The daily Astorian., November 08, 2018, Page 7, Image 17

NOVEMBER 8, 2018 // 7
HELP
WANTED
Cannon Beach
Gallery Group
seeks coordinator
to promote art in
arts town
By NANCY McCARTHY
FOR COAST WEEKEND
T
here’s an art to pro-
moting an arts town,
and the Cannon Beach
Gallery Group is looking for
someone with that skill.
For eight years, profes-
sional event organizer Bonnie
Gilchrist, of Lake Oswego,
worked with gallery owners
in the Gallery Group to pro-
mote the group’s two annual
events, Spring Unveiling and
Plein Air. She also assisted the
Cannon Beach Chamber of
Commerce in organizing the
Stormy Weather Arts Festival.
But Gilchrist retired this
year, and the group is seeking
someone who demonstrates
the art of promoting the arts.
The application deadline is
Thursday, Nov. 15. Check the
Gallery Group’s website for
details.
“We’re looking for
someone who really knows
PR, who is good with writing
and can promote Cannon
Beach as an arts town,” said
Jane Brumfield, co-owner of
Imprint Gallery.
Where the person lives
isn’t as important as their
knowledge of and interest in
Cannon Beach.
“It’s more important that
it’s the right person than
where they live,” said group
Shing Yin Khor applies glue to pieces of her unfinished diora-
ma — home to her ‘Sea Banana’ beast (foreground) — at Archi-
medes Gallery during Spring Unveiling 2014.
President Jeffrey Hull, painter
and gallery owner.
Allyn Cantor, owner of
White Bird Gallery, agreed.
“Portland, or Seattle
doesn’t matter,” she said. “For
a lot of people, this is their
‘spot.’”
‘We all help each other’
Gilchrist said she en-
joyed working with gallery
owners, meeting artists and
forming lifelong friendships
in the community. She also
appreciated the freedom to
expand the two festivals and
bring more visitors to Cannon
Beach.
But there were challenges,
too, including working with
different personalities, glean-
ing information on deadline
from busy gallery owners,
establishing relationships with
distant editors and working
within the city’s restrictive
sign ordinance that prohibits
event banners.
The new Earth & Ocean
Arts Festival next September,
which will replace Plein Air,
presents more challenges,
Gilchrist said.
“Creating and promoting
a ‘new’ festival will take a lot
of work, as it will have to be
carefully crafted to appeal to
the demographic that includes
art buyers (and) collectors,”
she added.
It will take a person who
can deal with the diversity
of arts represented in the
group’s 11 galleries. They
include printmakers, jewelry
designers, painters, sculptors,
photographers, and blown and
fused glass artists.
While the Gallery Group,
a nonprofit business associ-
ation, includes a diversity of
arts and artists, there’s more
cooperation than competition
among the galleries, Hull said.
“Maybe it sounds idealis-
tic, but I do think we all help
each other, just by being here,
ERICK BENGEL PHOTOS
At Cannon Beach’s 2014 Plein Air & More arts festival, Elizabeth Steele, then 4, from St. Clairsville, Ohio,
marvels at artist Dave Deal’s pot-in-progress. Based just outside Camus, Washington, Dave and his wife,
Boni Deal, make their pottery together and show their work in Cannon Beach’s White Bird Gallery.
being successful,” Hull said.
A go-to place for art
For several years after
Spring Unveiling started in
2001, the gallery owners or-
ganized the event themselves
while still running their busi-
nesses. But the event grew to
include receptions and artist
demonstrations in nearly ev-
ery gallery and musical venue
in town.
Then, they added Plein Air
10 years ago.
“We grew too big for our
britches,” Hull said. “I think
there was a measure of burn-
out that took place.”
By then, the city’s Tourism
and Arts Commission started
allocating lodging taxes to
nonprofit-sponsored events
that attracted visitors. Those
funds enabled the Gallery
Group to pay Gilchrist. The
budget for the new coordi-
nator, including salary and
expenses, is $20,000.
The Gallery Group’s goal
is to remind people that Can-
non Beach is the go-to place
for art.
“We’ve got such
high-quality art in this town
for such a small town, and
we have the backdrop of
the natural beauty to match
it, Cantor said. “And it’s a
friendly place to come — it’s
not pretentious — to look for
art,” Cantor said. CW