Stop 1 was supposedly to visit a creaky old potter, but an outspoken painter was there as a visiting artist. I liked how he turned things geometric in his landscapes and skies..............and turns out he teaches everywhere, including one on one, so contact number one was handed to me in the form of a sheet of paper. When the old potter came in, I looked around for his wheel. It was being used as a table by the painter, so I felt there was nothing more for me here and pressed on.
Stop 2 was supposedly about fused glass, but for me, it was all about the walkway in and the landscaping. There was a somewhat uninspired piece of walkway with cement and big stepping stones like mine, but the attempt at straight lined edges were crumbling away already, even though it was a fairly new installation. On my way out a man I'd merely seen at the first stop said, Hello again! I thought, yeah!, we're having a studio crawl. He must've stopped at one of the sponsoring wineries.
Stop 3 was about oil pastel, question mark? Right off Highway 20 and parking on a hill in a wet grassy hill, as I got out commenting, hope this wasn't a mistake, a burly man from "right down the street" inspected my parking job and assured me I'd be fine. So neighborly of him. Upon entering this place I was greeted with 2 or 3 ongoing and raucous conversations, and noticed a sign pointing upstairs, so immediately went up there. This was where the real work was done. I soaked in the specifics - stool covered in lamb's wool, architect's table, slanted ceilings covered in posters, a desk here, and work station there, a dog's bed, a bowl of water. One poster in particular caught my eye, and don't you just love the internet for giving it right to me:
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It was completely validating reading so manythings I already do. I reached into my purse and stood there alone, copying it all over by hand for Maygen. Downstairs I was greeted by the artist who said hello and asked me to sign her guest book. I explained what I'd been doing upstairs, for my daughter who had recently gotten honest enough to sign out of a military career to pursue her passions, but not soon enough that she still had to go to Iraq next week. Felt so normalized about it, not at all the scared emotional wreck anymore. I found a stack of cards of reproductions and learned this wasn't oil pastels - this was printmaking. She was telling someone about her history, a BFA from OSU, piece meal work as an illustrator as she raised a family, then name dropping someone local and prominent - a Swedish name that sounded familiar- who asked her to move back into her original passion, the process of printmaking. I listened and watched as she demonstrated the process, holding a card I'd chosen, waiting to pay her for it. She said as she took the card and my $5 dollar bill from me and moved toward the cash box, that this was the first print she had done after getting back into it, that it wasn't for sale and the original was hanging upstairs. I think that raised me a level in her eyes for having picked something so close to her heart. I smiled and wished her well as I left.
Stop #4 was profound. This was supposed to be about pottery, and as I looked at the work, the studio - it was so familiar, the little test tiles, the glazes, the wheel. I couldn't identify the potter for awhile, so I just lingered and observed. I liked the feel of the place a lot but near the door was a poster with photos of the raku process. They wore dust masks, and it was then I remembered.......doing pottery is hazardous to your lungs. Right then I knew. I can get where these people are fairly quickly as a painter. As a potter, it would take years and I might still stuck, and the health risk is too great. A door closing, easily this time.
Stop #5 was kind of an accident but there was a jewelry maker who does wedding stuff and another chance to drink in an inspiring world.
Stop #6 had a kind older man who keyed into my interest in his photography, again not what I was expecting to see when I came, but nonetheless worth the price of admission. Photoshop and making photographs look like paintings, he described his process and I am on a list if he opts to teach a class. I shook his hand as I left and he is missing his right thumb. I said, just like my Grandpa, only he had a little stump and I remember sitting on his lap playing with the stump. He blew it off with fireworks in his early 20's, he said. Check him out, Harold Wood at www.photoartsguild.org
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