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Books: Performance: Outdoors: Food:
Celebration of the Arts Heralded with the Mayor's Art Show and Salon des Refusés openings, the Eugene Celebration honors the arts in Lane County with good reason: The amount of creative energy in this community is extraordinary.
Even though not all local artists participate, 477 pieces were submitted to the Mayor's juried event, and 56 selected by jurors Judy Howard (Ashland painter and gallery owner), Megan O'Connell (print maker and UO faculty), and David Turner (director of the UO Museum of Art). Despite being smaller than usual, this selection spans a broad range of media, genres and styles, although three-dimensional arts are underrepresented, partly because of fewer submissions. The Mayor's Choice Award went to Jon Jay Cruson's large-format acrylic painting. This vertical landscape provides a bird's eye view of a long and narrow reservoir meandering down toward the viewer between rolling hills. Striking are the stylized treatment of the landscape and the strong emphasis on composition and color design. Earth and water contours create a rhythmic pattern balanced by broad, peaceful areas of color applied without visible brushstrokes — except for the slightly incongruous impressionistic handling of the trees. The painter has achieved a work at once vibrant and serene. In contrast, Kathleen Caprario's Radiant Evening is a tiny, dreamy landscape in pencil. A small white house perches on top of a towering cliff overlooking a plain bound by mountains. Sun shows through the clouds and a subtle luminosity pervades the lit areas, contrasting with the shadowed side of the cliff and creating a chiaroscuro effect. The drawing is exquisite, and the surrounding coppery metal leaf on red-toned paper adds a glow to the soft pencil texture. Portraiture also is strongly represented. Jerry Ross' La Vedova di Guerra won a Juror's Award. Ross paints with elegant simplicity, using few colors — black, blue, russet and flesh tones — to remarkable effect. The economy of the composition, with broad areas of single color, contributes to the mood of the painting and allows the woman's face to become the focus of attention. Her expression stays with the viewer: wistful, sad yet accepting. There is poise and self-possession in her bearing, but softness too, and a sense of mystery because of her expressive restraint. In Euphemia Wesley's Young Woman Seated, with Fruit, quiet hues and the subject's expression convey a pensive, serene mood, while in Michael William Lane's arresting large-format Portrait of Esther Garcia, the model's expression is more enigmatic. Though her gaze and body stance come out strongly, her lower face remains ambiguously without detail. The contrast between her red dress and the blue-green background contributes to the tension. Virginia Mae Sands' School Picture, a series of Prismacolor pencil variations on the second-grade school picture of the artist's sister, was awarded Best of Show. Amateurs of watercolor still lifes will enjoy the strong composition in LaVonne Tarbox-Crone's Seven Cherries and Yachiyo Beck's Afternoon Pears, and Emmaline Stevens's light, joyful touch in Tulips. As for non-representational art, another Juror's Award went to Jonathan Chiarella's mixed-media piece Tonight, a riot of colorful marks and textures on a wood panel left blank and burnished in places. Combined with her choice of colors, Jennifer Fogerty-Gibson's use of acrylic, wax, scraps of paper, writing, sgraffito and a glued number 8 in Fragments made me think of a palimpsest of posters, paint, and graffiti on a well-used city wall dimly-lit at night. In Daniel Peabody's Residue Panel II, a rust-colored residue of burnt powder traces a few parallel lines joined at right angles against a cream background, resulting in a piece of starkly elegant minimalism with great aesthetic power. In contrast to Peabody's use of geometry, ceramicist Jocelyn McAuley in Nebulous Diptych used an innovative technique — ceramic glazes on canvas — to create fluidity and movement with glass-like depth and texture: two soft brown geysers erupting in a sea of blue. Examples of whimsicality and playfulness cut across categories. Denis Mortenson's acrylic painting Lazy River Blues, an homage to Eugene guitarist Don Latarski, has an upbeat sense of movement and unusual perspective, as if the scene were viewed through an extreme wide-angle lens — fittingly so, since the delightfully idiosyncratic painting illustrates Latarski's journey from youth to middle age. Scott Boyes' drawing, Pages from the Family Album, derives its appeal from a playful cast of characters. Most of the few sculptures also exhibit whimsicality in concept and choice of material: Stephanie Robison's White Forms Coupling on a Black Cushion, created out of fabric and foam as a nod to stone sculpture; Shawn Weber's Concrete Soul: A Vase, mischievously combining a found trumpet and poured concrete painted black; and Annette Ooyevaar's Lamb Cloud, with a long list of media that includes children's underwear. Stephen White's light sculpture, Kaimana, possesses at once playful asymmetry — it could be the lunar ghost of a swollen pumpkin — and the grace and lightness of an aerial vessel. A few pieces openly seek to challenge us or make us re-evaluate our views. In Libby Wadsworth's oil painting Insinuate, the title word is parsed as "in sin u ate," and next to the letters stands an apple. Word and image interact to open up new meanings that echo off each other and question the patriarchal insinuation of Eve's sin. Rex Morningstar's mixed-media shadow box, Blind Men and the Elephant, is a witty statement about human beliefs that provides us with only a limited and distorted idea about the world, in parallel with the fable of the blind men and the elephant. Each niche at the periphery is devoted to one of the world's belief systems, bar one that cleverly remains "available." An iron eye with a convex mirror as a pupil occupies the center of the piece, together with elephant figurines: I am shown that I see only a reflection of my own psyche. This year's selection of photographic works is larger than usual. A Juror's Award went to Shelley M. Forster's set of four photographs, Boulder Dreams. The focal point of each image is in the far distance, providing the viewer with a mostly blurry image and thereby subverting expectations, though I found little reward for the trouble. Examples of digital prints were also underwhelming in terms of composition and print quality. Classic, beautifully executed black and white images include Michael Hanner's panoramic view of the Jardin du Luxembourg; Garry Fritz' Clouds, whose greys, upon close observation, are subtly toned with green and purplish casts that lend the work a watercolor quality; and Bob Sanov's high-quality print Abbey Country, a crisp view of a canyon and wide sky in which flying clouds provide drama and contrast with the severe lines of abrupt cliffs. In a less traditional vein, Shiley M. Collins's Winter Sunset, a Polaroid enhancement, is a painterly triptych of icy tree branches against a sun setting in cool tones of blue, pink and purple that reinforce the winter mood. Robert Schofield's Secret Life gives us a mysterious, romantic vision of a woman standing underwater next to the long stem of a lily pad. Terri Warpinski's Ripple Effect is a panoramic collage representing a canoe scene on a lake surrounded by woods. The canoe in the central image creates ripples that extend to the photographs on either side. Words written in a circular pattern on the lower margins prolong those ripples and trigger a rippling effect in the viewer. Also notable is Lawrence Getubig's large-format Iconoclast, Series #3. The contrast between the white angel figure and its background painted over in black acrylic heightens the emotional impact of the photograph, and the brushstrokes add turmoil and texture to the monochrome background. The Viewer's Choice Award will be announced during the First Friday Art Walk, October 3.
Medicine Woman
ALCHEMICAL HEALING: A Guide to Spiritual, Physical, and Transformational Medicine by Nicki Scully. Bear and Company, 2003. Paperback, $18. In the 20 years or so I've known Nicki Scully I have watched her move into deeper and deeper areas of spiritual healing, most notably using her knowledge to heal herself after breast cancer tried to cut short her life. I have also seen up-close Nicki's ability to focus her considerable energy to help others overcome personal roadblocks. At my request, she conducted a sacred pipe ceremony for the missing children of a friend. Her serenity impressed me, and I was moved by her conviction that those of us sitting in the circle, smoking the pipe and sending our prayers to those who were not present, could make a difference. We could encircle the runaways with love, ease their conflict and help them reach out for additional healing. I observed that for the younger siblings in the family the circle and the ceremony provided a safe container in which to express their feelings. Nicki's guidance led us all into a more profound experience of grief and love. I came to Scully's latest book, Alchemical Healing, as someone with little experience and no familiarity with the language used in the practice of healing. The book addresses this ignorance with easily understood examples and simple instructions. In the chapter titled "Healing Energy Basics," she writes that "energy itself is infused with consciousness, vitalizing the tapestry of life and informing the patterns that connect all things." Further, she says, we can direct that energy for healing, which brings about "a physical effect that you can witness." To understand how this change happens, she suggests you think of martial arts such as tai chi and qigong. "As the practitioner puts out the call, the energy comes in, focuses and intensifies, often raising the physical temperature of the body of the person, or of the specific place in the body where the energy is being directed," she writes. Two things I really like about the book: Scully's use of language, which makes complicated ideas accessible, and the sharing of her own experiences that invites me to feel involved in the process. She spells out the ethics of the work, when she cites the practitioner's personal accountability as being of "fundamental importance." She urges working in harmony and cooperation with other forms of treatment, including Western medicine. She also writes about respecting client's privacy, the responsibility of having the gift of healing and "What to do when it doesn't work," a frank recognition that sometimes it's best to refer the person to another practitioner. The book is part memoir, part "how to," and part metaphysics. I cannot evaluate whether it will help you learn self-healing, but I think it couldn't hurt. That's because it's written by an experienced healer who regards her work as a gift to be shared and passed on. Come to the reading and book signing at 5:30 pm Oct. 1 at Tsunami Books and meet this vital, energizing teacher for yourself.
BOOK NOTES 9/25 — 10/30: Songwriting workshop by Eileen Hemphill-Haley and Debbie Diedrich at 3:30 pm Sept. 27 at Tsunami Books. $7. …Friends of the Eugene Public Library's magazine sale (25 cents each) is from 1-5 pm Sept. 28 in EPL's Bascom/Tykeson Room. …Pulitzer-Prize winning writer Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex) speaks at 7:30 pm Sept. 30 at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Portland. (503) 227-2583. … Nicki Scully will read and sign her latest book, Alchemical Healing, at 5:30 pm Oct. 1 at Tsunami Books. …Novelist Nicole Mones ( A Cup of Light) speaks on "Cognitive Work and Conceptual Power" at 6:30 pm Oct. 2 at Baker Downtown Center. $5 donation non-members Mid-Valley Willamette Writers. …Poet Joseph Millar hosts "The Blue-Collar Special," featuring West Coast poets George Hitchcock, Clemens Stark and Stephen Torre at 7 pm Oct. 3 at Tsunami Books. …Celebrate Skipping Stones magazine's 15th anniversary at a free program and refreshments at 7 pm Oct. 4 in Grace Chapel, First Christian Church. …Fantasy writer Nina Kiriki Hoffman (A Stir Of Bones) signs her latest book at 2 pm Oct. 4 at B. Dalton Bookseller, Gateway Mall. …Poet Christopher Howell leads a poetry workshop at 10 am Oct. 11. Contact tonipoet@cmc.net for information, cost. …Poet Pimone Triplett reads from her work at 8 pm Oct. 16 in Knight Library Browsing Room. …Novelist David Guterson (Our Lady of the Forest) at 7:30 pm Oct. 16 in Weiden-Kennedy Atrium, Portland. (503) 227-2583. …Susan Powter (The Politics of Stupid) speaks about the politics behind America's obesity epidemic at 7 pm Oct. 16 at Barnes and Noble. … Poets Hannah Wilson and Jane Glazer read at 7 pm Oct. 18 in Tsunami Books. …Spoken word artist Laura E. J. Moran and writer Michael Kroetch read at 7 pm Oct. 21 at Eugene Public Library, Bascom-Tykeson Room. …Readings by 2003 Oregon Book Awards nominees, TBA, at 7 pm Oct. 23 at Tsunami Books. …Filmmaker, author Michael Moore speaks at 7 pm Oct. 23 in Portland's Memorial Coliseum. PSU (503) 725-8279 or Ticketmaster. …Sandra Cisneros (Caramelo) speaks at 7:30 pm Oct. 28 in Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, Portland. (503) 227-2583. …Fiction writer Ehud Havazelet reads at 8 pm Oct. 30 in Knight Library Browsing Room.
A Man
of Peace Happy Birthday, Wanda June is about family and society, war and peace. And it's damn funny, even when you want to kick yourself for laughing at some of the more gruesome lines. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s 1970 play, written during the height of the Vietnam War, explores the themes of war, peace, feminism, the sexual revolution, alcoholism, sexual dysfunction, anger, violence and freedom. That's probably not even a complete list, and if you think it sounds too heavy, well, I caught the show at its opening last Friday night while Eugene Celebration-goers were making merry outside — and I couldn't have been more entertained. Vonnegut uses the construct of one family to explore the entire spectrum of human nature and our penchant for violence. Here's his gist: Penelope Ryan's (Cate Wolfenbarger) husband, adventurer and big-game hunter Harold (Michael P. Watkins) and his buddy, former WWII pilot Colonel Looseleaf (Michael Walker) never came home from a diamond-hunting trip in the jungle eight years ago. The Ryan's apartment, relatively untouched since, is full of artifacts: African masks, Asian vases, stuffed animal heads, skulls. Despite the decor, Penelope's moved on. Harold's been declared legally dead; she's earned a master's degree, alone raised her now 12-year-old-son, Paul (Miles Schneider), and has two suitors after her: vacuum-cleaner salesman Herb Shuttle (Chris Pinto) and neighbor Dr. Norbert Woodly (Benjamin Newman). But Harold, like a ghost, has returned to haunt her. Legendary for both his accomplishments and his violent temper, Harold intimidates all who meet him. Yet Vonnegut sets out to prove that Harold's type of heroism is obsolete. When Harold discovers Penelope is engaged to Nordli, he breaks Nordli's violin, in a fit of jealousy. It's Looseleaf, who dropped the bomb on Nagasaki, who chides him. "You could have been the manufacturer of the violin just by not busting it up." I could have been father to all those children in Nagasaki, just by not dropping a bomb on them, Looseleaf muses. Juxtaposed to angry, resentful Harold, Looseleaf is the transitional man, consumed with guilt over his past actions. It's Nordli, whom Harold makes fun of, who points out the new direction the heroes will take. "The old heroes are going to have to get used to this — the new heroes who want to save the planet. The new hero will be a man of science and peace like me." The production bears the stamp of the talented Jesse Lally, a local actor and director who did everything for this show except perform onstage: He chose the script; directed it; designed the set, built it, painted it; designed the sound and was on sound duty during the show, and yes, he even served the drinks beforehand and during intermission. (That will end when Jim Roberts and Joe Zingo return from New York, he assures.) Lally has drawn remarkable performances from a first-rate cast, including Michael P. Watkins as Harold, whose presence fills the theater. A beautiful contrast to Harold is Michael Walker's repentant Looseleaf. Walker is at once funny and pitiful. A line that draws lots of laughs is when he notes that women are wearing short skirts and comments, "I think something happened to sex while we were away." Chris Pinto is delightful as schlemiely vacuum cleaner salesman Herb Shuttle. The kids truly stand out in this production. Helene Morse is a wonderful Wanda June, a young girl hit by an ice cream truck on her birthday who informs us in heaven, there's always lots of pink cotton candy and ferris wheels for the kids and guns to play with for the soldiers, and everyone plays shuffleboard — "so go ahead and kill; no one cares how they got here." The equally talented Miles Schneider is a believable 12-year-old who misses his dad and is pretty confused by the unfolding events. Both youngsters, veterans of the ACE Youth Academy, are obviously comfortable in front of a crowd and are savvy performers. Other fine performances are turned in by Cate Wolfenbarger and Ariel Hatt (Harold's alcoholic dead ex-wife Mildred), but it's Bruce McArthur as former Nazi-beast Von Konigswald who would have stolen the show if the other performances hadn't been as strong. He's hysterical. Lally's set is a masterpiece. He doesn't skimp at all, and includes a door leading to a hallway and to another door that opens into the neighbor's apartment. The furnishings and props are right on, with obvious attention to detail that is not often seen in community theater. Lally adds a nice element of incorporating slide projections into the set; however, the placement of the projections — far stage right — is sometimes not in the sightline of the action taking place mostly center stage and stage left, so you have to make an effort to look for them. It's sad to note how pertinent this play still is. Yet it's funny, insightful and so well done you will enjoy the experience of watching the human race struggle to evolve. I highly recommend it. Happy Birthday Wanda June runs through Oct. 11 at ACE Annex.
Really switching gears now, here's notice of an up-and-coming show that's simply joyful for you and the kids. Richard Glauber's been the pied-piper, the ringleader, the guitar-playing, accordion-squeezing minstrel of the young and young-at-heart for years now, and his newest concoction will be featured at The Strand's Cozmic Pizza at 5 pm Sunday, Sept. 28. Using improvisation and working with the space, Glauber's show is highly interactive, encouraging — more like demanding — the audience to get up, participate and have as much fun as he's having. Expect to do a little square-dancing, a little singing and a lot of laughing when he fills the space with the joyful noise he creates. My son and I caught his act last Sunday at the Eugene Celebration Kidzone and we were up and dancing, too. This show will delight the little ones. $5 adults, $3 kids, includes a slice of pizza. At The Strand, 8th and Charnelton.
Echo Basin Trail This is a hike for true dendrophiles, those folks who can appreciate really outstanding examples of a particular tree species. Even if you're not a tree geek, you'll be impressed by the forest in Echo Basin, which features trees as old or older than any in Oregon.
A lot of experts would have a hard time guessing what the oldest trees in Oregon are. They're not Douglas fir or redwoods. They're not the stunted junipers of Eastern Oregon or the gnarled Pacific yew. They're probably Alaska yellow cedar. The oldest yellow cedars in Echo Basin were seedlings more than 1,500 years ago. It's a relatively long drive for a short hike, but it's a great trail for people of all ages and abilities, and there are lots of other attractions nearby, including Sahalie Falls, Iron Mountain and Cone Peak, all highly recommended hikes. Directions: Drive Hwy. 126 east from Springfield. After 66 miles stay to the left onto Hwy. 20 heading west. After 4.8 miles on Hwy. 20, just past Lost Prairie Campground, take a right on the easy-to-miss FS 055 (37 miles east of Sweet Home). Drive 055 for 2.1 miles, and find the trailhead on your right. The Echo Basin trail is a 2-mile loop that gains just 600 feet. You begin hiking up a mild grade through a tree plantation. After less than half a mile, you leave the fiber farm behind and enter a pleasant alpine forest. The trail fork to the right will be your return route. Staying to the left, the trees get bigger and more impressive the further up the valley you go. Just less than a mile from the trailhead you'll start to encounter some of the larger and older trees in the stand. The yellow cedar is easily recognizable by its incredible shaggy gray bark. Another identifier is the long, droopy, scale-like needle. During the last ice age yellow cedar were as common as Douglas fir. Today they occupy wet and cold sites typically around 5,000 feet in elevation. The weary looking branches help them shed snow easily, helping this super-slow growing species out-compete other trees in marginal habitat. In about a mile the trail breaks out of the forest and winds around the base of a giant natural amphitheater covered in a rich carpet of false hellebore. When the trail re-enters the forest, you'll encounter the biggest and oldest yellow cedars yet. The serious tree aficionados will probably want to hike the trail twice.
Terrific Tarra-Gatos Lucy was hawking veggies at the local market like she always does. Hey, Chef Boy Ari, she said. Watcha need? Tarragon, I said. Tarragon? We got plenty at the farm I can bring next week. What do you need: leaves, roots, dried, fresh? What do you want tarragon for? Lucy frowned. I hate tarragon, she added. I can see why. Tarragon has a very strong flavor that can easily overpower everything else in the vicinity, and this could turn off sensitive New Age gals like Lucy. But if used correctly for specific applications, tarragon is irreplaceable and highly dank — in a good way. Summer is fading, and now it's a mad scramble to pack all the bounty in. The tomatoes that remain on the vine make me ponder and lament the feast-or-famine nature of the tomato cycle. Why are we swamped for a month or two, and limited to the imported cardboard versions for the rest of the year? I asked my real estate agent. She answered, Location, location, location. Go south, young man.
Good advice, but no thanks. Chef Boy Ari remains a child of the North. Covering your tomatoes at night will buy you a few more weeks, but before it gets too cold, pick them all off. Let the orange and red tomatoes ripen by the window, and stash the green ones in the closet wrapped in newspaper, where they will ripen in a matter of weeks. That's my Aunt Ida's trick, and it works. While you still have enough red ones, make red sauce. If you don't have at least five pounds, there's still time to score a late-season deal at the Farmers Market. Me, I've got three Sun Gold cherry tomato plants growing in my back yard. They produce huge quantities of little guys that are ripe when orange, with a sweet and meaty taste that's been winning medals at contests all over the country. Lately, my Sun Golds have been producing so much that the fruits are dripping from the vines unused. So I filled a shoe box, which I proceeded to convert into sweet tarragon tomato sauce. After removing the stems, I washed the little guys and put them in a blender. The blender is optional, but it speeds up the process. Otherwise, you can cut the tomatoes into chunks and put them straight into the pot. Speaking of the pot, I avoid aluminum cookware because of the urban legend that it contributes to Alzheimer's disease. And tomato sauce doesn't mix with cast iron, normally my cookware of choice. I poured the contents of the blender into a stainless steel pot on low heat. After a little while, a layer of scummy foam floated to the top, full of seeds and skins. I poured the contents of the pot through a food sieve, removing the seeds and skins. A colander would also work for this — just make sure to mash the scum against the colander so all the good stuff oozes through. Then, back on the stove, slowly simmering. Or, for a thicker, chunkier sauce, don't filter it at all. Tomato sauce needs to cook down to half the original volume or less, so be careful about how you season it early on, since the flavor will concentrate. I usually add a splash of olive oil up front, to help lube the mixture and prevent it from scalding on the bottom of the pot. If it scalds, you're screwed, so simmer at a very slow pace, stirring often. Patience is the key: low heat and a long time — at least four hours, maybe eight. I keep the seasonings pretty simple: a little salt, a little sugar and tarragon, which I snip in with scissors, cutting each leaf to bits, but not the stalks. I also add a whole sprig for a few hours, to be removed prior to canning. You could add other stuff, but I prefer to liven it up when I use the sauce down the road. Something about fresh tarragon, though. When it's ready for canning, I go with small 1/2 pint jars, because the sauce is so concentrated that you won't need too much for any particular meal. And once the jar is opened, it will mold relatively soon. Tomatoes are right on the edge of being acidic enough that you can use a regular water bath for canning. It really depends on the variety of tomato: The higher the acidity, the less hospitable it is for food spoilage microbes. If you have a pressure canner, use it for 15 minutes at 15 pounds of pressure. If you don't, the National Center for Home Food Preservation recommends a tablespoon of bottled lemon juice per pint. You can add the lemon juice directly to the sterilized jars right before you add the sauce. Then, process for 40 minutes in a water bath. Me, I tasted my sauce and decided it was tangy enough to skip the lemon juice, because I'm that type of guy. Chef Boy Ari, also known as Ari LaVaux, is currently living and cooking in Missoula, Mont.
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