We are curious and seek to explore our interests and the world. Painting, Pottery, Sculpture, Felt, Mixed-Media, other Visual and Performing Arts,Creative Writing and Documentary Video.
One of my favorite artist is clay sculptor Blythe Eastman Blythe Eastman . She showed with me at my studio in 2009. We, Meadowlake Studios, filmed her for an Arts Alive show. For one reason or another the show got stuck then forgotten in the editing bay.
In 2019 when we were doing Arts Alive shows of some of Art Harvest Studio Tour
artists I ran across Blythe's show files. Her work is fantastic. She
is able to capture complex yet subtle animal gesture with an elegant
minimalist approach. Her show need to be finished. We posted on Arts
Alive in 2019.
Life was looking good the Fall of 2019. The annual Arts Alliance of Yamhill County sponsored Art Harvest Studio Tour was great. Driving around Yamhill County with the 2019 Fall colors is pure joy. We
were fortunate to interview and film several of the Tour artists. We
went to their studios and learned a lot about different art mediums.
Master Painter Jess Anderson
We visited Master Painter Jess Anderson at the studio just outside of Sheridan, Oregon.
Felt Artist Jennifer Bencharsky
We visited Jennifer Bencharsky who does beautiful felt work and lives in Newberg which is on the other side of the County.
As the Tour does, it gave us an excuse to travel from one side of beautiful Yamhill County to the other and see some fantastic art and meet and talk with many great talented artists. You can see those at Arts Alive: Art Harvest Studio Tour on Youtube.
You all know what happened in 2020 and this year 2021. The Art Harvest Studio Tour cancelled both years. All of the Arts seemed to go into a stress induced shock and a kind of hibernation. For Liz and I at Meadowlake Studios the Arts Alive video interviews were shut down. At least we hope it is hibernation because there are signs the Arts are beginning to wake up and roam around the landscape again.
One art exception to hibernation might be writing and writers. Literary journals expanded across the internet. I guess for many writers the social isolation was a fantastic excuse to finish that novel, write short stories, work on a movie script, and scratch out some poems.
Unfortunately with our video productions stymied, with my Poetry On Demand events at art and wine gatherings cancelled, going out to crowded restaurants for dinner or out to clubs to hear music was impossible, I went into a personal hibernation, which I'm finally beginning to wake.
I really missed the Poetry On Demand events. During McMinnville and Newberg downtown association wine and art nights, we set up a table in a busy wine tasting bar, sat behind our manual typewriters, wrote poems as topics were given to us under pressure to finish while the people were sipping wine or having dinner. It was wonderful to hand a freshly typed poem to the person who had given the topic and see their reaction to the poem they had prompted. The past two years I missed that stress and creativity. One good thing. We did publish a collection of our 2018 and 2019 Poetry On Demand poems.
I've been off and on with this blog over the years. I have excuses. Now in late Fall 2021 as I am beginning to stir from my almost two year long stupor, shaking off the stress, emerging lean and hungry, I will try to pick up this blog which I've neglected.
On October 18th we went down to the McMinnville Community Media studio to appear on Arts Alive the local arts and culture show. Liz talked with host Lynda Phillippi first. I posted the video of her. I forgot to post my interview.
We talked about clay and pottery and the Art Harvest Studio Tour, of course. The Tour was last weekend and the second weekend is coming up.
We had students on the Student/Education Studio Tour today. They all seemed to come at once. It was kind of frantic for awhile. Still fun.
Last week Jim Gullo and his son Joe came to the McMinnville Community Media studio to do an Arts Alive interview with Lynda Phillippi. Jim wanted to talk about his forth coming book "Trading Manny" , the story of a Father teaching his son Joe to love Baseball during the steroid scandals which made respecting baseball very difficult.
I was never a big baseball fan. Although I remember the summer of 1953 or 54 I searched the neighborhood, the school, the city for a card on mostly Detroit Tigers and then Boston Red Sox pitcher Dizzy Trout. He wasn’t that great pitcher and he was a bit long in the tooth, but I loved his name and he wore glasses, so I could relate. I had rookies Jim Gilliam, Harvey Haddix and Ray Jablonski to trade, I was even willing to throw in 10 rare red cat’s-eye marbles. I never found Dizzy’s card. I read that year “Disappointment is necessary to develop character”, I wasn’t convinced. In 1955, the World Series went to the Brooklyn Dodgers over the New York Yankees, and my interest in baseball fanned out.
By 2006 when Lance Williams and Mar Fainaru-Wada book "Game of Shadows" came out, followed in 2007 by the "Mitchell Report", it was not a shock or even a surprise that baseball players were abusing steroid drugs to get a competitive edge. Only 89 players?
It turns out I was not the only one who thought 89 might be a low ball number. In 2007 Jim Gullo/s his seven year old son Joe, whose baseball hero was Manny Ramirez, was asking, Page 20 of "Trading Manny" “Look Dad,” he said, waving a card of a player who had not been named by Mitchell or associated with drug use. “This guy hit forty-eight homers in 2001 and hasn’t hit more than twenty-one since. He was probably using drugs, wasn’t he?”
To redeem his own love of baseball and to be true and honest to Joe in a time when baseball was down, Jim Gullo and his son went on a quest to find the truth about steroid use and to seek the soul of baseball. “Trading Manny” is the story of their journey.
On the same day as the Arts Alive interview Jim posted on his BLOG an instructive chronology of “Trading Manny” from the inception of the idea to the publishing of the book. If you have a book idea and are getting ready to get to the writing, check out the blog post.
On Febrary 28th, Jim and Joe Gullo talk with Arts Alive host Lynda Phillippi about their journey and the writing of the book. You Tube has a 15 minute limit. The 30 minute show is the above is Part One and go to Part Two to see the last half of the show.
Jim Gullo lives in McMinnville. In addition to the forthcoming "Trading Manny" he has a recent novel "Fountain of Youth". He is the editor and publisher of a web magazine http://www.oregonwine.com covering Oregon wine industry.
In Arts Alive TV show Part One the organizers of the Terroir Creative Writing Festival Barbara Drake and Emily Chadwick and guest Debra Voorhess talked with Arts Alive TV show host Lynda Phillippi about the Festival.
The Terroir Creative Writing Festival will be all day on Saturday April 14th at the McMinnville Community Center. The registration form is available at the Festival Website. There is a per-registration discount through March 23.
Barbar Drake
Terroir (terr whah) refers to the site- and region-specific
characteristics of a wine. Climate, soil and landscape define the wine grapes’ character and helps give the wine its distinctive identity.
Like the vines that line the hillsides of Yamhill
County, our words take on the qualities of place, growing rich in the
soils of life experiences.
The Terroir Creative Writing Festival brings Oregon writers together
for a day of celebrating this special place, as well as the joys of
writing and books. There will be workshops and speakers on fiction, poetry, writing creative non-fiction, memoir and more.
