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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (July 4, 2015)
LIFESTYLES WEEKEND, JULY 4-5, 2015 1C Ryan Gary of Walla Walla is creating a U.S. flag collage in the entryway of the Helix School. In the upper left photo, he replaces the stars with cuttings that look like hands that contain positive messages. At right he glues thousands of small paper cuttings to his wooden canvas to create the flag. At bottom left he applies wallpaper glue to the mural. Shred, might and glue Walla Walla artist Ryan Gary turns scraps into patriotic art for Helix school 6WRU\E\.$7+<$1(<Ƈ3KRWRVE\(-+$55,6Ƈ East Oregonian S ome people can’t look at a blank wall without imagining VRPHNLQGRIDUWWR¿OOWKH space. Ryan Gary is one of those people. The Walla Walla artist had such a moment after arriving in Helix to play in last weekend’s three-day pickleball tournament where he and his men’s doubles partner eventually won gold. While there, he noticed a bare space on a wall in the gymnasium’s foyer. The wall’s blankness presented both a challenge and a way to thank Helix for its hospitality. Gary has a passion for clay and drawing, but he also experiments with other media, If creativity was water, inside Gary’s brain would be a class 5 river with gushing waterfalls and spinning eddies. He says he must “grab a vision before it runs away with itself.” He is an energetic man whose XQRI¿FLDOPRWWRLV³,¶OOVOHHSZKHQ,GLH´ Gary, who bonded with Helix over the ZHHNHQGDVNHGSHUPLVVLRQWR¿OOWKHVSDFH with his own artistic version of Old Glory. 7KHÀDJZRXOGUHVHPEOHDQRWKHUKHKDG painted as performance art at the Walla Walla YMCA. When he supplied photos RIWKHÀDJ+HOL[6FKRRO6XSHULQWHQGHQW Darrick Cope cautiously gave him the nod, but warned him the foyer wasn’t air conditioned. Also, Cope told him that this particular wall was the site of a future veteran’s memorial. Would Gary consider letting his work instead grace a wall in the well-trav- eled elementary corridor? The artist agreed and returned to Helix School on Monday morning with an eight- IRRWORQJÀDJVKDSHGSLHFHRIOXPEHUWXEV of wallpaper paste and hundreds of red, white and blue paper triangles cut from card stock. Some were metallic. Others glittered. As a box fan whirred, Gary set to work fashioning stripes from the paper triangles, coating them with wallpaper paste, then repeating. When he got to the upper left hand corner, where the stars usually go, he added his own personal twist. Instead of stars, he placed hand prints ¿OOHGZLWKOHWWHUVDQGZRUGVWKDWDW¿UVWORRN like chaos, but upon closer examination \LHOGZRUGVDQGSKUDVHVWKDWÀRZWKLVZD\ and that. “May we always believe in love.” “We are new every day.” “We should not let our fears hold us back.” Gary had doodled the original drawings while sitting in his father’s hospital room after his dad suffered a heart attack. He has since died. His dad was a patriotic guy, an $UP\YHWHUDQZKRORYHGÀDJVDQGWKHLGHD that “Freedom isn’t free,” which appears on one of Gary’s hand stars. 7KLVLVQ¶W*DU\¶V¿UVWIRUD\LQWRSXEOLF art. Mainly a ceramic artist, he spent about 1,000 hours fashioning an archway made of handcrafted ceramic tiles of various shapes at the Rees and Sumach Community Garden in Walla Walla. The 38-year-old father of two often travels to places such as Indonesia, Thailand DQG1LFDUDJXDWR¿QGLQVSLUDWLRQDQGOHDUQ WHFKQLTXHVWKDW¿QGWKHLUZD\LQWRKLV artistry. Gary spent several days creating the +HOL[ÀDJ$KDUGDQGWUDQVSDUHQWVKHOORI wallpaper paste protects the stars and stripes, ZKLFKJORZZLWKUHÀHFWHGOLJKW7KHWH[WXUH will likely invite exploration by the hands RIJUDGHVFKRROHUVZKRZLOOSDVVE\WKHÀDJ every day. Cope peeked in a few times and liked what he saw. “I love the patriotism and positive themes in the handprints,” he said. “The kids will enjoy looking at this.” ——— Contact Kathy Aney at kaney@eastorego- nian.com or call 541-966-0810.
