8A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 2015 Cannon Beach artist Steve McLeod left strong legacy Painter, sculptor contributed to study of ocean currents By ERICK BENGEL EO Media Group CANNON BEACH — Steve McLeod, 70, a versa- tile Cannon Beach artist and ardent beachcomber, died of pneumonia May 11 at Port- land’s Providence St. Vincent Medical Center three days after being transferred from Providence Seaside Hospital. “He was by himself,” said his friend Dave Butler. “He chose to be by himself.” An evolving artist known for seascapes, abstract paint- ings, and pieces composed of dried kelp, jetsam and oth- er beach detritus, McLeod’s work resides in homes, galler- ies and other establishments throughout town. “His paintings are ev- erywhere,” former Cannon Beach Mayor Mike Morgan said. “He’s very well thought of in the Paci¿c Northwest.” Robin Risley, a Cannon Beach resident, said McLeod “took life seriously.” In his art, “you saw a technical dis- cipline that he had, and I think he kind of approached life that way, too. He wanted to dig into the details ... to make sense of everything.” McLeod is also famous as the person who, in the early ’90s, began collect- ing and selling hundreds of Nike sneakers that washed ashore along the West Coast — and especially the Ore- gon Coast — after the com- pany’s shipping containers en route to Seattle fell over- board and broke open. Mc- Leod’s notes on where the shoes ran aground proved valuable to the scientific study of ocean currents. “He lived close to the rhythms of the tides and of the forests,” said Watt Chil- dress, co-owner of Jupiter’s Rare and Used Books. “He really loved this place.” A memorial service will held 6 p.m. June 24 at the American Legion Post 168. Beach scenes Born Aug. 17, 1944, in Long Branch, N.J., under the name Steven McLeod Woodward, he was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, served in the U.S. Coast Guard and earned a bach- elor of arts degree at Utah State University. He adopt- ed “Steve McLeod” as his artistic signature, though he never legally changed his given name, his older broth- er, Wayne Woodward, said. In the early 1970s, Mc- Leod settled into Arch Cape and, later, Cannon Beach, where he and other local art- ists, including Frank Lack- aff and Bill Steidel, helped shape the town’s identity as an arts colony. McLeod co-founded the White Bird Gallery with Evelyn Georges in 1971 and displayed his work there and in other regional galler- ies. For years, McLeod most- ly painted realistic beach scenes featuring things like dories, Haystack Rock, the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse and the Columbia River — work that Cannon Beach resident Marilyn Rooper called “absolutely gor- geous.” “His paintings were masterful,” Cannon Beach resident Karolyn Adamson said. “What he could do with light on water was just magical.” Steidel said McLeod was “rather shy and bashful about his work.” “But, at the same time, he was very proud about what he did,” Steidel said. “In my mind, he was one of the best artists that Cannon Beach has had.” ERICK BENGEL — EO Media Group In honor of his life, one of McLeod’s kelp sculptures, which he made many of in his later years, sits in the window sill of The Bistro in downtown Cannon Beach. spoils of his beachcombing, particularly plastic and Sty- rofoam litter. “He was looking for things that were not useful to anybody else, stuff that had washed up,” Wayne Woodward said. McLeod, a consummate environmen- talist, didn’t like to see trash on the beach. “He was try- ing to find useful ways to use that, so he would make sculptures out of it.” Some of McLeod’s final work consisted of landscape imagery painted onto small cardboard wine boxes. “I believe (the wine boxes) allowed Steve to experi- ment with this style without having to commit with large expensive canvases or fram- ing,” White Bird Gallery owner Allyn Cantor said. Though McLeod’s later work didn’t sell nearly as well as his more accessible seascapes, Sharon Amber, a Cannon Beach artist, told him his abstract work was top-notch. McLeod told her, “‘This is what’s in my heart. This is what I really like to do,’” she said. “A lot of people don’t understand abstract art,” she said. “If he could have tak- en it to New York, he would have been famous, I think.” Rooper said that true art- ists, like McLeod, “wants to go places where he hasn’t been, moving on, trying new things.” Pierre Toutain-Dorbec, who was collaborating with McLeod on photo book of three-dimensional land- scapes based on the artist’s sculptures before he died, said Steve was a “true free spirit,” which is very rare, he said. Soles lost at sea Had McLeod never pro- duced a single work of art, he still would have achieved a kind of immortality thanks to the Great Sneaker Spill of 1990. On May 27, 1990, a freighter sailing from Seoul, South Korea, lost 21 steel containers; five held tens of thousands of Nike sneakers, four of which broke open, spilling 61,280 shoes into the North Pacific Ocean. The floating footwear even- tually turned up along the coastlines of British Colum- bia, Washington and Ore- gon, according to a column by flotsam expert Curtis Ebbesmeyer and journalist Eric Scigliano. When Ebbesmeyer met McLeod, the scientist learned that the “classic starving artist” had gath- ered beached Nikes from Cannon Beach, Arch Cape, PIERRE TOUTAIN-DORBEC photo Steve McLeod, 1944-2015, works in his studio last year. Before he died last month, he had been collaborating with local writer, photographer and former photojournalist Pierre Toutain-Dorbec on a photo book of three-dimensional land- scapes based on McLeod’s sculptures and the objects McLeod collected on the beaches in the area. ERICK BENGEL — EO Media Group This oil painting by Steve McLeod currently hangs in The Bistro in downtown Cannon Beach. The painting is an ex- ample of McLeod’s early landscape work, which was quite popular. Tillamook and elsewhere, recorded the location where each was found, sold many of them and sometimes in- corporated the shoes into his art, Ebbesmeyer wrote. What’s more, McLeod had networked with other beachcombers, arranging swap meets and trade fairs where owners of ocean- borne Nikes could acquire the missing mates. Ebbesmeyer used Mc- Leod’s information to re- fine his models of ocean currents. The Smithsonian Institution put on an exhi- bition illustrating current flows that included some of McLeod’s Nikes, Cannon Beach resident Peter Lind- sey said. ‘More caterpillar than butterfly’ By all accounts, McLeod was kind and intelligent, known for hiking and forag- ing in the North Coast wil- derness and living softly on the land. While surviving on his art, McLeod secured a few patrons and held down part- time jobs. He often ven- tured into the nearby forest reserves to hunt for chan- terelle mushrooms and sell them to restaurants. “Steve was an extreme- ly wiry, agile person who could get across the land- scape quite handily,” Lind- sey said. McLeod lived an inde- pendent and intensely pri- vate life, which bordered on reclusive, Wayne Wood- ward said. “He was more caterpil- lar than butterfly, socially speaking,” Childress said. McLeod told his fami- ly that, upon his death, he wanted all of his artwork and belongings given away. So, late last month, his older brother, Wayne Woodward, and Woodward’s wife, Mar- ci Woodward, opened Mc- Leod’s loft apartment, just west of the Coaster Theatre, for the community to take what they wanted. His paint- ings were claimed in no time. “The community was his family, too,” Marci Wood- ward said. Days before he died, Mc- Leod told his brother that he was “pretty happy with his life,” Wayne Woodward said. PIERRE TOUTAIN-DORBEC photo Steve McLeod relaxes in his studio last year. The artist, who lived behind the Coaster Theatre for about 40 years, passed away May 11 from pneumonia. W hile most of us don’t like to think that we will ever need the ambulance or Life Flight services, believe me, it can happen. “Thanks to Lifecare and Life Flight membership, our family has saved tens of thousands of dollars in the last couple of years. Membership is a small price to pay, for peace of mind.” “Not convinced? Ask yourself... ‘What if?’” L ife Ca re w /L ife Flight O N LY $ 00* Skip Hauke & family 119 L ife Ca re CALL 503-861-5558 OR STOP BY OUR OFFICE 2325 SE DOLPHIN AVENUE WARRENTON www.medix.org s r r IN AN EMERGENCY CALL TM *Full year, per household. Membership covers dependents listed on your tax forms, living in your home. Give in the Best Way Possible A new direction Then, Picasso-like, he entered a new period. His paintings grew less repre- sentational, more impres- sionistic. 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