10A • June 5, 2015 | Cannon Beach Gazette | cannonbeachgazette.com
Local artist remembered for work on the ‘Great Sneaker Spill’
McLeod from Page 1A
“He lived close to the
rhythms of the tides and of
the forests,” said Watt Chil-
dress, co-owner of Jupiter’s
Rare and Used Books. “He
really loved this place.”
A memorial service will
held 6 p.m. June 24 at the
American Legion Post 168.
Beach scenes
Born Aug. 17, 1944, in
Long Branch, N.J., under
the name Steven McLeod
Woodward, he was raised
in the San Francisco Bay
Area, served in the U.S.
Coast Guard and earned a
bachelor of arts degree at
Utah State University. He
adopted “Steve McLeod” as
his artistic signature, though
he never legally changed his
given name, his older broth-
er, Wayne Woodward, said.
In the early 1970s, Mc-
Leod settled into Arch Cape
and, later, Cannon Beach,
where he and other local art-
ists, including Frank Lack-
aff and Bill Steidel, helped
shape the town’s identity as
an arts colony.
McLeod co-founded the
White Bird Gallery with
Evelyn Georges in 1971 and
displayed his work there and
in other regional galleries.
For years, McLeod most-
ly painted realistic beach
scenes featuring things like
dories, Haystack Rock, the
Tillamook Rock Lighthouse
and the Columbia River —
work that Cannon Beach
resident Marilyn Rooper
called “absolutely gor-
geous.”
“His paintings were mas-
terful,” Cannon Beach resi-
dent Karolyn Adamson said.
“What he could do with light
on water was just magical.”
Steidel said McLeod
was “rather shy and bashful
about his work.”
“But, at the same time, he
was very proud about what
he did,” Steidel said. “In my
mind, he was one of the best
artists that Cannon Beach
has had.”
A new direction
Then, Picasso-like, he
entered a new period. His
paintings grew less repre-
sentational, more impres-
sionistic. He began creating
kelp-and-seaweed
sculp-
tures and collages and other
artwork fashioned with the
spoils of his beachcombing,
particularly plastic and Sty-
rofoam litter.
“He was looking for
things that were not useful
to anybody else, stuff that
had washed up,” Wayne
Woodward said. McLeod,
a consummate environmen-
talist, didn’t like to see trash
on the beach. “He was try-
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use that, so he would make
sculptures out of it.”
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work consisted of landscape
imagery painted onto small
cardboard wine boxes. “I
believe (the wine boxes) al-
lowed Steve to experiment
with this style without hav-
ing to commit with large
expensive canvases or fram-
ing,” White Bird Gallery
owner Allyn Cantor said.
Though McLeod’s later
work didn’t sell nearly as
well as his more accessible
seascapes, Sharon Amber,
a Cannon Beach artist, told
him his abstract work was
top-notch. McLeod told her,
“‘This is what’s in my heart.
This is what I really like to
do,’” she said.
“A lot of people don’t
understand abstract art,” she
Council selects budget items
Budget from Page 1A
on measures including ren-
ovations to City Hall, repair
of the city’s downtown tennis
and basketball courts, and
construction of a new plaza at
the west end of Second Street.
The plaza will feature bench-
es, low lighting and a rebuilt
sidewalk. Funds will be avail-
able for the reconstruction of
the Spruce Street blocks be-
tween First and Third streets
to make them ADA-accessi-
ble, and for repair of the pub-
lic works garage.
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new staff positions, the in-
formation technology direc-
tor Russell “Rusty Barrett”
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Sawry, personnel costs will
increase about 12 percent for
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is to earn an annual salary of
$67,000 for a 32-hour week;
Sawrey will receive an annual
VDODU\RI
In a May letter to the coun-
cil, however, City Manager
Brant Kucera told members
the actual amount the city has
spent on IT services during
the last two years has exceed-
ed the budgeted amount by
PRUHWKDQSHUFHQW
Personnel services overall,
including the roads fund, total
ca n n on
bea ch
GAZ E T T E
Room tax to support
visitors’ center
Seventy percent of a
1-percent room tax increase
will help fund the Visitor In-
formation Center through the
Chamber of Commerce while
30 percent would go into the
city’s general fund. The in-
crease is expected to generate
approximately $260,000 for
WKH QH[W ¿VFDO \HDU SHU-
cent, or $182,000, would go
to the chamber to spend on
its information center, and 30
percent, or $78,000, would go
into the city’s general fund.
In previous meetings, the
budget committee discussed
a half-percent tax increase
that would have kicked in
-XO\DQGUDLVHGRQO\
$140,000 exclusively to fund
the information center.
With the 1-percent tax
hike, the chamber will en-
hance its website, grow its
marketing efforts, continue
leveraging social networks,
make repairs to the cham-
ber building and add spindle
racks to the information cen-
ter, Courtland Carrier, execu-
tive director of the chamber,
said.
If the tax carries over into
FY 2016-17 — the tax’s
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— it would generate at least
$280,000: that is, $196,000
(70 percent) for the infor-
mation center, $84,000 (30
percent) for the general fund.
The extra tax revenue in the
general fund could support
the Cannon Beach Library,
which Kucera recommended
in May should become a line
item in the city budget.
said. “If he could have tak-
en it to New York, he would
have been famous, I think.”
Rooper said that a true
artist, like McLeod, “wants
to go places where he hasn’t
been, moving on, trying new
things.”
Pierre Toutain-Dorbec,
who was collaborating with
McLeod on a photo book
of three-dimensional land-
scapes based on the artist’s
sculptures before he died,
said Steve was a “true free
spirit,” which is very rare,
he said.
Soles lost at sea
Had McLeod never pro-
duced a single work of art,
he still would have achieved
a kind of immortality thanks
to the Great Sneaker Spill of
1990.
On May 27, 1990, a
freighter sailing from Seoul,
South Korea, lost 21 steel
FRQWDLQHUV ¿YH KHOG WHQV RI
thousands of Nike sneakers,
four of which broke open,
spilling 61,280 shoes into
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ÀRDWLQJ IRRWZHDU HYHQWXDOO\
turned up along the coastlines
of British Columbia, Wash-
ington and Oregon, accord-
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expert Curtis Ebbesmeyer
and journalist Eric Scigliano.
When Ebbesmeyer met
McLeod, the scientist learned
that the “classic starving art-
ist” had gathered beached
Nikes from Cannon Beach,
Arch Cape, Tillamook and
elsewhere, recorded the loca-
tion where each was found,
known for hiking and forag-
ing in the North Coast wil-
derness and living softly on
the land.
While surviving on his
art, McLeod secured a few
patrons and held down
part-time jobs. He often
ventured into the nearby
forest reserves to hunt for
chanterelle
mushrooms
and sell them to restau-
rants.
“Steve was an extreme-
ly wiry, agile person who
ERICK BENGEL PHOTO could get across the land-
In honor of his life, one of scape quite handily,” Lind-
McLeod’s kelp sculptures, sey said.
which he made many of in
McLeod lived an in-
his later years, sits in the dependent and intensely
window sill of The Bistro in private life, which bor-
downtown Cannon Beach.
dered on reclusive, Wayne
Woodward said.
“He was more caterpil-
sold many of them and some-
times incorporated the shoes ODU WKDQ EXWWHUÀ\ VRFLDOO\
into his art, Ebbesmeyer speaking,” Childress said.
McLeod told his fam-
wrote. What’s more, Mc-
Leod had networked with ily that, upon his death,
other beachcombers, arrang- he wanted all of his art-
ing swap meets and trade work and belongings given
fairs where owners of ocean- away. So, late last month,
borne Nikes could acquire his older brother, Wayne
Woodward, and Wood-
the missing mates.
Ebbesmeyer used Mc- ward’s wife, Marci Wood-
/HRG¶V LQIRUPDWLRQ WR UH¿QH ward, opened McLeod’s
his models of ocean currents. loft apartment, just west of
The Smithsonian Institution the Coaster Theatre, for the
put on an exhibition illustrat- community to take what
LQJFXUUHQWÀRZVWKDWLQFOXG- they wanted. His paintings
ed some of McLeod’s Nikes, were claimed in no time.
“The community was
Cannon Beach resident Peter
his family, too,” Marci
Lindsey said.
Woodward said.
‘More caterpillar than
Days before he died,
McLeod
told his brother
butterfly’
that he was “pretty hap-
By all accounts, McLeod py with his life,” Wayne
was kind and intelligent, Woodward said.
Dads are
Sweet!
Vote of confidence
In an executive session
prior to the regular meet-
ing, Mayor Sam Steidel and
council members provided
an evaluation of City Man-
ager Kucera. The council
discussed their six-month
evaluation at the city’s May
PHHWLQJDQGSULRUWR7XHV-
day’s meeting the council
reviewed the evaluation with
Kucera. Kucera was hired in
October 2014.
“I think he’s doing a great
job,” said councilor Wendy
Higgins. “We’re keeping
him.”
“I’d like to say thank you,
Brant, for a great job,” said
FRXQFLORU0LNH%HQH¿HOG
The board unanimously
adopted the six-month perfor-
mance evaluation.
“Brant Kucera has met
or exceeded all our expecta-
tions,” said council member
Melissa Cadwallader after the
meeting.
Give yours his favorite
treats this Father’s Day!
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