrete, a unity. I can add a little history, and things I thought about, but basically, they appear out of the making of them, usually far from what I intended to do. Sometimes at right angles to what I wanted to do. That’s what happens. They appear.
About the particular painting here, The Farmer’s Dream, there are some things I can say. It started with an idea of a picture, certain things I wanted to paint. Most of them didn’t survive. I didn’t paint the painting I set out to paint. Late into the making of it I realized that there was something in it about a farmer’s relationship to the land, some parts known, industrial, others very old, archaic, anarchic, like weather, and rain, and pestilence. I recall a conversation with my father about why so many farms had failed, and how before making any big decision he would wait for a dream. Even in business deals I heard him tell people he had to wait and dream on it. He was religious, in his way- Louisiana Catholic, but connected to older things, and at need deeply, relentlessly practical. The opposite of religious. The landscape owes a lot to Giotto, and the West. The cow I painted from memory of the fiberglass Guernsey that rotated next to I-10 in New Orleans, advertising my grandparents’ dairy. My grandmother was intensely curious about animals of all kinds, and raised any she could get her hands on, including a number of monkeys. She started the dairy out of pure curiosity and interest, in an unused part of a barn. I think of her when I’m in Tillamook. The tree, maybe trees are the most important things in the world. The woman in the cloud came to me in a dream, right at the end, and that turned the whole thing into a painting about a dream. Not mine, the farmer’s. The farmer isn’t my father, the farmer the farmer. Is all that the meaning of the painting? It’s my interpretation of something that appeared, and it appeared first to me, but I don’t think it’s the meaning. I’m not sure what it means.
© 2020 Morgan Walker
morganwalkerartist.com
