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About Applegater. (Jacksonville, OR) 2008-current | View Entire Issue (May 1, 2022)
Applegater Spring 2022 ‘Why I love the Applegate’ BY DR. WENDY WALSH Prince Edward Island on the east coast of Canada, is mostly known for Anne of Green Gables and the lighthouse tower that received the first distress signal from the Titanic. But it’s also an island of rich farming soil where descendants of Irish potato-famine immigrants have made the island’s bounty of potatoes and mussels world famous. To me, I just call the place home. It’s where I spent summers growing up on my grandparents’ dairy farm, helping the boys haul in hay, preserving pickles with Granny, and bottle-feeding lambs. I’m a former TV news anchor and current radio host and psychology professor in Los Angeles. And I’m a new landowner in the Applegate. I own Red Barn Farm, the little farm on Highway 238 near Red Lily Vineyards. I discovered it on an eight-state road trip with my teenagers during the darkest days of COVID-19 quarantine. Cooped up in a Los Angeles apartment, itching to breathe some fresh air, I searched on Facebook for those friends who had long ago escaped the city for rural life to places like Montana, Wyoming, and Oregon. With our car packed with a cooler full of sandwiches, thermoses of coffee, and plenty of masks and gloves, off we went. The Applegate was the last stop on our trip, and after a terrifying grizzly sighting in Montana and sticker-shock housing prices in Wyoming, this place felt just right. Here was a pristine river in a lush valley with my favorite aromas of all time: wine and cow manure. It was the small red barn that stopped me in my tracks, my mind filtering through childhood memories of playtime in haylofts on Prince Edward Island. I immediately had a dream to rebuild my memories for people like me, those who want to expose their kids to a farm stay. The first step was to renovate the little cottage up by the road. You’ve probably noticed the black and white paint job with the firepit behind. I opened it as an Airbnb last March, and it became instantly popular with families and couples from Seattle to San Diego. They love the Applegate wine trail, and their great reviews made me an Airbnb superhost. (Each month I have to block the calendar early to have the place for me to stay!) Next are plans to turn the barn into a hip barn- stay. My contractor, Jess Campbell, from Central Point, has been patiently working with the Jackson County Planning Commission on this. I couldn’t have done any of this without the warm welcome and kindness of my Applegate neighbors. I was blessed to meet a sweet schoolteacher named Christine who lives in the main house and helps co- h o s t m y A i r b n b. Without needing to catch her breath once, The namesake red barn at Red Barn Farm. Rachael Martin, of Red Lily Vineyards, entertained me with news of the neighborhood on a hike through the hills. My cattle rancher neighbors, Brett and Courtney Roeloffs, have devoted their time and labor for many a hiccup that comes with rural living. Honestly, Brett has redefined the word neighbor and taken it to a new level! And now that I’m on Jo’s List, I’ve found a wealth of other country-loving folks Dr. Wendy Walsh in the Red Barn Farm on Highway 238. who are at the ready to help when needed. finest. Thank you, Applegate, for such a Watch for the barn construction soon. warm welcome! I can’t wait to meet you. When it’s done, I’ll hold an open house Dr. Wendy Walsh where we can drink some of Red Lily’s wendy@drwendywalsh.com Erleuchten Lamps: Lighting grown from the Earth BY MATTHEW JOHNSON As a local Applegate artist, I transform gifts grown from the Earth into master- crafted works of art for the luxury market, leveraging multiple disciplines including woodworking and metal forging. Growing up with more art supplies than toys and a partial set of Encyclopedia Britannica in a broken home, as a child I found solace educating myself on the world around me and on different art techniques and disciplines while taking art classes in school to further stimulate my spongy young mind in a diverse range of art styles and hone techniques in each style. As I continued my life sojourning into young adulthood and into the work force, I wove my way through myriad fields of technology, business, and design, to make me the artist I am today. Because I am light sensitive, ambient lighting was always of interest. Architectural lighting can transform a space into a living and interactive work of art, influencing mood depending on the colors and tones used, from the bulb to the materials, and how the two tie together in a melodic warm dance. There is plenty of beautiful ambient lighting, but I aspired to create something perfect: lighting that gives a natural earthy illumination using colors that calm a person’s psychology and holds an organic look and feel as if the lighting was not made by hand but grown from the Earth. Thus Erleuchten Lamps was created. Artist Matthew P. Johnson latitude and longitude lines were drawn on a gourd; then Earth’s continents and major warm and cold ocean currents were Erleuchten Lamps are meticulously and masterfully handcrafted using hard-shell, spherical gourds as their “shade” with designs that fall into one of two categories, math-based or realism. Math-based designs use three layers of spherical and fractal geometry to create beautiful organic designs. A realism design is currently shown in Erleuchten Lamps “Home” page. Once positioning was established, Come visit! Serving breakfast, lunch and dinner. Beer and wine on tap or to go. Family-run mapped and transposed. The underneath of the gourd or lampshade is modeled after an antique nautical compass. Bases are made to look like a living element using natural curves with an endcap woodworked from local maple burl then branded with pyrography. Each Erleuchten Lamp is made by hand and takes roughly 12 months to complete. In January 2022, after five years of work, Erleuchten Lamps released two collections with seven pieces. The “Relic Collection” contains five pieces; the “Ironic Collection,” two pieces. Visit erleuchten.com for photos and more information on how the lamps are made. Matthew P. Johnson m@erleuchten.com The Applegater wants your articles! Email us at gater@applegater.org An Erleuchten Lamp created by Applegate artist Matthew P. Johnson. Open 7 am - 7 pm Weds - Sat and 7 am - 3 pm Sun. Closed Mon and Tues. 181 Upper Applegate Road Jacksonville, OR 97530 541-702-2662 21
