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About Oregon Coast today. (Lincoln City, OR) 2005-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 2019)
artsy Prepare for a frosty reception Hang out in Nye Beach When the weather on the coast starts to turn blustery, conditions are perfect for the Nye Beach banner project, which sees artistic banners fl ying proudly from lamp posts throughout the area. Th e project will take center stage at the Th ursday, Nov. 7, meeting of the Coastal Arts Guild, with Veronica Lundell speaking about how the fundraiser began and how it has grown. Th e project began in 2009 when Lundell and other Nye Beach merchants got together to fi nd ways to help people to identify where Nye Beach is within the town of Newport and to have a way to express the area’s creative talents. Someone pointed out that the streetlights in Nye Beach were designed to hold decorative banners. Artists submitted their designs and the fi rst banners were hung in July of that year and taken down in time for the November auction, which raised $2,000 for the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts. Lundell provides the artists with the blank canvas banners, which are fabricated from paint tarps. Participating artists are asked to depict some aspect or element of Nye Beach life that resonates with them. On the reverse, most paint a thought- provoking or smile- inducing quote. More than simply identifying an area, the banners refl ect the character and spirit of this unique neighborhood. More than 40 artists took part in this year’s event, painting banners that will be auctioned off on Sunday, Nov. 10, at the Newport Visual Arts Center. Th e funds raised this year will go to Arts Education for Youth through the Oregon Coast Council for the Arts. Th e Nov. 7 lunch will start at 11 am on the second fl oor of the Newport Visual Arts Center, 777 NW Beach Drive. For more information or an invitation to attend, call Mary Holt at 541-765-4599. Striking symbolism and gentle lighting will be on display at the Newport Visual Arts Center starting this Friday, Nov. 1, in “Drawing in the Northern Light,” an exhibit of photographs and poems by Joseph Ohmann-Krause. Th e exhibit is inspired by the works of Vilhelm Hammershoi, a Danish symbolist painter who lived from 1864 to 1916. Partly a reaction to Realism, Symbolism saw painters reduce objects to their simple geometrics so as not to overburden the viewer with fi ne details. “Drawing in the Northern Light” is traveling from Th e Little Gallery at Oregon State University where it was on show from May through September in an exhibit curated by Helen Wilhelm. “Northern light,” Wilhelm said. “A softer, perhaps lower-angle light, as one fi nds in the far north. A gentler lighting in which images are not pressed on the viewer, with their sharp edges, too-strong contrasts, and too fi rm insistence. Th e viewer is invited into the scene of relaxed calm, to wander about, wondering at this never before seen space.” Ohmann-Krause fi rst came upon the work of Vilhelm Hammershoi in 2015 through a catalog of the artist’s paintings. 10 • oregoncoastTODAY.com • facebook.com/oregoncoasttoday • November 1, 2019 Th at very same afternoon, he wrote the poems that appear in the exhibit, as “a personal wording of Hammershoi’s quiet interior scenes.” Th e photographs came later, but with the same reference point to Hammershoi’s work. “Th e term northern light is used here less in geographic or cartographic terms, and more as an aesthetic or visual compass needle,” Ohmann-Krause said. “Th e north is less a reference to the polar star than it is to a protection against the direct sun, ‘le plein sud’ in French, a warm attractive light much favored by Matisse or D.H. Lawrence, or several generations of painters and writers who, in the early 20th Century, were drawn southward to the Mediterranean, to colonial Africa or to Mexico in search of more radiance. Th e northern mists of romantic nationalism had long hidden the industrial squalor that it contained.” Th e exhibit includes 10 photographs, poems and related text, with images including landscapes in Newport, Pistol River, Brookings, Florence, the Finley National Wildlife Refuge and South Corvallis as well as Carmel, California. Ohmann-Krause served for 12 years as chair of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Oregon State University. He is the co-editor of the journal Pacifi c: Poetry International. He was a fellow for the Fondation Saint-John Perse in Aix-en-Providence in southern France and is the author of nine collections of poetry in French. He is currently co-editing a collection of essays on post-colonial North African women artists. “Drawing in the Northern Light” will be on display through Dec. 28, available to view from noon to 4 pm Tuesday through Sunday in the Upstairs Gallery of the Newport Visual Arts Center, 777 NW Beach Drive. Th ere will be an opening reception for the exhibit on Saturday, Dec. 7, from 2 to 5 pm, with an artist talk at 3:30 pm.
