Oaks Park Pentimento: Portland’s Lost and Found Carousel Art
Photographs by Jim Lommasson. Introduction by Inara Verzemnieks. Afterword by Prudence Roberts. Oregon State University Press, 121 The Valley Library, Corvallis, OR 97331; http://oregonstate.edu/; 12.5 x 10.5 in; hardbound; 48 pages, 30 color and 9 b/w photos; $25.00

The transitory nature of art has always been fascinating. Photographs can fade, negatives can stiffen and crack and slides can succumb to color shifts and mildew. Sculptures fair little better; it has been suggested that the features on the statues of St. Mark’s Square in Venice have softened over the years, eroding away from acidic rainfall. And paintings? Even in the care of the greatest museums, many of the masters of the Renaissance onwards have developed crackled surfaces. The resulting revealed lower layers of paint are known as pentimento, but they are not confined to great canvases in the museum halls of Europe. In Oaks Park Pentimento: Portland’s Lost and Found Carousel Art, photographer Jim Lommasson explores an example of this effect on a Portland landmark, the carousel at the Oaks Park amusement park. The results, far from trivial, create a fascinating juxtaposition of Edwardian and Mid-Century cultures, as well as provide a unique encapsulation of the temporal nature of the arts.

Lommasson’s book is almost the result of an accident. During an assignment from a photography class in 1970, the photographer noted that the paintings on the central pillar of the carousel at the Oaks were peeling away, the victim of age, exposure to elements, and occasional flood waters. Lommasson only shot a single frame in black-and-white, but he returned to the Oaks over a decade later and recorded all the central panels, this time in color. It was a prescient decision: a few short years later, the panels were “restored” to their scenes of northwest scenery by a local painting club, covering over the Edwardian imagery that had been bleeding through in the pentimento.

The slim volume opens up with an introduction by journalist Inara Verzemnieks, who writes lyrically about the nature of time and art. She describes the roots of the park as a competitor to the Lewis & Clark Exposition of 1905, a place of excitement and perhaps moral danger, where young women would cozy up to young men in the darkness and be frowned upon by the local clergy for so doing. The original paintings on the carousel mimic this somewhat naive sense of adventure, with Arabian sheiks on camels, befeathered Indian chiefs, and beautiful women exhibiting a range of behaviors from stately and elegant (strolling under a parasol) to scandalous (can-can- dancing). By the 1940s, such images were dated and old fashioned, and the park had them covered over with scenic vistas of the Columbia Gorge and other northwest scenes, all far more family friendly and far more in keeping with the highway-centric provincial boosterism notions of the era. Yet, as the surface images degraded, they began to merge with the lower layers, almost as if they were interacting with each other, a process that Verzemnieks relates in a haunting way.

Following the excellent introduction, Lommasson provides a short text describing how and why he shot the images of the carousel’s central riding panels, and then come the 18 large color plates. The most striking image is perhaps that of the woman with a parasol, with the Columbia Gorge Highway circling about her legs leading to the Vista House located rather provocatively between her thighs. It is such a strange image, almost like an intentional double-exposure on film, and yet, there was no artist for these images. Yes, there were the artists who painted the original panel of the woman, and also two later artists — the eccentric Chase brothers — who painted the scene of the highway and river. But who painted this image, this amalgamation? Time, nature, God? No human hand with intent created this image. For that matter, is the art in question here the painted panels themselves, or Lommasson’s photographs? Who is the artist, and what is the art? The lines all blur here in ways that are similar to graffiti art. Everything about the panels is provocative.

The book wraps up with an afterword by art historian Prudence Roberts. Roberts tells the story of the panels, from their creation by anonymous immigrant artistis at the carousel factor in 1912 to their repainting by off-beat brothers Waldo Spore and William Corbin Chase. The Chases were painters and wood-block printers, part of the larger arts-and-crafts movement. They were also highly unconventional, living for a time in a teepee in the woods of Western Washington State. The text is accompanied by images of the park and works of the talented Chase brothers.

Overall, the book succeeds in placing the carousel panels in a much larger context of art and regional culture. The texts are rich, and the images largely thought provoking. If I had any critical comments, it would be that there is not enough. I would have welcomed more information on the chases, as well as on the original anonymous painters who created the Edwardian imagery. Then again, in the words of circus promoter P. T. Barnum, who would no doubt have felt at home at a place like the Oaks, “always leave them wanting more.”

The book is the typically shelf-awkward size that photography and art books assume, and it also feels rather slim. This makes it seem, at first glance, a bit pricey for its size. Although time spent pouring over the work ought to dismiss those concerns, it does remain slim enough that it just doesn’t feel good to hold in your lap and flip through. I always felt like the book was awkward and wanting to slip from my hands or lose its dust jacket. It is far easier to view set on a table top, and while that’s probably the recommended way to view any book of art or photography, I really like to relax in a nice chair with my books, and with Pentimento you just can’t do that. The images themselves are all crisp and the entire book is printed on a thick, high quality paper with a satin sheen to it.

Pentimento is a volume that explores history, artistic philosophy, and Pacific Northwest culture through a unique lens. It is far more than a book about an amusement park ride. It should prove valuable to those interested in the esoterica of Portland history, as well as those with a passion for documentary photography and painting in general.

Oaks Park Pentimento: Portland’s Lost and Found Carousel Art is available from Powell’s Books, Amazon, and directly from the publisher.

Well that took a bit longer than expected.

Liquidated is the second in my 99W Series of paintings. This is a planned sequence of images using the thread of old Pacific Highway West through Western Oregon as a common theme. The road forms a cross section of the western portion of the state, stretching from urban Portland through to the rural prairies of the Willamette Valley. This latest painting follows the earlier Morning Rush, Portland….

…Earlier by two years.

It is really amusing because Morning Rush, Portland I completed in January 2007, and immediately afterwards began Liquidated. My academic activities, however, quickly took over my time and attention. For the longest time, the painting sat clipped to an oversized Masonite clipboard, 2/3rds done. Every time I looked at it, I felt guilt, as if it were an abandoned child. There was never enough time. There was never enough motivation. Always my calendar had something else to do, some other thing that needed my attention. If the painting had been a garden it would have been growing dandelions.

Now that the 2008-2009 academic year has wound down, I’ve been playing catch up. There’s been lots of cleaning, straightening, book sorting — scarily enough there are over forty books I have collected over the year that have yet to be read — and all manner of other reprioritization that is now possible with the additional time on my hands. One of the activities that immediately rose to the top of the to-do list: complete Liquidated.

Monday saw me heading downtown on WES to supplement my disintegrating brush collection. Tuesday morning saw me cleaning out the paintbox, the old dried up palettes, the caked and dead tubes of paint. Tuesday night saw me marathoning until 1:30 in the morning, the smell of wet cotton paper in the air and my fingers stained with viridian green and Prussian blue.

Creating — be it writing, photography, or watercolors — is a vital part of me, but somewhere along the way of the last four years, I lost that. I came, somehow, to the conclusion that I had to set that part of me aside to get more important things done. The reality is, however, that that act of creating was what was important all along. The ground is familiar now, and it feels good.

Here There Nowhere
Paintings by Michael Brophy with essays by Jonathan Raban and William L. Lang. OSU Press, 121 The Valley Library, Corvallis, OR 97331-4501; http://oregonstate.edu/dept/press; 12.0 x 12.0 x 0.25 in; paperbound; 60 pages, 20 color images; $25.00

The landscape of the Pacific Northwest is an ever-changing one, and so it should be no surprise that artistic views on that landscape have also changed radically over time. By the close of the last century, Oregon, once labelled the “Pacific Wonderland” on the state’s automobile license plates, had become a battlefield of ideas and ideals. Portland artist Michael Brophy has been trying to capture that essence of division and change over his career as a painter, with his most recent expression taking place in a series of large canvases all painted in 2007. Brophy calls this series Here There Nowhere, and it is the subject of a recent book by the same name produced by Oregon State University Press.

The beginning of the book form of Here There Nowhere is heralded with an essay about the history of landscape painting in the Pacific Northwest, written by Jonathan Raban. The essay, titled Battleground of the Eye, may seem familiar to readers; it was adapted from the introduction Raban wrote for 2001’s The Pacific Northwest Landscape: A Painted History, printed by Sasquatch Books. Although this is not new material, it helps to ground the painting series into the wider context of the artistic representation of the landscape of the Pacific Northwest. The only error I noted was that the Northern Pacific that entered Tacoma in 1883 was not the creation of the legendary James J. Hill, but of industrialist Henry Villard; a minor esoteric quibble perhaps, but it would not have taken much to fact check the essay one more time.

Following Raban’s essay come the paintings themselves. Brophy delivers us images on a heroic scale, reminiscent of revolutionary art from South America or Russia during the last century. These are grand canvases with grand ideas. And yet, the content chosen to express those ideas is inherently anti-heroic, mundane, dull. Brophy likes repeating patterns and vast expanses of subtleties over the boldness of an up-front statement. It doesn’t look like he’s trying to be pretty. Darkened fields, broad skies, blank cliff faces; they are all empty landscapes, and rarely is a human figure seen.

Michael Brophy, Crack of Dawn. 2007, oil on canvas, 74 by 80 inches.
Image courtesy Laura Russo Gallery.

It is perhaps the night images that stand out the most. Night Truck and Meadow both are evocative. The strongest of these is perhaps Crack of Dawn, a canvas with a deep wet cloud cover and a thin strip of dawn that any local will immediately recognize as the aggregate of countless mornings. Here we see how subtlety and muted color choices are key to understanding Brophy’s take on the landscape. Not all the night images work in the book, however: Full Dark is a study in subtleties that sadly does not translate well to print at all.

There is also an odd disjointed feel to the series. Some of the images have a dark, painterly, brooding approach, like Blowdown or Aftermath; the palette of the former reminds me of something from Carl Hall. On the flipside are strong traditionalist images such as Ruin, which feels sentimental in nature, or Day, with a painterly realism of something very tangible, in this case the rear of a semi-tractor driving some two-lane road to nowhere in the vast inland Pacific Northwest.

Michael Brophy, Ruin. 2007, oil on canvas, 74 by 80 inches.
Image courtesy Laura Russo Gallery.

If anything rescues the disjointedness, it is a common theme of nearly cinematic ideas; every time I flip through the images of the series I start feeling like I am looking at a storyboard for a movie about life in the forgotten flyover corners of the much over-hyped PNW paradise. What is amazing is that Brophy offers us a social commentary, a critique even, of how we view the world, and yet he does not choose the traditional route of painting scarred industrial landscapes or denuded forests or the like. Instead, he simply shows us that this is how we usually view the world, through mundane eyes that see only the same boring monotony. In a way, his critique runs deeper than the typical environmental or social commentary, pointing that the problem isn’t the clear-cut or the junk-pile, but instead it is our viewpoint. It is internal, it is within us.

Reproduction and presentation get fair marks. Brophy’s paintings are all very large works, standing at 74 by 80 inches. To stand before one is to be dwarfed, even for a tall person, and any attempt to depict this series with any justice on paper must be admired for audacity if nothing else. I don’t quite think that the publisher managed to pull this off; one square foot just can’t give you the sense of scale that standing before the real thing can. Further, I feel that some of the subtlety of the originals has been lost in the reproduction.

Following the images comes an essay by William L. Lang. Lang brings us back to the subject rather than the medium, concentrating not on Brophy’s paintings so much as on the story they are a part of. He ably discusses the relationship of humanity to the land of the region, with occasional examples pulled from Brophy’s work. Although a short and interesting read, I feel that Lang’s comments are in some ways duplicative of Raban’s text, while at the same time weaker and not relying enough on how an artist such as Brophy sees this world. What I wish had been included was a short piece by the artist himself, but such is not included in the book.

Overall, Here There Nowhere is a slim but important volume that highlights how landscape painting in the Pacific Northwest is evolving. For artists or students of art in the region, it would make a valuable addition to the bookshelf.

Here There Everywhere is available from Powell’s or Amazon, as well as directly from the publisher. Thanks to Laura Russo Gallery for supplying images and other assistance with this review.

From The Addendum @ route99west.com | © Alexander B. Craghead

Ross believed we all have the capacity for artistic talent. This echoes some of Jonathan Hale’s thinking. And I think it is true too. But if so, doesn’t that take away from some of what’s special about artistry? Can a common talent be a valued one? If we could all sing like Placido Domingo, would Opera matter to us anymore?

But lets leave the realm of philosophy aside now, and venture into Bob’s happy mountains. And what mountains they were, raised on the canvas with a few lithe sweeps of the palette knife! Ross was captivated, perhaps even obsessed with painting mountains. Perhaps this came from their exoticness; born in Florida, I remember him once saying that the highest hill in his childhood had been fifteen feet tall. Or perhaps his fascination came from his stint in the USAF, when he was stationed in Alaska.

Most “serious artists” — you know the kind, they scoff down canapes and wine while explaining their vision in white-walled rooms to moneyed elites in every town over half-a-million population — would consider Ross to be in a different world from them. Too low-brow. Too common. Sure, he was no great intellectual artist, and his talents were limited. He was afraid of portraits. His art teacher once told him to stick to bushes and trees, because that’s where his heart lay. Might there have been a sarcastic comment there about his abilities? Perhaps, but I suspect with his “always-the-butter-side-up” attitude, Bob either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Instead he took the advice, and by all appearances he was happy with his bushes and trees. There’s something about him that was inspiring. In a way he inspired me, certainly, as a small child, to continue painting. There’s a pleasing fantasy to his landscapes, a simple escapism that is tranquil in a childish way.

For all the artistic seriousness that we intellectual painters have, we should be so lucky to find such happiness.

Bob Ross, who died on the Fourth of July in 1995, would have been 65 today. Happy birthday, Bob. Hope you’re enjoying the company of your squirrels up there in a happy place, with happy little trees and happy mountains and happy little lakes.

Morning Rush, Portland, 2007; watercolor on paper, approxamately 16 x 25 inches.

Here is the jumping off point. Me being me, I didn’t quite paint it in weekly, zen-like meditative days as I had planned. Noooo. Of course not. Every electronic device was still up and running, there were papers tossed everywhere, and I couldn’t even resist putzing around with a few work projects. And on a day off! If I had stuck to it the first day, it would have been down less than 12 hours later. Did the painting improve or suffer due to the pause? I am not sure, tho the clipboard did make little marks on the paper edges. So be it; they’ll be safely matted out of view if (when) it is ever framed.

This is, of course, the jumping off point in a series for me. The first thought was to paint things that are “relevant” the my world — whatever that is — without being pandering, overly self-conscious, or overtly political. Good luck. Yet this desire has kicked me into thinking about works that I would not have once considered. Still, some guiding force must be in place, lest I begin to randomly paint all over the place, with no rhyme or reason. So I’ve decided to combine some passions, and make this a series on — might you guess it? Route 99 West. Now you say, this is a painting of a MAX train crossing the Steel Bridge in downtown Portland. What bearing does that have on 99W? But do not forget, the highway once went down Harbor Drive, where the Tom McCall Waterfront Park is now. Then it dashed up over the Steel Bridge, up Interstate Avenue, and joined 99E — the Grand Avenue / Union Avenue (later MLK Blvd) couplet — at the foot of the present I-5 interstate bridge. So, indeed, the industrial cathedral that is the Steel Bridge was once part of the vital link that was 99W.

Speaking of, my brushes are quite a mess. Frayed, some of them. Some of them got mangled from non-watercolor uses. Some of them are simply getting old. How I’d love to have one of those big, pure Kolinsky sables! But wow. Those cost as much as a motel room or an Amtrak ticket. I could justify it, eventually. If I had the cashflow. But I don’t. So I make due.

Making due is a serious constraint on my work, I’ve noticed. For example, in one painting I have just begun, the sketching portion suffered severely from my inability to keep a piece of paper taped to a door while I projected a slide onto it. Frustrating, as I held up the paper with my left hand and hurriedly sketched with my right. But then these little imperfections are part of the very character of the painting, part of what separates the painting from the photo it began with. Which brings up another serious issue, that a poor photograph can make a great painting. And perhaps, vice-versa?

I’m coming to like working larger. Big 22×30 sheets are unlikely to see scissors of mine in the future. The scale allows finer detail, a finer perception of precision, and less percentage of the image hidden by a theoretical matting. But it really need bigger brushes! And for large areas like skies, it needs far more skill and rapidity in washes!

My paper, speaking of, is running short, though I’m still finding working on an oversized clipboard to be ideal. I can move it anywhere I wish, though if I ever do plein-air work it may have to be with the benefit of the car.

Now that I am back with the brush again, I have to say there is a slight satisfaction from feeling it all come together again subconsciously. Watercolor for me is almost like an old, irreplaceable friend, one whom you can not talk to in ages and then pick up with exactly where you left off. And that is the best kind of friendship at all.

However, when I posted a few scans of my work at an online forum, I shortly afterwards found myself working on a commission, and one from — you guessed it — someone else’s photo, in this case, an image taken by Wyoming photographer Paul Birkholz.

PHOTO: Paul Birkholz

Before I even had the print of his photo in my hands, I thought that Paul might enjoy a blow-by-blow of how his photograph turned into my watercolor. The below account is based on a sort of journal I kept along the process. I hope you enjoy following along with me from paper to finished painting.

Saturday, January 11th — 4 pm

Received the photo in mail at about 4 pm. Opened and examined it for about fifteen minutes, studying the various problems I would probably encounter, planning different alterations to the image to improve upon it. Dug out my table of proportions and planned how the image will be cropped. It’s either too tall or not wide enough, so I will either have to add some scenery to one edge, (either by extrapolating what should be there, or by “lengthening” a segment of scenery between the center and the edge,) or I will have to crop slightly down from the top and bottom. Suspect latter route as that calls for eliminating about 1/4 inch along top and bottom edges, versus adding one inch to the edge.

Then again if I make the painting larger than the photograph this could all change. Must think about it for a while first.

About 8 pm

A few quick notes might make the above paragraphs more relevant.

First, although I try to make my work follow “reality”, I don’t feel bound by that reality so far that I need to include, say, roadside litter, or an unfortunately located street sign, etc…. So as I looked at the photo I was making notes to myself of what elements detracted from the composition, or could be left out without harming it.

Second, on proportion. I like to keep the dimensions of my work within the proportions of the golden section, (aka phi, aka 1:1.618,) a ratio used in art & architecture since ancient times, and found in all natural objects. To determine the dimensions, I once made up a little table, with even numbers down one side, and their “correct” proportion for the alternate legs going across. It saves me looking for a calculator.

Sunday, January 12th — 2 am

Decided to keep painting same scale as image, as that simplifies any transfer measurements. I cut some paper and laid out the “frame” for the image area in pencil. Will begin laying out the drawing tomorrow.

4 pm

I’ve laid out the drawing on the paper. Normally I’d cheat and use a slide, projecting it onto the paper and making the drawing that way. However, since this is a print, I can’t do that. So I’ve made a few transfers based on measurements, and then freehanded the rest in. For example, I measured the railhead and put that in with a ruler, as well as the perspective guide lines which 700 sits in. But the detail on 700 is freehand, as are most of the people.

The price I pay? The people are a little closer to the front of 700 than in the photo. I had to ask myself, is this a critical, negative thing? After studying it for a while, I couldn’t see any reason why the composition had been set back. So rather than go back, erase, and re-lay the people, (or adjust 700 to the right,) I left it be as it is.

After making the drawing, I used a gum eraser to lighten it, so the pencil lines don’t show too much in the final picture.

I was going to leave it at that for a while, but, as usual, my impatience got the better of me. So I went and clipped the paper to the giant clipboard I use as a work surface, and then laid in the sky, using Cerulean blue, my favorite for sky tones. Skies always go in first. Why? First, they are behind everything in real life, so they are the furthest back layer in the painting. Second, they are the easiest thing to screw up, so if they go in wrong, toss the painting and start with a new one, with no other work lost. And third, the sky is usually the lightest tone in the finished painting, the ground against which all colors must be compared.

Since the biggest wait in watercolors is for drying, I went ahead and put an underpainting of pale yellow to the foreground. The photo’s foreground is more or less a pastel green, which isn’t quite “right”, so I’m warming it up.

Below is a scan of the the drawing, with the sky in and the yellow underpainting done. Note that the edges on each side are cut off.

Due mostly to my own impatience, The Watchers begins….

Monday, January 13th, — 1 am

Have begun with the darks. First step was to get 700 in, as that is, after the sky, the next make-or-break, and because she is a major dark in the image. Started first moves at about 8 then stopped to let it dry, started again at midnight and just finished. 95% done with the 700 now, only a few details left which I can leave to the last. Disappointments? The numerals are not readable. Nor the herald. But that is simply it for me, they are too small, even for a number one brush and tinted white ink, which I don’t think could do the job. (White paint usually looks false.)

I also have made a first attempt at the large tank at extreme left, which will have to be done over because the color doesn’t look right.

Also laid in the railhead, and then started the darkest darks on the people. First photog’s camera & flap of coat; second photog’s body, bent over in the grass; shadows of photog 3’s jeans; ditto on photog 4, along with shadows on his jacket. They get successively bluer with distance, a happy coincidence with the photo.

Next step? Background buildings & distant hills, and then the smoke, and then the medium-darks on the people. But now? Bed.

3 pm

Laid in most of the darks. Finished the basics of the smoke, did some of the background hills & structures, along with the small trestle the locomotive is crossing. Laid in more blue tones. The painting is now at the 1/2 way done stage, and I expect that it will be finished before mid-week.

The darks go in first, always, immer, always.

7 pm

It’s controlled chaos really, a bit like going into battle with the paint. It’s watercolor, it has a mind of it’s own. Or, at least, physics does, and it often ends up taking the paint in places you don’t want, and then you throw up your arms in frustration expecting to chuck it all as a failure.

And then you go for a walk and come back and realize that nothing at all is wrong. It’s a painting, not a photo, and that chaotic element is what makes it different.

(I hate the tank at left, and have been fiddling with it obsessively.)

Any ways. Now most of the darks are finished and the skin tones are in. I’ve put in shadows on the guy in the center, finished the distant photog, and pretty much wound up most of the details now. Still have to add some doo-dads to the smokebox on 700, and I have to go back and redo the shadows on the foreground photog’s face. I knew they’d be difficult, but that’s why I picked this image, the challenge was enticing.

Controlled Chaos rules me.

I estimate the painting will be complete Tuesday evening.

Tuesday, January 14th — 6 pm

Well it looks like it won’t be finished tonight after all, since I got stuck with some other business today. However, some progress has occurred. I have laid in some of the greens, and then started to “scratch out” the grass seed heads with the side of a pair of scissors. It may be complete tomorrow afternoon. Just goes to show you my level of patience has increased with age, as most of my earlier paintings were done within an hour or two, with inadequate drying periods between.

The scratchwork begins to take shape.

Wednesday, January 15th — Midnight

Damn. It’s a strange thing now that I really think about it, fighting with the water, and then coaxing it, and then fighting it again. I just laid in most of the background ground textures, some more detail, finished the hat of the foreground photog and darkened the shadows there too. Played with the blue hat and the never-quite-right green shirt. (It’s too pastel in reality.) I went back and laid in more darks in the creek, and in the reeds there, and overall finished most of the details. Now all that’s left is to finish the blue hat. Did some re-work in the first photog’s hair, to make it better stand out against the background, played with the shadows near the tank, and then put in the final seed heads.

Most of that should take no more than a few hours tomorrow. And then it is complete!

4 pm

Almost there, in the home stretch now!

5 pm

There’s a point at which you begin fussing. Obsessing. Should I have put that detail in? Oh, that is all wrong. How could I have forgotten such and such? Oh, that needs to be darker. Like I said, obsessing. And that is the clear sign that the finish is at hand. In truth it will never be perfect, and it’s when you reach a point of accepting that inherent imperfection that the brush goes down one last time. Oh, and by-the-way, that is usually after it’s been titled and signed.

Anyway. It’s done. And the scanner does not do justice to the sienna tones at all.

The Watchers, 2003; watercolor on paper, approxamately 11 x 15 inches.

As you can see, my method of watercolor is not nearly so precise as it may seem when looking at a finished work. It is a little like juggling. But undertaking this commission for Paul was a very enjoyable experience. Exercise is the only way to broaden skill, and this subject made me stretch myself to accomplish what I wanted out of the image. And it made me finally crack open the brush-box and paint something again, something that I don’t do often enough….