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About Sandy post. (Sandy, Oregon) 1938-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 12, 1981)
If Section SANDY. OREGON, THURSDAY. FEB. 12, 1981 The Srfndy Post Area News People Home & Garden Features A new gallery opens up in Rhododendron Wy’East Artisans A group of artists and craftspersons living in Mt. Hood communities are testing the philosophy of the German w rite r, Johann Wolfgang Goethe. Goethe, offering poetic advice to dreamers of dreams, wrote in “ Faust” : “ Whatever you can be, or dream you can. begin it • boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” The Wy’East Artisans Guild was only a dream in the minds of a few mountain-area craftspersons last sum m er; but those few, unw ittingly follow ing Goethe’s counsel, plunged boldly in to form ing an arts and crafts associa tion. The firs t meeting was held last August. Now 40-some members are gearing up to open their own gallery this weekend in Rhododendron, “ I t ’s only been six months, and already we’ve done much more than we o rig in a lly planned,” said Bethany Dalton, member of the guild and chair man of the gallery Dalton said the rapid growth of the organization indicates that the guild was badly needed on the mountain. “ We have so many artists up here, and som e of th e m a re r e a lly accomplished,” she explained. The guild was formed, according to its c h a irm a n , P h id S im o n s o f Brightwood, to bring together artists and craftspersons on the mountain for personal and a rtistic growth. The founders hope to promote among members "the highest standards of ex cellence” , according to the g uild’s con- stitio n , and to sponsor or locate markets for the products that resulted. Those products include pottery, stain ed glass, batik, jew elry, woodcarvings, quilts, photography, paintings, weav ings and all the fiber arts. Some of the craftspeople involved are beginners and hobbyists; others are ex perienced enough to be earning their livelihood by selling their work Simons and Connie Westly are at that point. Westly is a potter from Wisconsin who has lived in Brightwood for three years. She learned ceramics in art school a fte r earning a degree in marketing. Before leaving Wisconsin, she was “ just at the point of earning my livin g w ith my pottery - just getting to be a studio potter,’’ she said. A fter moving to Brightwood, Westly lost about a ye a r’s time, she said, while she set up a studio in her home and gave b irth to her daughter, now two. “ I was feeling very isolated and fru stra te d ,” before the guild was established, she said. She was selling her work through only one outlet, the Weigh Station in Sandy. Now she frequently receives orders for her pottery and is confident she w ill earn a “ sig n ifica n t” income. She described one commission which came to her when a restaurant owner asked another guild member for sources of hand-made dinnerware. The member referred the restaurant owner to Westly and to another potter, also in the guild, and the restaurateur placed an order w ith each. “ I think that demonstrates how sup portive we are of each other,’’ Westly story, photos by Kaye Barton Bakke Phid Simons (top left) is chairman of the W y’East Artisans Guild and an ac complished weaver. She demonstrates the technique of weaving on a por table loom used by Indians in Mexico and Central America. Guild members also created the mult-media sign (top right) to identify booths at craft fairs. Connie Westly (bottom right) is a Brightwood potter who expects to earn a significant income through the guild and w riter Mariah M artin practices her hobby, oil painting «bottom left). said. “ We are not competitive This is not a dog eat dog atmosphere ” Simons is also at the point of relying wholly on her craft, which is weaving, for her income Before moving to the mountain area in 1979, she worked as a policy analyst for the state of Michigan. “ B u t I got fed up w ith the bureaucracy," she said, and since liv ing in Brightwood has supported herself with jobs such as cooking and a tem porary stint as director of a foreign stu dent program in Mexico. It was just this w inter that she decid ed not to work elsewhere and concen trate on her weaving She credits the guild with giving her m otivation to make the decision. “ When I didn’t have a good market, it wasn’t as satisfying to weave,” she said. “ It was a lot of trouble to pack everything up and go to crafts fairs. The thought of having the gallery really inspired m e " Simons works on an eight-harness floor loom in her living room, but she says her specialty may be work that is produced on a small portable loom used by Indian women in Mexico and Central America. “ There are a lot of weavers ou there who can do (common weaves such as> tw ills and overshots,” she said, but very few who know the a rt of Tarascan lace weaving. Simons learned to produce the delicate textile on the backstrap loom during her stay near a settlement of (Continued on Page 9)
