April 3, 2015 • Seaside Signal • seasidesignal.com • 3A
Local artist donates
talent to food pantry
Mural symbolizes
collective spirit, mission
of organization
Art Walk comes to Gearhart
An art exhibit entitled
“Spring Fling!” will be
featured at Trail’s End Art
Center during the First
Saturdy Art Walk April 4
in Gearhart.
The Trail’s End artists
mount a new exhibition
of paintings, drawings
and photographs in April,
with all things spring.
A public reception is
planned from 2 to 4 p.m.
Trail’s End, 656 A St.,
is an artists cooperative
offering art opportunities
to the community through
workshops,
painting
groups, classes for kids
and adults and monthly
exhibits of their original
art.
Trail’s End also fea-
tures a small gift shop
where prints, photos and
greeting cards featuring
member artists’ work are
available. The gallery’s
website is www.trailsend-
art.org.
By Katherine Lacaze
Seaside Signal
SUBMITTED BY BILL LUTZ
Renowned local artist Bill Lutz painted a mural of a fruit tree
in the entryway of the South County Community Food Bank.
ously jotted down in his note-
book. As he’s working, he’ll
develop that thought or allow
it to work its way forward.
“The original idea blos-
soms into something more
complex,” he said.
He tries to keep his paint-
ings in the present tense, be-
cause as soon as an experi-
ence has passed there exists
the potential to remember or
analyze it incorrectly or with
the wrong perspective.
“I’m not trying to create
OLIH,¶PWU\LQJWR¿QGPHDQ-
ing as it happens to me,” said
Lutz.
That philosophy is evi-
dent in his life. Because of
this sense of adventure and
courage to live on the edge,
Lutz has traveled often and
lived in multiple states as
new goals presented them-
selves to him.
He has supported himself
through freelance sign work,
but he keeps his art separate
and not the means to his and
his family’s livelihoods. He
prefers to donate his talent
and produce his work for
public consumption.
“I tried to keep money out
of it for philosophical rea-
sons,” he said. “Money creates
its own motives, and I wanted
QRLQÀXHQFHRQP\SDLQWLQJ´
Lutz believes contempo-
UDU\ VRFLHW\ LV ¿[DWHG SUL-
marily on the acquisition of
wealth, while being shackled
to the idea that people’s worth
is determined by material
possessions. In a system of
unfettered capitalism, he said,
things only are valuable when
they are dead, which has led to
disregard for the environment
and the human spirit.
See Pantry, Page 10A
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OP E NI
NG
A P R IL 3 R D T O A P R IL 10 T H , 2015
Jo in us fo r this w eek lo ng celebra tio n!
O w ners T ra cy a nd M a rgot N ye invite you to com e
ta ste th eir d eliciou s, fresh G ela to a nd Sorb etto
O ver 40 Fla vors M a d e Fresh
D a iry Free/Vega n O p tions • P a nini • S p ecia lty C offee
A s pa rt of the gra nd opening c elebra tion they w ill dona te 10% of the w eek’s
proc eeds to F ood 4 K ids S ea s ide. S a tu rda y, A pril 11th a t N oon is their
offic ia l R ibbon C u tting hos ted by the S ea s ide C ha m ber A m ba s s a dors . S how
you r s u pport a nd join u s to help the kids a nd enjoy s om e G ela to!
8 N . Co l
umb i
a i
n Sea si
d e • O P E N D AIL Y
B etw een Th e C ra bby O ys ter a n d N orm a ’s Sea food & Stea k
SUBMITTED PHOTO
“Skunk Cabbage,” a colored pencil drawing by Judi Marsh Garrity, will be displayed at
Trail’s End Gallery in Gearhart.
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7 FAMOUS FOOTWEAR 7 GNC 7 KITCHEN COLLECTION 7 L’EGGS HANES BALI PLAYTEX EXPRESS 7 NIKE 7
SEASIDE FACTORY
OUTLET CENTER
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them only will harm the in-
dividual. To truly overcome
their demons, people instead
must learn to accept them.
Lutz related the series
to one of his own “beasts,”
which is a hereditary degen-
erative eye disease called
retinitis pigmentosa that start-
ed at age 47 and has slowly
impaired his vision. Instead
of being consumed with a de-
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disease, Lutz reconciled him-
self to his condition and re-
emerged slightly altered but
with a new perspective and
more established priorities.
“The myth states that you
do have to accommodate your
beasts, your demons. They’re
not going away,” he said. “Ni-
etzsche said it, Jesus Christ
said it, Somerset Maugham
said it and James the brother of
Jesus said it. Sometimes in or-
der to overcome your demons
you have to embrace them. So
it’s not something I invented,
but I happened to tap into it.”
With only 15 percent of
his eyesight remaining, Lutz
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technique to continue paint-
ing large works. He draws a
smaller representation and
then an assistant will create
a graph for the image on its
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wall in the food pantry. From
there, Lutz can focus on one
small section of the painting
at a time. As he’s painting, he
said, he often will take pho-
tos of the work in progress or
view it in a mirror. The strat-
egy allows him to see the full
work, although scaled down,
and focus on a point.
When it comes to subject
matter, Lutz usually starts
with a thought he has previ-
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WINTER HOURS (JANUARY-MARCH):
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7 TOKYO TERIYAKI 7 TOYS”R”US 7 TREE OF LIFE CHRISTIAN OUTLET 7 VAN HEUSEN ZUMIEZ 7
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Local painter Billy Lutz
approaches each work as a
storybook.
From a single starting
thought or concept, his piec-
es move through multiple
layers of context to narrate a
nuanced story to be read by
the viewer.
Born in Michigan in 1951,
/XW]GLGKLV¿UVWRLOSDLQWLQJ
when he was 14. Over the
years, his work became fo-
cused on what lies beneath
the surface and themes, such
as the environment and mate-
rialism, spiritual realities ver-
sus religious dogma, collec-
tivism versus individualism
and other dualities and para-
doxes. His style is narrative
painting that represents his
complex philosophies.
“Painting seems to be the
way I pursue my thinking,”
he said.
One of Lutz’s latest works
adorns the entryway of the
recently completed South
County Community Food
Bank on North Roosevelt
Drive.
Absorbing an area on the
wall several feet tall and wide,
the acrylic painting depicts
a fruit tree laden with apples
and bright leaves and bearing
a thick trunk leading down to
deep roots.
Mary Blake, a member of
the food bank’s board, said
the organization wanted an
image of a tree because it’s
“symbolic of the cycle of life”
and the pantry’s mission.
“Food reaches everybody
— so the tree really was for
that,” she said.
To further reinforce the
concept of natural harmony
through connective move-
ment, Lutz embellished the
tree with his signature force
rings, or geometric arcs sug-
gestive of “all that exists that
is unseen.”
Lutz earned an associate
of arts degree from North-
western Michigan College
in 1972, but while college
helped him loosen up and ex-
periment with art, life experi-
ences mostly have motivated
the philosophical concepts
embedded in his work.
From an early age, Lutz
ZDVDZDUHWKHZRUOGLV¿OOHG
with deep mysteries of which
he was a part. He traverses
these mysteries through his art.
Lutz believes the concepts and
ideas he encounters through
his artwork are not unique but
rather universal truths.
In his pieces, Lutz often
will make religious parables
and ancient mythologies rele-
vant to the modern world. For
instance, in his series “The
Beast,” Lutz follows the clas-
sical myth of the hero who
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consumed or defeated by it.
While humans are natural-
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Lutz said, those “beasts” are