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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
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