VISUAL ARTS
BY ESTER BARKAI
‘DON’T DRAW A TREE. DRAW A PARTICULAR TREE.’
David McCosh at Karin Clarke Gallery
S
EUGENE
tanding in front of Fall Creek, a watercolor paint-
ing by David McCosh (1902–1981), I was aware
there was someone else looking, too. Viewing the
same artwork as someone else in a gallery or a mu-
seum can be awkward. Often one person will walk
away to give the other their time with the piece. But not
at the Karin Clarke Gallery on the day of curator Roger
Saydack’s talk about the Eugene artist.
The atmosphere in the gallery was social.
“You can tell this art is McCosh’s work,” the person said.
He was already familiar with the artist’s work, as were
so many others. The lively buzz that filled the gallery re-
volved around the more than 30 artworks on the walls by
an artist some had known and others had studied under
while he was art professor at the University of Oregon.
Fall Creek has a transparent stained glass feel to it. The
design is an all-over pattern similar to others of McCosh’s
abstract landscapes. It is composed of fluid lines and wash
laid down in splashes of color. There aren’t details in it that
you would associate with realism, but you can tell there is
water, as well as green, yellow and orange leaves the color
of fall. The painting is both abstract and relatable to what
you might see if you were at the place the artist stood at the
time of year he painted it.
Like a lot of other artists who moved out West from the
eastern United States, McCosh was inspired by his new en-
vironment. Before he moved here his subjects were mostly
human, like those in the drawing Man and Woman at a
Restaurant. After he moved to Eugene he began to paint
nature. He depicted landscapes at first and then evolved
toward abstraction, though he did not think of himself as an
abstract artist. He was grounded in reality, always begin-
ning with observation.
The exhibit Learning to Paint is Learning to See re-
minds us of this by hanging photographs of correspond-
ART
TALK
BY BOB KEEFER
What’s up with the
city, the Hult and
the former Jacobs
Gallery?
I
t’s been more than a year since
the Jacobs Gallery closed its
doors in downtown Eugene,
another victim of — of what,
exactly? The sluggish econ-
omy? City Hall’s indifference
to the visual arts? Poor manage-
ment by the nonprofit organiza-
tion that ran the Jacobs, created
in 1987, on the lower floor of the
Hult Center?
Pressed for an answer, I’d
have to choose a bit of all of the
22
DAVID MCCOSH: ‘FALL CREEK,’ 1964
ing places in nature on the walls. During his talk, Saydack
pointed to a tree in a photograph and then to a column of
brush strokes in the painting Tangle. A collective sound of
appreciation could be heard as people in the gallery recog-
nized the tree in the painting — seeing what the artist saw.
“Don’t draw a tree. Draw a particular tree,” was advice
McCosh gave to his drawing class, according to a former
McCosh student who was at the gallery. “He detested ste-
reotypes.”
What’s the difference?
above. What I can’t put my finger
on, though, is this: Why hasn’t the
city gotten around to taking down
the signs at the Hult Center that
say “Jacobs Gallery”? You can
still read the operating hours of
the now non-existent art gallery.
Do they think the Jacobs is magi-
cally going to resurrect itself?
I got the chance recently to
pose that question to a couple
city officials — Theresa Size-
more, the Hult Center manager,
and Isaac Marquez, the public art
manager. They’re both friendly
and hard working, and seem
quite sincere in their explana-
tions. And they both indicated
that things just plain take a long
time to accomplish when the city
does them.
“The signage is part of an
overall plan,” Sizemore said.
“And a lot of the signs are at-
tached to the building …”
The 35-year-old Hult Center
is showing its age. Water began
leaking into the lower levels
of the building even before the
Jacobs closed. There was fun-
gus involved. Repairs involve
March 16, 2017 • eugeneweekly.com
rebuilding a small commercial
kitchen, and that means bringing
the kitchen up to current health
codes, which will make it bigger,
and …
Anyone who has remodeled a
house will recognize this kind of
mission creep.
“Construction could still im-
pact the Jacobs space,” Sizemore
said.
Bigger questions still hover
around the ghost of the gallery.
What’s the city’s role in promot-
ing visual art? Should it replace
the Jacobs Gallery with another
equivalent space? Or should it
focus on other ways of present-
ing art, and other kinds of art be-
sides paintings hung on walls?
“The visual arts fall between
many models,” Marquez said.
“How many galleries have closed
in Eugene in the last five years?”
More, I’d have to admit, than
survive.
To its credit, the city spent
some time in the past year try-
ing to find another private group
to operate something like the Ja-
cobs, if only for the occasional
You can draw a stereotype of a tree without looking at
one. But in order to draw a specific tree — a real tree —
you have to look. You can’t make it up.
There’s no lying in art.
This is why we use words like “immediate” or “truth-
ful” to describe paintings done with brushstrokes that are
visible, like marks made in drawing. And why no matter
how abstract a painting of a landscape is, it can still be real.
David McCosh: Learning to Paint is Learning to See runs through April 1
at Karin Clarke Gallery, 760 Willamette Street. Hours are noon to 5:30 pm
Wednesday through Saturday.
show. That never really panned
out.
On the other hand, I haven’t
been totally convinced the city
is behind the idea of another city-
supported art gallery. More than
a year ago, city staffers told the
Cultural Services Advisory Com-
mittee that “the gallery model is
not doing well, nationally, inter-
nationally or in our state.”
The same could also be said
about symphonic music, ballet
and opera. Yet traditional non-
profit performing groups con-
tinue to operate in the Hult’s two
performance halls, though, of
course, the ever-ailing opera is,
once again, broke and in debt,
and the Oregon Bach Festival
has moved most of its operations
back to the University of Oregon.
Sizemore says the city doesn’t
subsidize performances, not even
for the Hult’s six resident compa-
nies. So the city wasn’t showing
favoritism by cutting its $30,000
annual subsidy to the Jacobs,
leading to the gallery’s demise;
instead it was putting painters
and printmakers and sculptors on
the same neutral financial foot-
ing as musicians and dancers and
actors. (In fact, the Jacobs never
paid rent on its space, so it came
out ahead.)
Bottom line is this: If the vi-
sual arts world wants a visual arts
center in Eugene, it’s going to be
up to those artists and their sup-
porters to build it. I don’t believe
the city will stand in the way of a
solid plan, but no one should wait
around for City Hall to make the
first move.
After all, Eugene can’t even
decide how to replace its now-
demolished City Hall.
Some of you may recall
Eugene Art Talk, the arts blog I
wrote for a couple years between
working for that other newspaper
in town and taking up residence
in here at Eugene Weekly. I didn’t
quite know what to do with the
name, but I’ve grown fond of it.
So here it is, on top of a new and
occasional column about the arts
world in and around Eugene.
Send comments, ideas, complaints and
suggestions to bob@eugeneweekly.com.