Fairweather House and Gallery
612 Broadway, Seaside Oregon
Closed until it is safe to reopen
Due to the novel coronavirus the gallery shut its doors on March 15, 2020
“We hope make to it possible to enjoy some of what we have to offer to while you are at home in during the order to Stay at Home, Save Lives. Publishing articles is a way that we can continue to feature our resident artists during the situation,” chief curator Denise Fairweather.
Close up of Lysichiton americanus/ AKA Skunk Cabbage or Swamp Lantern watercolor by Jo Pomeroy Crockett
Adored by many and ridiculed by some, Lysichiton americanus, aka skunk cabbage or swamp lantern is one of the first plants to emerge in late winter. Pushing its way through snow and peeking out of bogs, this bright yellow curvaceous “leaf” (spathe) with its inner structure of numerous small flowers (spadix) provides a warm resting and mating place for beetles and other insects. the calla lily. It has a distinctive fragrance similar to garlic or apples that give rise to its popular name.
Lysichton has many uses. Some Native peoples used it as an emergency food and a medicine. Hanis Coos elder Lottie Evanoff reportedly said she liked skunk cabbage very much and found it curious that settlers did not eat it. “Bears eats skunk cabbage, is just crazy for it. So, it must be good eating; everything bear eats is good eating.” Jo Pomeroy Crockett, PhD/ artist
Jo Pomeroy Crockett
GATHER notes:
Importance of Quality Watercolor Paper
Watercolor, while not fussy is particular about the kind of paper it prefers. A special rough paper, handmade in India, with a very deep tooth is especially suited to this medium. Pigment just skims over the top but if given enough water, likes to settle into the valleys. Gentle glazes provide depth and effects not possible with other papers. The watercolors were painted on this special paper. JPC
Jo Pomeroy Crockett, Phd., has often lectured at Fairweather’s.
Jo Pomeroy-Crockett, a North coast resident, works primarily wet-into-wet and strives for dramatic patterns. Vivid colors, an emphasis on the play of light and a touch of whimsy mark her paintings. Although she enjoys painting a variety of subjects, she especially enjoys painting nature. She has exhibited in numerous juried art competitions in the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest. Her work is in private collections in various parts of the United States, England, Canada and Switzerland. In combination with her art, she works as a free-lance writer and educator
“First Leap” by Neal Maine/ PacificLight Images. Proceeds in support of NCLC.
“This mallard chick seems to be enjoying life to the fullest as it scurries across a lily pad in a pond near my home.” Neal Maine
After a thirty-year career as an award winning biology teacher at Seaside High School, Neal Maine became the first executive director of North Coast Land Conservancy, which he co-founded in 1986. Since his retirement from the land trust in 2010, he has pursued his passion for nature photography through PacificLight Images, a partnership with Michael Wing, dedicated to raising awareness of coastal ecology and the wildlife with whom we share the region’s estuaries, freshwater wetlands and forests. Their photography centers around coastal and Columbia River landscape, ecology and the rich estuary habitat with the surrounding wetlands and forest systems.
Artists and speakers were booked for the exhibition, GATHER, several booked more than one year ago, with some of art delivered before the gallery closed mid-March.
The April exhibition, titled GATHER, which was meant to open in the gallery April 4 and run through April 25, was canceled due to the novel coronavirus.
Elk in the dunes by Neal Maine/ PacificLight Images. Proceeds in support of NCLC.
North Coast Land Conservancy/ reprint
Elk have been on the Oregon Coast a long, long, long, long time. Scientists believe elk migrated from Asia to North America over Beringia—better known as the Bering Land Bridge—some 120,000 years ago. The animals would have been a familiar sight to the first human hunters who migrated here tens of thousands of years later. Elk survived, and continue to survive, by being able to eat almost any kind of plant they can find, while we humans are limited to eating “soft fruits, a few easily digestible seeds, and the milk and flesh of our more versatile animal cousins,” as David Haskell writes in The Forest Unseen, one of naturalist and photographer Neal Maine’s favorite books.
Chasing the Light by Neal Maine/PacificLight Images. Proceeds in support of NCLC.
We are all are holed up at home to slow the spread of the virus, hopefully, this “Fairweather fix” will give moods and psyches a lift with some online R&R.
Watch time lapse video showing efforts in creating space for last year’s April exhibition, LIFE ABUNDANT.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhKYvSZM3bg
Soon, when it is safe to re-open, we will be back in the gallery.
Stay safe at home, save lives.
Fairweather House and Gallery will continue to reach out with on-line blog articles about the arts.
And, too, on a regular basis, during these uncertain times, we will continue to re-post previous LIVE Fairweather arts events…until it is safe to re-open the gallery.
http://www.fairweatherhouseandgallery.com
End note:
Flowers heal broken hearts.
https://youtu.be/ryUxrFUk6MY
