Wednesday, December 6, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
5
Art in the natural world
By Helen Schmidling
Correspondent
Caroline Stratton-Crow
stepped back from hanging
the last piece of art on the
wall and exclaimed, “This is
really pretty scary — seeing
all of my art in one place!”
This month, Stratton-
Crow’s whimsical, natural
watercolors and acrylics are
hanging on the walls of the
Community Room at Sisters
Library. This collection is not
a comprehensive view of her
creative art. She left the three-
dimensional spirit masks and
horses at home. More than 20
paintings in the library rep-
resent her signature images:
junipers, horses, ravens and
owls, plus a few watercolor
landscapes.
The earliest piece in this
show is called “Dancing
Junipers.” She loves juni-
pers, because they grow in
the most difficult conditions,
and the junipers that grow in
rockier soil have more char-
acter than the ones that grow
in easy conditions. Stratton-
Crow’s junipers are gnarly,
yet whimsical, in stripes of
gray, brown, and tan that
twist playfully around the
trunks and branches.
Her horses are an expres-
sion of freedom, strength, and
power. “I’ve been horse crazy
since I was a little girl,” she
said with a wide grin. “It’s a
focus on connection, and it’s
why so many young women
grow to love horses. There’s
an ongoing communication,”
she said, about the connection
between horse and rider, and
the freedom and feeling of
riding. She got her first horse
when she was in eighth grade.
“I set up jumps and rode all
the time. I was ridiculously
smitten,” she said. She had
to find a new home for her
first horse when she went
off to college, but since then,
she has acquired five more
horses, all mares, and has
made each one since the first
a life commitment. “I just
make it work for me.”
Owls are another promi-
nent symbol in Stratton-
Crow’s work. “I just see them
all the time when I go out
riding,” she said. “They just
show up in my life, through
the trees,” whether she’s out
walking, or riding one of her
horses. “They are a spirit
animal for me.” It’s unusual
that she sees owls during
the daytime, because they
are nocturnal, but she thinks
the daytime owls are bring-
ing the dark into the light.
Sometimes she paints a single
owl and other times perches
owls in the branches of juni-
pers. Owls are a symbol of
wisdom, and Stratton-Crow
strives for wisdom.
And what about the
crows? “Well, I’m married
to one,” she laughs (Her hus-
band is Jim Crow). But the
birds on the branches or in
the sky are really ravens, not
crows. “They’re in the same
family, that includes mag-
pies and jays, but they do
not interbreed.” To Stratton-
Crow, they are quick-witted
and smart, and they represent
magic, and she says, “I love
the magical.”
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PHOTO BY HELEN SCHMIDLING
The work of Caroline Stratton-Crow is on display at Sisters Library.
Stratton-Crow grew up in
Delmar, New York, a suburb
of Albany. She moved to the
Oregon Coast as a teenaged
hippie, and studied at Oregon
State. She learned astrology,
See ART SHOW on page 9
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