Nature News- 12 Days of Earth Day & Annual Marine Debris Art Project!

…The group also announces the return of an arty favorite: the third annual Twelve Days of Earth Day Marine Debris Art Contest, which takes on a new look this year as a collaborative project. The art endeavour will take place during the Twelve Days celebration with the assistance of Cannon Beach Arts Association and HRAP. Participants who love beachcombing, creativity and stewardship are encouraged to participate in this special project beginning on April 11. 

This year's theme is “A Collaboration for our Earth,” where participants will be building pieces of art in teams, in a 12-inc by 12-inc square. The finale happens at the potluck on April 20 when each of the squares will then be pieced together to create a larger piece of 6-foot by 6-foot art. 

The larger art piece has been conceptualized by local artist Joe Adams, and its final incarnation will be a surprise. This artful object will then be donated to the community for all on the north Oregon coast to enjoy. All participants will be recognized in this year's Steve McLeod award…

Nature+News.jpg

The Astorian- Manzanita Holiday Kids Fair highlights local nonprofits

…The purpose of the event is to offer families a way to get to know different organizations in the area, Haag said, including some from Clatsop County like the Haystack Rock Awareness Program and Cannon Beach History Center & Museum.

Nestled in the corner was Meagan Sokol, the arts education director of the Cannon Beach Arts Association. Sokol taught kids how to make “whimsical shrinkies,” or more commonly referred to as Shrinky Dinks. Kids can draw on a special plastic that when exposed to heat will shrink the design more than 50 percent of the original size and harden so they can hang them as ornaments.

“I got the idea when I started making little hands with Shrinky Dink for the arts association — helping hands, I called them. I got requests to make jewelry with them and sold them at the gallery,” Sokol said. “Then the funds went to our summer camp program.”

Sokol hoped the presence at the kid’s fair would educate more kids and parents about the association’s efforts to expand its annual summer arts camps. Sokol, in her first year at the nonprofit art gallery, is working with the association’s new director, Cara Mico, to expand the camp to offer more variety in classes and scholarships to allow more kids to attend them…



IMG_1073.jpg

Cannon Beach Gazette- It’s 30 years for Cannon Beach Arts Association

…The Cannon Beach Arts Association has weathered all sorts of storms to make it to its 30th anniversary.

Sometimes that meant physically surviving storms, Board President Lila Wickham said.

“We do live on the edge of the ocean,” Wickham laughed.

But the type of storms Wickham mostly means were the internal ones that go with launching and sustaining a local nonprofit. Over the course of 30 years, the Cannon Beach Arts Association has cycled through many locations, boards, aesthetics and visions, Wickham said.

“What making it 30 years mean is that we are an integral part of the community — otherwise we wouldn’t last,” she said.

The Cannon Beach Arts Association represents 150 regional and local artists working in fine arts and crafts in nine curated shows each year. It was a product of a two-day workshop conducted in 1986 through the Oregon Arts Commission, which decided developing an association would help replenish and enhance the vitality of the arts in the community.

The association grew into a number of programs, including the Cannon Beach Gallery, summer concerts in the park, arts in education, individual artist grants and more….

Cannon Beach Gazette- ‘Room to grow’ the Cannon Beach arts

…As an artist and newly minted program director of the Cannon Beach Arts Association, Cara Mico does not have a preferred medium.

Instead, when asked, she started to list all of the different ways she likes to create art: oil and acrylic, piano, dance and literature.

Her answer is reflective of her overall vision for the arts association to diversify the definition of what art can be in Cannon Beach.

“Art is translating. No matter the interpretation, it’s still just understanding the world,” Mico said. “It’s all art to me.”

The Cannon Beach Arts Association supports, funds and enhances the arts and artists in the city and the region through education, events and exhibits, and has been doing so since 1986. The association provides art scholarships, an internship and an individual artist grant. The summer camp, for which the Stormy Weather chamber grant is designated, draws a mix of local and out-of-town students…

Art is about the practice, not the muse

Andrea Mace is the “poster child for the Cannon Beach Arts Association,” she said.

Before becoming the executive director in 2007, Mace held her first art show — where she also made her first painting sale — at the association-run Cannon Beach Gallery on South Hemlock Street. And she has submitted pieces for the Juried Show Program, where guest curators judge the work of aspiring artists and choose some artwork for a monthlong installation.

So, as a lifelong artist herself, Mace said she knows what it’s like to have those all-important phone calls: “Sorry, Andrea, you didn’t make it. Click,” or, “Wow, they actually chose your piece!”

To get anywhere, the artist must be “stubborn and persistent” and should “keep putting yourself out there,” she said.

Case in point: Mace applied for the association’s Individual Artist Grant three times before receiving it in 2006.

Her grant project, “Elemental Grace: Where the Earth Meets the Sea,” combined her black-and-white fine art photographs of sites between Falcon Cove and Indian Beach — developed in a dark room, the “old-school, labor-intensive way” — and her metal-wire basketry decorated with shells and beads.

Shortly after Mace’s one-woman show, the association board and gallery committee hired her as executive director. At this point, “I’ve worn all the hats that we have to wear,” she said.

As director, she’s mounted more than 80 shows and worked with thousands of artists from across the Pacific Northwest. This, she said, is the best part of her job and keeps her plugged into the art world.

Mace’s friendship, for example, with Hillsboro-based artist Carl Annala — whose paintings recently bedecked the gallery walls in a joint exhibition with Cannon Beach’s Peter Greaver — gives her ongoing insights into the Portland-area arts scene.

“I’ve met some really fascinating people,” she said.

Mace, 42, grew up on Washington’s Kitsap Peninsula, across the Puget Sound from Seattle. Following graduation from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, she moved to Oregon in 1993. After 22 years on the North Coast, “(I) definitely consider myself an Oregonian,” she said.

She initially moved for a summer waitressing job but “fell in love with the area and have found myself here ever since,” she said. Now a Cannon Beach resident, Mace has also lived in Arch Cape, Wheeler, Elsie and Manzanita.

Discovering the arts association (founded in 1986) and volunteering for gallery shifts as a docent became a “nice thing to have in (the) rhythm of my life — not being a total hermit/recluse-artist,” she said, smiling.

Visual arts and fine crafts, like basketry and jewelry-making, tend to dominate Mace’s body of work. She studied under the late Royal Nebeker when he chaired Clatsop Community College’s art department.

Her “first passion,” however, is writing, she said. For several years, she supplemented her income by freelancing for The Daily Astorian, Coast Weekend, HIPFiSH Monthly and other local publications.

Whatever her topic, it was important to her that she wrote regularly, which is good advice for virtually any artist working in any field: “You have to have a practice. You have to do it every day, whether you feel it or not,” she said. The muse may be present, but “it’s not about the muse, it’s about the practice ... having something you come to every day and build on.”

Mace and her partner, Jonathan Tate, have a 6-year-old son, Emelio. Last winter, the couple took over a local eco-friendly window-washing business, now called Tate’s Window Services. When she isn’t greeting patrons at the gallery, Mace often helps Tate scrub down commercial properties in downtown Cannon Beach.

“That’s been really great for us. I think you have to find your niche in this area,” she said. “You have to be creative in how you make a living and approach your lifestyle in this area if you’re not already retired.”

Mace’s affinity for the natural environment has kept her on the North Coast. She takes advantage of the temperate climate, toiling away in her English cottage-style garden in front of her picturesque 1920s-era cabin on Harrison Street, she said.

“The quality of life is so great that, when you leave, you realize, wow, we really have it good on the North Oregon Coast,” she said.

The gallery — which has occupied its current space for 20 years — might have greater foot traffic if it operated in downtown, where, for commercial businesses, “I’m sure it’s like ground zero; it’s the spot to be,” she said. “But I like being a little bit out of the craziness of downtown.”

And with the gallery situated near Gower Street’s public beach access, just a short walk from Haystack Rock, she spends a good deal of her life watching people from around the world enjoy the beach — from European families to Buddhist monks in full regalia.

As a Northwesterner, “the natural world really inhabits a big part of my character and my soul, but I take it for granted, too,” she said. “And when people come here for the first time, the impact it makes on them is very noticeable and impressive.”

She always hopes that visitors take their experience of Cannon Beach back to their urban or suburban lives, she said — and remember the feeling that “the natural world is full of wonder, and we should protect it and save it and relish it.”

— Erick Bengel

Childhood interest lures artist to fairy realm

Peter Greaver, the 2013-14 recipient of Cannon Beach’s Individual Artist Grant, doesn’t know if he believes in fairies, but he certainly believes in what they represent: the magic and majesty of the natural world.

For all the fantasy found in fairy lore — traditional and contemporary — there is an often overlooked spiritual element that more people should tap into, he said.

Our culture is losing its “mystical, romantic relationship with nature,”Greaver added. “It’s being replaced with technology.”

With his current exhibition (funded by the $3,000 grant) at the Cannon Beach Gallery, Greaver seeks to elicit the same sense of enchantment he experienced while reading large, elaborately illustrated children’s books that depict fairies and the worlds they inhabit.

The untitled show, which opened Dec. 20, and runs through Jan. 25, is a joint exhibition that includes the work of Carl Annala, a Portland-based painter. The gallery will host an artist reception 5 to 7 p.m. Jan. 3.

Greaver’s half of the show consists of nine dramatically diverse miniature houses that could serve as plausible dwellings for adult fairies roughly 7 inches tall.

Composed of salvaged twigs and branches; wood glue; bamboo; cotton; copper, aluminum, silver plated and gold plated wire; hemp; jute; glass; stones; acrylic; glitter; varnish; and other materials, the fairy houses are largely inspired by images from vintage children’s books and Victorian fairy paintings, he said.

Greaver wanted the structures to seem “realistic and functional.” Most of the houses are shingled, some with pine cone scales. Several houses are square-shaped, others are round. Some even have chimneys.

For the past year, he worked on all of them simultaneously. “Realistically, I could continue to work on them for another year because I see all these ways in which they could be enhanced,” he said.

“Greaver’s work surpasses all expectation,” said Andrea Mace, executive director of the gallery. “It is truly the definition of exquisite — finely detailed and executed with a highly developed sense of craftsmanship.”

As a child, a trip to the library was an adventure, said Greaver, who was raised in Maine and Michigan.

For him and his two younger siblings, picture books — like Jane Werner’s The Giant Golden Book of Elves and Fairies (1951), illustrated by Garth Williams (who also illustrated “Stuart Little” and “Charlotte’s Web”) — “had a lot of importance in our little lives,” he said.

Greaver’s favorite stories were about fairies, and before long he started drawing them. Back then, his work was “quite primitive, as you might expect,” he said. But, as he matured, his art shifted away from fairies, “which is a normal part of growing up,” he said.

A 2004 visit to Faerieworlds, the annual festival held in Oregon that celebrates all things fairy, drew him back into the fairy realm, which he had begun to miss, he said.

Until then, he had visualized fairies in only a two-dimensional space. “It wasn’t real physical depth because paintings are flat. It was more like psychological or emotional depth.”

Suddenly, though, he was surrounded by people, including some cosplayers (“costume players”), who took their enthusiasm for fairies to a different level through their arts-and-crafts work. That was the genesis of his ideas for three-dimensional fairy art, he said.

“The tricky thing about fairies is, that word means a lot of different things to a lot of different people,” he said.

YouTube users can watch fairies that range from glistening Japanese anime creations to “computer generated Barbie Dolls with wings, from giant entertainment corporations that talk like girls at the mall,” he said. “A lot of it is very far removed from the original source material.”

Greaver identifies two basic kinds of fairies: the pretty, romantic “girlie girl” fairies with gossamer wings, and the wingless creatures of ancient folklore that tend to be dangerous and unpredictable. He has studied both kinds and blends the two in his artwork, he said.

Greaver, a part-time Cannon Beach resident who spends most of his time living in Portland, has been “drawing and painting since I could hold a crayon or a paintbrush,” he said. “But, I think, growing up in a family of artists, I stayed with it more than the average kid.”

His parents, Hanne and Harry Greaver, own the Greaver Gallery on South Hemlock Street, where Peter Greaver sells his artwork.

Though “Fairy Houses” is an all-sculpture show, Peter Greaver defines himself primarily as a painter. He produces a great deal of traditional pieces for the general market — landscapes, flowers, cats, abstract decorative art, etc. — and does custom portraits of people and pets.

From his late teen to early 20s, Peter Greaver attended the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts in Kalamazoo, Mich., then Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He earned his bachelor of fine arts degree in Chinese landscape painting at the Museum Art School (now the Northwest College of Art) in Portland. His work is featured in the Portland Art Museum’s Rental Sales Gallery.

Greaver, who also makes jewelry, grew up playing electric guitar, his rock music ranging from “very soft to very hard,” he said, adding that he’s barely picked up his guitar in the last year since “the fairy houses kind of took over my life.”

The sculptures don’t just express his personal interest in fairies but a desire to share the sense of wonder he has always felt for the earth and the magic that may reside in it. If fewer people took nature for granted, “I think that would be a good thing,” he said.

Cannon Beach retrospective for Shirley Gittelsohn

The Cannon Beach Gallery is pleased to be hosting Shirley Gittelsohn, in A Cannon Beach Retrospective from May 1 – June 2 with an Artist Reception: May 2, 5 – 7pm. This show opens during Cannon Beach’s town wide arts festival, Spring Unveiling: May 1 – May 3, with a special artists conversation on Saturday, May 2 at 12:20 pm.

Gittelsohn has been painting in Oregon for more than five decades. She was represented in Arlene Schnitzer’s Fountain Gallery during the 1970s and 80s. She’s crafted a career that celebrates her passion for painting and her love of her family – all manifested in her work. Now she struggles with macular degeneration, but continues to paint.

Taking place in the month of her 90th birthday, Gittelsohn will showcase works representing watershed moments spanning her career, including views from her Cannon Beach studio.

The Clatsop County Cultural Coalition has provided funding to the CBAA to help make this important exhibition possible.

Cannon Beach Arts Association

Cannon Beach Arts Association was founded in 1986 to support, fund and enhance arts in the community of Cannon Beach and the surrounding region.

“Among its founders were Steve Martin, founder of Steve Martin Management, now Martin Hospitality, Inc., and Herb Schwab, former Oregon Supreme Court Justice and one-time mayor of Cannon Beach – two who understood that the arts are an important part of our identity and that our creative culture is what makes Cannon Beach great,” says Andrea Mace, executive director of the CBAA.

Others in at the creation were Rainmar Bartl, Harry Greaver, Jim Hannen, Bill Gittelsohn, Mike Morgan – the current Mayor of Cannon Beach and a staunch supporter of the arts – Pat Friedland, in whose coffee shop meetings often took place, Steve Tuckman, Gainor Minott and Barbara Temple-Ayres, who heads up the CBAA Summer Art Camp.

CBAA achieves its mission through a range of programming, including exhibits, educational opportunities and a commitment to creating economic viability for working artists.

The most visible and dynamic program of CBAA is the Cannon Beach Gallery. Among the many art galleries that grace the streets of Cannon Beach, it is the only nonprofit. Located in midtown at 1064 S. Hemlock St., the gallery hosts 12 exhibits each year. Every month a new exhibit is hung, featuring two- and three-dimensional artwork, from fiber arts to sculpture and fine art to fine jewelry.

The yearly exhibition schedule is conceived and executed by Mace, who is also executive director of the gallery. She works with a group of artists, known as the CBAA Gallery Committee, to plan invitational, themed group and juried shows. A tireless social networker, Mace has brought attention to the gallery’s offerings through her postings on social media and any other way she can think of.

The gallery’s newest show, “Shadow and Light,” is an autumn invitational featuring Susan C. Walsh, which opens Oct. 4 and has an artist reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 5. In November, the gallery will host its “Annual Miniatures Show,” a perennial favorite. And at some point in the future, the gallery anticipates mounting an “Under-18 Regional Art Show,” which would provide a showcase for the talented young artists in the area, if the necessary funding is secured.

“I would like to see us identify and mount an annual fundraiser that can be counted on to help us through the year’s activities,” Mace says. “The gallery is the visible component of all that the CBAA accomplishes; in order to maintain and grow our multi-disciplinary approach to the arts, we need to find consistent funding over and above what we already receive.”

Mace’s efforts and those of a cadre of volunteers are what make the gallery possible. The volunteer docent program provides an entry for emerging artists and continued exposure for established artists. Many of the volunteers are artists who are rewarded for the investment of their time in CBAA with opportunities to show their work on the gallery’s designated Docent Wall and through the annual year-end exhibit, “The Volunteer Show.”

In addition to the gallery, CBAA also manages a popular Summer Art Camp that isopen to preschool-aged children through adults, offering a range of classes taught by professional artists and teachers. This week-long event is limited to small classes, providing an intimate setting for students to gain hands-on skills in a variety of mediums. Currently, with the closure of Cannon Beach Elementary School, CBAA is looking for a new venue for Summer Art Camp. Given the limited funding for arts education in local schools, the camp is a vital way to broaden the experience of coastal residents. “This camp is a marvelous opportunity for young people, and those not so young, to explore different art forms, experiment with shape and color, and learn the joy of creativity,” says Kay Aya, an artist and long-time teacher who has assisted at the camp. This past summer, attendance was at an all-time high.

Another important CBAA program is the Individual Artist Grant. An annual award of $3,000 allows a visual artist, writer, musician or performer to create an innovative body of work over a year-long time frame. Past grant recipients include Jon Broderick, whose “Fisher Poets Anthology” evolved into the annual Fisherpoets Gathering in Astoria. (In a nod to its roots, the Fisherpoets Gathering still ends every year with a reading at the Cannon Beach Gallery.) The grant has been active for more than 20 years, allowing many regional artists to begin their professional careers.

The CBBA further supports its commitment to arts education with its scholarship program, which awards funds to a graduating high school senior pursuing collegiate study in an arts-related field. A recent recipient, Lake Jiroudek, is at The Julliard School studying jazz guitar. The supplemental scholarship provides Jiroudek with necessary funds for additional expenses.

The newest program is the CBAA Summer Internship. Interns help prep the Cannon Beach Gallery space for exhibits, design marketing materials for shows and interact with exhibiting artists from all over the state. They also assist with retail sales. It is virtually impossible nowadays to find gainful employment if the applicant has no experience in his or her chosen field. An internship is the perfect way to provide that hands-on experience.

With everything that is already in the works and in the planning stage, Mace still has a wish list of things she’d like CBAA to accomplish. “I want us to remain relevant within the community in providing arts education for artists of all ages and an exhibit space that showcases their work,” she says. “We need to pause and reflect now that we are moving into our 28th year about what’s next. We should be able to say ‘yes’ to more musical events – look at the huge success of the Bela Fleck/Abigail Washburn Concert – and to look at art forms other than the visual. For instance, I would like to see all the relevant Cannon Beach books that have gone out of print come back again, starting with Peter Lindsey’s ‘Comin’ in Over the Rock’ and Terence O’Donnell’s ‘Cannon Beach: A Place by the Sea.’ Also, David and Alma English’s ‘Arch Cape Chronicles’ should still be in print.”

With regular events and future programs, CBAA will remain an important, lively and compelling part of the arts scene in Cannon Beach.

Annual Volunteer Show at the Cannon Beach Gallery

December 6 – 31, 2012 Artists’ Reception, Saturday, December 8 from 6-8pm

The Cannon Beach Gallery will be showcasing the work of the many volunteers who donate their time and talents to operate the programs of the Cannon Beach Arts Association in its’ annual Volunteer Show from December 6-31, 2012. The Artist Reception will be held on Saturday, December 8 from 6-8pm and will feature libations, appetizers and lively conversation.

The Cannon Beach Arts Association is a volunteer run, non-profit director with several programs that directly impact the quality of cultural life on the northern Oregon Coast, including an Annual Summer Art Camp that is held at the Cannon Beach Elementary School in late July, an Individual Artist Grant, Scholarships to High school seniors pursuing the arts and the Cannon Beach Gallery.

The Cannon Beach Gallery is manned primarily by a Docent Staff, and many of these individuals are artists who work in a variety of media. The Volunteer Show will showcase the photography of Manzanita resident, Linda Cook; paintings by Cannon Beach resident, Clement Lee and the fabric assemblages of another Cannon Beach resident, Bonny Gorsuch.

In addition, there will be new work by Gallery Committee members Liza Jones, Janet Bland, Barbara Temple Ayres and Sally Lackaff. Those members of the Board of Directors who are also artists will also have work on hand, including CBAA Board President, photographer Don Frank and Vice President Mary Bess Gloria.

So, all in all, it should be a colorful and diverse show which celebrates the multi-faceted talents of the many individuals who make the programs of the CBAA thrive.

The Canon Beach Gallery is open from 10am-4pm, Thursday-Monday in mid-town Cannon Beach in the Emma White Building (1064 S. Hemlock St.). If you are interested in getting involved in the programs of the Cannon Beach Arts Association, email the Executive Director, Andrea Mace at cannonbeacharts@gmail.com .

Cannon Beach Arts Association Summer Art Camp for All Ages

…CANNON BEACH - The Cannon Beach Arts Association (CBAA) will host its 10th annual Summer Art Camp from July 23 to 27 at the Cannon Beach Elementary School. Last year, the CBAA opened enrollment up to adults as well as preschoolers, so the program has something to appeal to all age groups.

The CBAA's Summer Art Camp brings North Coast art professionals into the classroom for a week-long intensive that is both hands-on and fun…

SIGN UP TO RECEIVE OUR NEWSLETTER