Wallowa County chieftain., August 14, 2019, Page 18, Image 18

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Wallowa County Chieftain
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
‘A River Runs Through Us’
documents the wild Lostine
Exhibit at Joseph
Center runs
through Sept. 9
By Ellen Morris Bishop
Wallowa County Chieftain
Steve Tool/Chieftain
Portland band Anita Lee and the Handsome Three play their unique blend of psychedelic country at the 10th annual Juniper
Jam held at the Wallowa County Fairgrounds on Sept. 1.
Juniper Jam ready to spread sweet music in Enterprise
Headliners include
Bart Budwig
and the Dodgy
Mountain Men
By Steve Tool
Wallowa County Chieftain
The annual Juniper Jam
is on deck for Saturday, Aug.
31. Billed as “The Sweet-
est Little Music Festival in
Eastern Oregon, this year’s
extravaganza features two
stages of live original music
and a dozen music acts as
well as buskers roaming the
grounds.
The multi-faceted festi-
val will also showcase arti-
sans as well as a variety of
food booths. The festival is
the principal fundraiser for
the Wallowa Valley Music
Alliance.
Festival and alliance
director, Janis Carper, said
this year’s offering should
please just about any music
palette.
“”One thing I’m really
excited about is the
cross-pollination of bands
this year,” Carper said.
“This year we have some
pretty exciting incidences of
that.” For example she noted
local musician, Bart Bud-
wig’s band, which has mem-
bers who also play in other
bands.
Buskers, a relatively new
feature, will play acoustic
music sets throughout the
Chieftain file photo
The Blackberry Bushes songwriter and guitarist Jes Raymond
belts it out at the 2015 Juniper Jam. The five-piece band
includes fiddle virtuoso Jakob Breitbach.
grounds when the gate opens
and before the acts start.
“It’s a nice way to fill the
void while people are wan-
dering in slowly and check-
ing things out,” Carper
said. “You need to have
music going, because you
can’t have recorded music
playing.”
In addition to the music,
the festival offers other ame-
nities. about a half-dozen
artisan booths will populate
the grounds as well as about
the same number of food
vendors, mostly local. The
alliance is selling beverages,
including beer and wine, etc.
“I like to boost the art end
of it,” Carper said. “It adds
so much when it’s local peo-
ple showing off their stuff.”
Several of the musi-
cians have played the fes-
tival before while others
have played at other county
venues.
“We try to mix it up,”
Carper said. “We don’t usu-
ally do two years in a row
with the same act, but we do
have bands back that have
developed a following out
here.”
With bands ranging in
areas from Montana, Colo-
rado, Oregon and New Mex-
ico, Carper said the festi-
val offers something for
everybody.
“We have a good mix of
styles,” Carper said. “It will
be fun.”
To insure a good time,
do not bring coolers, pets or
alcohol beverages. It is sug-
gested to bring sunscreen,
layered clothing, blankets,
lawn chairs and a good
attitude.
Pre-concert tickets are
$20 and $25 at the gate
while kids 12 and under are
free. Tickets are available at
Joseph Hardware, the Dol-
lar Stretcher in Enterprise
and the Bookloft in Enter-
prise. Online, tickets are
available at: https://www.
brownpapertickets.com/
event/4291021. The gates
open at 11 a.m. with the
buskers starting at the same
time. The festival ends at
approximately 10 p.m.
Friday, Aug. 2, the Jose-
phy Center for Arts and
Culture in Joseph opened
the doors to its new exhibit:
“A River Runs Through
Us: The Art and Words of
the Wild Lostine.” With
40 paintings and photo-
graphs, along with videos,
sculptures, and poetry, the
exhibit provides a portrait
of a diverse and wild place,
where river, forest, geol-
ogy, and wildlife abound.
The art and words of the
exhibit are captured in the
exhibit catalogue, which
is available at the Josephy
Center for $20.
Prior to the exhibit open-
ing, the artists provided a
tour and interpretations of
their works. “I wanted to
capture places where peo-
ple often spend time,” said
photographer Rick McK-
ewan. “So I went to the
Pole Bridge and decided to
make that the place for my
work.” McEwan’s black
and white images include
one of the Lostine River’s
torrents pouring through
the rocky, forested gorge,
and another of a small
water ouzel that was dash-
ing into the fast-moving
waters to catch dinner. “If
I tried that, I’d be washed
away,” McKewan said.
The two images, along
with a poem, will be a part
of a forthcoming exhibit of
McEwan’s black and white
images, along with those
Ellen Morris Bishop
Photographer
Rick
McKewan talks about his
work at the opening of the
Josephy Center exhibit “A
River Runs Through Us: The
Art and Words of the Wild
Lostine.”
of Adele Buttolph.
Kai Oliver’s painting
focuses on the more quiet
water of a tributary stream.
“I just wanted to find a
place where I could sit and
find peace,” he said. “The
little stream, just up from
it’s confluence with the
Lostine, seemed perfect.”
Rick Bombaci took a
somewhat different tack
in his exhibit—a four-min-
ute video of just the Los-
tine River’s rushing water.
“I wanted to see whether,
in an age of electronics
and cell phones and dis-
tractions, we still had the
patience to just sit and
watch the river for 4 min-
utes without thinking about
texting or a phone call or
the internet,” he said. The
video is hypnotic. No-one
who watches it remembers
that there is such a thing
as a cell phone--or any-
thing else — for those four
minutes.
The exhibit will remain
open until September 9.
Ellen Morris Bishop
Artist Leslie LeViner explains how she observed and
captured the changing course of the river and its sand bars
in her painting at the Josephy Center’s Wild Lostine art
exhibit.
Schedule of Events