12
MIXED MEDIUM
MARCH 2�9, 2022
THE ARTS AROUND
EASTERN OREGON
Fishtrap Fireside celebrates Women’s History Month
Virtual event goes
live on March 4
Go! staff
E
NTERPRISE — Fishtrap
Fireside celebrates Women’s
History Month with readings
from three Wallowa County writ-
ers: Debbie Carson, Talia Filipek
and Toni Marie Jones.
The episode goes live Friday,
March 4, at fi shtrap.org and on
Fishtrap’s YouTube channel. It
may be viewed at any time.
Fishtrap Fireside is a monthly
reading series that features
diverse voices from local and
regional writers.
“Every year Fishtrap Fireside
makes a point to celebrate Wom-
en’s History Month by featuring
three women writers who have
unique stories and life experi-
ences to share,” said Mike Midlo,
Fishtrap’s program director.
The March episode of Fish-
trap Fireside is sponsored by
Alder Slope Nursery.
DEBBIE CARSON
Carson was born in Philadel-
phia, where the science muse-
um’s Giant Heart’s pulsating walls
and cobwebs in its darker corners
fascinated and terrifi ed her. It took
Hosted by the
Island City Lions
Club
Debbie Carson
Talia Filipek
Toni Marie Jones
her until age 5 to fi nally muster
up the nerve to walk through it by
herself. That same year, her family
moved to Connecticut, where sur-
rounding dairy farms gave way to
insurance company campuses.
In the recession of 1973, her
art degree netted her work as
short order cook, an MIT temp,
and as a transferrer of dead fi sh
from old bottles to new at Har-
vard’s Ichthyology Department.
Clearly, it was time to head West.
In Eugene, when an old friend
asked, “Want to visit treeplanting
camp?” she joined Hoedads Re-
forestation Co-op, making lifelong
friends while earning just about
zilch planting trees. She fared
better working as a USFS temp,
but eventually returned to college.
She’s now retired from school
librarianship and teaching art.
ogling at the mountains with a
cup of cocoa in one hand and
a baby in the other arm. Grow-
ing up, she visited here with her
Eastern Oregon-based family to
camp and explore, and then re-
turned as a young adult to work
for the USFS as a ranger. Her
professional career has taken
her to Corvallis, Culver, Estacada,
Bend and tall buildings for work
in design, editorial, photography,
outdoor ed and social sciences.
Though she loves variety in
her adventures, she always knew
that near the Wallowas would
be her base camp one day. By
trade, she captures the delight of
humanity, love, untold stories and
local products with her camera.
Beyond park ranger blogging and
college literary zines, her writing
has often been a practice of per-
sonal refl ection, so this reading
at Fishtrap Fireside will be a world
premiere of some inner workings.
Learn more at taliajean.com
TONI MARIE JONES
A Wallowa County native,
Jones is of both European and
Native American Heritage. Her
Irish immigrant great-great-
grandparents homesteaded
in 1880 on what is now called
the Zumwalt Prairie. Her direct
Indian lineage includes Cayuse,
Assiniboine, Northern Cree
and Muskego Cree. Two of her
third-great-grandfathers were
interpreters for the Nez Perce
and the Cayuse during the 1855
Treaty negotiations. She has fi ve
great-grandfathers who were
chief traders for the Hudson’s
Bay Company. Two were posted
at Fort Nez Perce.
Jones is a mother of two
adults, a fi ber and beadwork art-
ist, and a wildfl ower enthusiast.
She has a liberal studies degree
with an anthropology minor spe-
cializing in Oregon Indians.
After a career working for the
Oregon University System as
a secretary, program manager
andgraphic artist, and another
working as a marketing director
and consultant for nonprofi t air
ambulance companies, she is
happily retired.
Jones is the co-editor of the
Frenchtown Historical Founda-
tion newsletter, a publication
focusing on the Native Ameri-
can, French-Canadian and Metis
families’ history of the area.
Her work has appeared in two
Fishtrap Outpost chapbooks,
and she is a member of the Write
Women and Sheep Creek Word
Herders, local writing groups
headed up by Janie Tippett.
TALIA FILIPEK
Filipek resides in Enterprise,
Locked & Loaded
2022
Gunshow
La
Grande
La Grande
Sat. March 12 • 9 to 5 & Sun. March 13 • 9 to 1
@ the Blue Mountain Conference Center • 404 12th Street
Background checks will run and ATM on site.
Breakfast and lunch to be served Saturday.
In Memory of Shelia Evans who did so much for our community.
Sponsors & Vendors call Kayla at 541.786.7210
11am-8pm Tuesday-Saturday