CONTENTS
PAGE 2 • GO! MAGAZINE
THURSDAY, MAY 27, 2021 • THE BULLETIN
talent
The Bulletin and Scalehouse, a collaborative for the arts, have joined together to raise
donations to help Central Oregon’s creative artists — musicians, visual artists, performers
and creative workers — by offering grants and a platform to bring attention to local
amazing talent. This is a crowdfunding effort with a first-round fundraising goal of $40,000.
To make a tax-deductible donation or apply for a grant, go to bendbulletin.com/talent
Metal artist Pemberton gets collaborative
BY DAVID JASPER
The Bulletin
I
n late January 2020, Jesse Pemberton,
this week’s featured artist in the Central
Oregon Creative Artists Relief Effort,
took a vacation to Thailand with his wife
and their young daughter, Aven, and son,
Toren, now 4 and 6, respectively.
In early February, “The airwaves started
lighting up with this virus that was coming
out of China,” Pemberton said. Just a week
and a half prior, they’d flown through Taipei,
Taiwan, and the return path seemed daunting.
“We thought, how are we going to do
this? How are we going to negotiate where
we are geographically on the planet to try to
get home?” Pemberton said. Along with the
possibility of getting stuck overseas, there
was also the risk of catching COVID-19.
Fortunately, his wife, Bryana, working
for Alaska Airlines, they were able to tweak
their flight plans.
“We hustled home as soon as we could,”
he said. “We got home, and about five or
seven days later, they closed San Francisco
Airport.”
Home is Bend, where Pemberton and his
family moved in 2017 from Half
Moon Bay, California, where
Pemberton ran an archi-
tectural metal fabrication
shop in nearby San Carlos
for about 15 years. It was a
working studio and shop
through which he did
work for custom homes,
made prototypes for inven-
tors and entrepreneurs.
“A whole slew of things” led
the family to move to Central Or-
egon, including family they’d occasionally
visit in Bend, a town that reminded Pember-
ton and his wife of their respective home-
towns in the Sierras.
“We just thought, ‘Wow, this reminds us
of being little kids ourselves,’” Pemberton
said. “There was just something familiar
about that.”
But in 2020, there was the question of how
to make ends meet once the pandemic ar-
rived at home, in Bend, where Pemberton
makes functional and decor art, custom fur-
niture and more through his company, De-
sign Deschutes, and collaborates with other
Go online
Watch Central Oregon Daily
at 6:45 a.m. to see an in-
terview with the featured
artist.
Jesse Pemberton works
on a series titled “Circum-
punct,” made of steel and
rare earth magnets.
Submitted photo
artists in Central Oregon Metal Arts Guild.
“We were fortunate. The airline’s fur-
loughs allowed for unemployment, so there
was some income coming in, and we had
some savings that we didn’t blow through on
our vacation,” he said, laughing.
“The catalyzing side of 2020, at least early
on, was that there were a lot more art shows
that were going online,” Pemberton said. He
submitted to one such show, in Marin, his
triptych “Angles of Repose,” which earned
an honorable mention.
“That became this point of, ‘OK, the im-
portance of art and artists working together,
collaborating, finding their way through
any channel possible, in this case the Inter-
net, became the first real stepping stone go-
ing from making the damn piece to being
awarded and recognized, to the piece selling,
ultimately, later on,” Pemberton said.
CO CAREs grant money would help him
in contributing to a collaborative piece with
Kinsculpt, self-described as a motley crew
of artists, makers, and enthusiasts,” work-
ing together on a large public sculpture ti-
tled “Fleur De Lux,” which, as planned, will
eventually make its way to the Deschutes
County Fair & Expo Center.
“If I can create work that the public can en-
joy, with grant money, that satisfies my own
ethics,” Pemberton said. “When I was going
through my thought process of the grant, I
thought, well, part of this I can use to fill in the
gap of my savings, and my debt, essentially,
I’ve accumulated over this last year and a half
of being affected by sales. … If this works as
a funding source to get that next bit of public
art out there, then the idea is to really use that
money to put a smile on people’s face.”
David Jasper: 541-383-0349, djasper@bendbulletin.com
find what’s inside
see: Amejko Artistry, p.9
Getting back to normal after the
COVID-19 pandemic, p.10
staff
watch: Movies build drama, comedy, p.18
about this magazine
editor Jody Lawrence-Turner | 541-383-0308, jlawrence-turner@bendbulletin.com
events specialist Makenzie Whittle | 541-383-0304, mwhittle@bendbulletin.com
GO! Magazine publishes Thursdays. Find us online at bendbulletin.com/go
editor & fine arts David Jasper | 541-383-0349, djasper@bendbulletin.com
page designer Jenny Johnston | jjohnston@bendbulletin.com
address: 320 SW Upper Terrace Drive, Suite 200, Bend, OR 97702
outdoors writer Mark Morical | 541-383-0318, mmorical@bendbulletin.com
Cover image: submitted photos
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