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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (March 21, 2019)
THURSDAY, MARCH 21, 2019 // 3 SCRATCHPAD A hidden talent discovered in retirement Photographer Linda Fenton- Mendenhall sells prints, calendars all over the world By ERICK BENGEL COAST WEEKEND A Linda Fenton-Mendenhall North Coast photographer Linda Fenton-Mendenhall. coast INSIDE THIS ISSUE weekend arts & entertainment 7 8 THE ARTS ‘Vicious’ 18 COAST WEEKEND EDITOR ERICK BENGEL CONTRIBUTORS DAVE FISHER LYNETTE RAE McADAMS BARBARA LLOYD McMICHAEL NATALIE ST. JOHN PATRICK WEBB JONATHAN WILLIAMS A backstage look at the thriller, which screened in Manzanita FEATURE Coastal Celtic Music Festival To advertise in Coast Weekend, call 503-325-3211 or contact your local sales representative. © 2019 COAST WEEKEND Inaugural event features 10 Irish bands at four venues 12 mid the kaleido- scopic blur of col- ors, compliments, cheese, crackers, loose con- versations and winey rev- elry of a recent Astoria Art Walk, my attention was New items for publication consideration must be submitted by 10 a.m. Tuesday, one week and two days before publication. DINING Hearthfi re and Brimstone Bloodroot, sweat and tears BOOK ‘To Inspire the Young’ Former Peninsula writer Anne Nixon pens work on life goals FURTHER ENJOYMENT MUSIC CALENDAR .....................5 CROSSWORD ...............................6 SEE + DO ............................. 10, 11 CW MARKETPLACE.......... 15, 16 WILD SIDE .................................. 18 BOOKMONGER ........................ 19 Find it all online! CoastWeekend.com features full calendar listings, keyword search and easy sharing on social media. TO SUBMIT AN ITEM Phone: 503.325.3211 Ext. 217 or 800.781.3211 Fax: 503.325.6573 E-mail: editor@coastweekend.com Address: P.O.Box 210 • 949 Exchange St. Astoria, OR 97103 Coast Weekend is published every Thursday by the EO Media Group, all rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced without consent of the publisher. Coast Weekend appears weekly in The Daily Astorian and the Chinook Observer. seized by a calendar for sale in the Pier 11 Building. I didn’t need a calendar, but I bought this one. Each month of 2019 displays a simple, textured image of the North Oregon Coast: Astoria’s West Mooning basin for January, a lone paraglider at Clatsop Beach for May, a driftwood fort at Indian Beach for Septem- ber and so on. A memento of my adopted home and a medium to literally mark my time at the coast. The woman I bought it from, it turned out, was the photographer, Linda Fen- ton-Mendenhall. For 24 years, Linda worked at Fred Meyer in Warrenton, where she was the apparel manager. It was a solid, good-paying job with some creative outlets, but those were days spent in a big- box store with limited sun- light and a windowless offi ce. “The minute I got out of there, I was outside a lot,” she said, “so I took advan- tage of it and just kind of became a tourist in my own county again.” Linda, who lives between Warrenton and Gearhart, isn’t a lifelong photogra- pher. She wasn’t patiently waiting for the freedom of retirement to express her gift. In fact, she had no idea this gift was lurking in her. “It just wasn’t really a thing for me,” she said. When out-of-town rel- atives would visit and do touristy things, she’d snap photos right along with them and thought, “‘Huh, this is kind of fun. Might keep doing this.’” She now sells prints all over the world, and her cal- endars have shipped to other states and countries. “It just sort of took off,” she said. Linda Fenton-Mendenhall A St. Patrick’s Day Starfi sh at Hug Point, part of Linda Fenton- Mendenhall’s ongoing series of holiday photos. Linda’s still on the learn- ing curve, she said. She hasn’t trained on Photo- shop or taken photogra- phy classes. What she has is an eye. She discovered she knew intuitively what makes a compelling photo: detail, composition, a fresh angle. She frequently shoots at ground level, giving maj- esty to seagulls and sea stacks. She keeps two shops in the county — Trea- sure Alley on Pier 11 and another at the Seaside Antique Mall, where she’s part of an antique collective. She also sells on Etsy, has a permanent display at Fair- weather House & Gallery in Seaside and is the photog- rapher for the Seaside First Saturday Art Walk. Her ongoing holi- days series featuring star- fi sh — a pair of starfi sh in love for Valentine’s, a lep- rechaun-capped starfi sh for St. Patrick’s, etc. — makes the rounds on social media. A photo she posted before Christmas of a starfi sh in a Santa hat reached more than 350,000 Facebook users. “It came out of the blue,” she said. “I didn’t expect to even be able to take pic- tures, let alone have it grow- ing like it has.” The Fentons are a fi ve-generation family in Clatsop County. Linda’s father, Allen Fenton, runs the Memories of Warrenton Facebook page. He passed down his appreciation of the region to his daughter, though his projects empha- size the local history, hers the views and landscapes. Linda’s been getting a lot of requests to shoot weddings and portraits lately. “But I’d much rather do landscapes,” she said, “and you don’t have to get anyone’s approval that way.” CW
