4C
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2015
PARTING SHOTS
A weekly snapshot from The Daily Astorian and Chinook Observer photographers
A player on Gladstone’s softball team stands in the on deck circle during a softball game against Astoria High School in Astoria March 16.
JOSHUA BESSEX — The Daily Astorian
Yoga: Festival typically brings between 150 and 200 enthusiasts
Continued from Page 1C
Sara “Senna” Scott, of
Redmond, sat near the front.
The Saturday class wasn’t
just Scott’s first yoga class
at the festival; it was her
first yoga class ever.
“I had self-doubts about
singing,” she said. “It was
interesting how negativi-
ty kind of just came about
while I was practicing. And
just being able to actual-
ly practice it, and have the
support and love of every-
one else in the room — it
was really incredible.”
Life drawing
At moments, Marsh
asked her listeners — the
unsure beginners and the
seasoned yogis — to park
their thinking mind some-
where in their body. And,
when their mind wandered,
to coax it back to the here
and now, even if it was only
to pay attention to the sen-
sations on their fingertips,
or of their bare skin against
the cool air.
Though
mindfulness
meditation lies at the heart
of yoga practice, one need
not necessarily assume the
lotus position while om-ing
in order to have a medita-
tive experience. Making art,
for example, can be just as
rich and rewarding, and can
produce a similar effect.
Before Marsh’s work-
shop, the community hall
served as a temporary
art studio, where Cannon
Beach artist and teacher Da-
vid Kinhan taught a yoga
figure drawing class.
Using charcoal sticks
and a canvas, five amateur
artists sketched the lithe,
flexible frame of Julie “Fig”
Yanko, a professional mod-
el and yoga practitioner
from Manzanita.
Yanko, wearing skin-
ERICK BENGEL — EO Media Group
Julie “Fig” Yanko, of Manzanita, models the Lord of the Fishes pose for a figure drawing class. Background from left:
Rebecca Bliefernich, St. Helens; Linda Kinhan, Cannon Beach; and Sara Rieber, Portland.
tight gym wear, rotated her
angular body through dif-
ferent yoga poses on two
layers of yoga mat, some-
times holding a pose for
10 minutes or more. Mean-
while, Kinhan circled the
room, moving from student
to student, pointing out the
shapes, contours, propor-
tions and musculature of
Yanko’s body, and the neg-
ative space around it.
The human form is “one
of the hardest things that
there is to draw,” even in a
state of natural repose, Kin-
han said. Drawing it in com-
plicated yoga poses requires
even greater concentration.
“This particular type
of drawing is like a yoga
practice,” said Kinhan, the
ERICK BENGEL — EO Media Group
Julie “Fig” Yanko, of Manzanita, models for David Kin-
han’s yoga figure drawing class. Background from left:
Lila Wickham,Cannon Beach; Kinhan, Cannon Beach; and
Jennifer Wyman, Tacoma, Wash.
younger brother of yoga
festival founder and direc-
tor Christen Allsop. “I tell
people that the whole point
of this class is not neces-
sarily to make beautiful
drawings that you’re going
to put in a frame and give
to your mother. It’s for you.
It’s for you to learn how to
draw.”
While drawing, “you’re
focusing on one thing for
a certain period of time,”
said Sara Rieber, a festival
volunteer from Portland
who took Kinhan’s class.
“You get into a whole oth-
er world. You forget about
your surroundings, which
is exactly what yoga’s sup-
posed to be like.”
‘Trueness of line’
Now in its fifth consecu-
tive year, the yoga festival,
held March 6 through 8 this
year, typically brings be-
tween 150 and 200 yoga en-
thusiasts to Cannon Beach.
These include world-re-
nowned yoga instructors,
like Marsh, who give class-
es, workshops, presenta-
tions and lectures at dif-
ferent locations throughout
town. The 2015 festival had
just under 200 participants,
according to an early tally
by Allsop, owner of Cannon
Beach Yoga Arts.
The festival receives
money from the city’s Tour-
ism and Arts Commission,
which collects a portion of
the city’s overnight lodging
taxes. To get funding, event
organizers have to show that
their event attracts visitors
from more than 50 miles
away and contributes to the
city’s arts scene. This year’s
yoga festival grant was for
$36,000.
Rebecca
Bliefernich,
a St. Helens resident and
friend of Allsop, has attend-
ed the festival every year,
and this year marked the
second time she has taken
Kinhan’s class. As Kinhan
called it a day, and Yanko
prepared for Marsh’s work-
shop, Bliefernich, a painter,
shared why yoga appeals to
her.
“Everybody does yoga
for a different reason,” she
said. “For some people, it’s
internal; other people, ex-
ternal. For me, it’s visual.”
Watching Yanko —
whose yoga posture rep-
resents “the ideal,” and
whose “trueness of line”
embodies
what
many
yoga practitioners hope to
achieve — “It makes me
appreciate what yoga’s sup-
posed to be,” Bliefernich
said. “I will never have a
yoga body. I will never have
that trueness of line. But I
can certainly appreciate it in
other ways.”
W hile other n ew spa pers give you less, The D a ily Astoria n
GIVES YOU
M ORE
O u r n ew
C APITAL B UREAU
covers the sta te for you
From left: Peter W on g, H illa ry Borru d , M a teu sz Perk ow sk i