24
Wednesday, August 21, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
SCULPTORS:
Symposium was
set at Suttle Lake
Continued from page 3
(NWSSA). They hailed from
Washington and Oregon,
from British Columbia, Italy,
Germany, and Japan.
Some continued to work
through the day on Saturday
under individual open-air
tents, chiseling, sanding,
blasting, and sanding again.
The tents circled a vast open
field with a massive compres-
sor at the center, air hoses
snaking through the grass
to the tents to power each
sculptor9s tools. The hiss of
the compressor alternated
with the whir of drills and
the chime of chisels. Early in
the week, the sculptures were
rough 3 barely suggesting a
figure, an abstract shape, or
a face. Saturday, the finished
(or almost finished) work was
displayed for the public.
The artists are both men
and women, teens to sea-
soned citizens. Some worked
the stones for the very first
time, and others have 30 or
more years of carving and
the arthritic joints to prove
it. Some have MFA degrees
framed back on their stu-
dio walls, where they often
work in solitude. The com-
munal sculpture event in the
woods at Suttle Lake draws
them back year after year
because it9s both nurturing
and inspiring.
Jason Chrastina of Portland
was lured back to carving
after a long hiatus. Perched in
front of his tent early on in the
week were three moderately
sized sculptures that he made
around 20 years ago: one in
marble, one in limestone, and
one in alabaster.
<Life just got in the way,=
he said.
He works in retail, selling
natural foods and homeo-
pathic medications to stores
all over Oregon.
<Around 1999, I moved to
Seattle,= he recalled. <I knew
You never
know who you
will spot at...
Jeff, Theresa, Ann, Jamie, Shiela, Terri, Shanntyl
152 E. Main Ave. / 541-549-8771
about this society; I knew
there was something, some-
where, but this year, my part-
ner found out about this (sym-
posium) and encouraged me
to do this. So I got this chunk
of marble, drilled some holes
in it, and I9m chiseling around
the holes.=
On Saturday, Chrastina
showed his early work along-
side the almost-finished mar-
ble piece, which was pinned
to a base of granite, the cir-
cular holes at the bottom and
a series of parallel notches
carved at the top. Half of one
side was polished, the other
half in its natural fractured
state.
Jason beamed as he walked
through the sculpture garden:
<I9m definitely coming back
next year,= he said.
Leon White from Seattle is
a veteran. On his workbench,
a mermaid emerged from a
two-foot tall block of pre-
mium Carrara marble. White
described the whimsical piece
in great detail.
<She9ll have a sand dollar
necklace, and she9ll be petting
a sea horse. There will be a
fish here, and a starfish under
her tail, which will sweep
around to the back like so,= he
said, waving his hands over
the marble.
A career artist, White
began as a painter, but turned
to carving stone when he got
bored. He9s been a member of
NWSSA since 1989, but this
was his first symposium near
Sisters.
White9s mermaid was
still growing from her base
on Saturday, but he dis-
played a humorous but stone-
cold piece called <Dinner
is Served,= consisting of a
carved plate and full course: a
pork chop, green beans, baked
potatoes and a warm roll,
complete with marble <butter
pat.=
<You know, it doesn9t
upset me if I don9t get a whole
lot done this week,= White
said. <I just bring one piece
to work on, because this &
it9s like a reunion. We9re all
excited to be here. Many of
these folks don9t have a studio
where they can generate this
much noise and dust, so they
come here to rough things out
and take them back home to
finish.=
Stephanie Robison runs
the sculpture program at City
College of San Francisco.
All week, she worked with
beginning carvers who had
the opportunity to try their
skill using borrowed tools,
borrowed air, and new
materials. Baeven Hoit,
17, of Bainbridge Island,
Washington, was one of them.
Her mom, Valerie, explained
that Baevin has tried out all
kinds of art, and makes up
stories about her art as she
goes. Her first sculpture defi-
nitely looked like a wolf with
a bird on its back. Baevin,
who has autism, is one of
many special-needs students
participating in the sympo-
sium this year.
During the week, sculp-
tor Patty McPhee of Tacoma
polished a soft translu-
cent calla lily with an onyx
peduncle that she displayed
on Saturday. She9s been with
NWSSA for 25 years.
<It9s where I found my
passion,= she said. <It9s hard
work but it9s so soul-satisfy-
ing, because it connects you
to the earth.
<We9re doing what we
love, but it9s toxic,= she noted.
<I mean, really toxic. Once I
was sanding a piece, a green
stone called chlorite, when
my husband walked in and
hollered 8STOP!9 I looked
around me and there was a
green haze, everywhere.=
She has asthma as a result,
but she won9t give up her
passion.
McPhee is a self-described
<tool junkie,= with at least
three angle-grinders and more
safety gear than a small store.
All of it thanks to her teacher
and mentor, Everett DuPen.
In 1925, the Hollywood
Daily Citizen praised the then
13-year-old sculptor DuPen as
<the genius among us.=
By his death at age 92,
DuPen was an <elder=
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PHOTO PROVIDED
Jason Chrastina works on an abstract sculpture in marble.
and fellow of the National
S c u lp tu re S o c ie ty a n d
National Academy of Design.
In his 38-year faculty career at
the University of Washington,
he made the Sculpture
See SCULPTORS on page 25
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