16 // COASTWEEKEND.COM The influence of place Potter David Campiche, painter Eric Wiegardt featured in joint art show ‘Form and Fluidity’ in Ilwaco By DWIGHT CASWELL FOR COAST WEEKEND T wo boys became men on the Long Beach Peninsula, shooting ducks, fish- ing Bear River, canoeing the Willapa and Naselle rivers, and oystering on Willapa Bay. Then they set out to conquer the world. David Campiche studied art in Paris and New York, and Eric Wiegardt went to the American Academy of Art in Chicago. Then they returned to where they began, to live a few blocks from their boyhood homes. Between leaving and the present day, Campiche and Wiegardt became masters of their art forms. Campiche’s ceramics range from decep- tively simple bowls to large complex “spirit house” sculptures; all have complex tex- tures and colors, and many are wood-fired. Wiegardt’s recent work includes acrylics, but he is best known for his watercolors, for which he has received national awards. A joint retrospective of their work will be held in the extensive gallery space of Il- waco’s Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum. The show, “Form and Fluidity,” opens 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, July 27. Why a joint show of such disparate mediums? What do these pots and paintings have in common? The influence of place — “interest in the area, the environment,” Wiegardt said. Campiche agreed: “There is a common- ality in space and time, the bay and nature. It gets under your skin.” DWIGHT CASWELL PHOTO Potter David Campiche, left, and painter Eric Wiegardt prepare their joint retrospective show. Artist evolutions The show includes work from their mid- dle school years through the present, so it’s possible to trace the growing depth and skill of their work over more than half a century. “You’ll notice a change in style away from more representational and academ- ic work,” Wiegardt said, “a gradual push toward more expressionist, even non-repre- sentational work.” Like most artists, in the beginning Wiegardt was training his eye to look at the world and to set things down as he saw them. By contrast, his more recent abstract work, he said, is “from the heart, represen- tations of ideas and thoughts.” Campiche became enthralled with art in his senior year of high school, and intended to become a painter until he met master COURTESY ERIC WIEGARDT Continued on Page 23 ‘Duckhunter,’ a painting by Eric Wiegardt. DWIGHT CASWELL PHOTO A vase and teapots by potter David Campiche.