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‘For the Seventh Generation’ pano-mural offers fresh perspective
For five days in July, the lawns of the Lincoln City Cultural Center will once again become an outdoor art gallery and the epicenter of a coastal conservation project.
The latest iteration of the “For the Seventh Generation” pano-mural project, featuring nearly a half-mile of landscape paintings, returns Wednesday through Sunday, July 13 through 17.
“For the Seventh Generation: A Community of Coastal Watchers” is a long-term project first envisioned two decades ago. The project’s goal is to create a system of ocean observers, “so that any untoward action on the ocean or its accompanying landscape will not go unnoticed.”
Painters in California, Oregon and Washington choose a mile to revisit and paint each year.
“To be renewed annually, this process work gives the artist the opportunity to intellectually and emotionally connect with the land and to take the role of both sentinel and chronicler of a specific ocean location,” project leader John Teply said. “Perhaps each of us has a favorite spot along the coast. Looking out over it, we may find ourselves asking, ‘Will it survive?’ The ocean is continually under threat. Pollution, coastal development and over-fishing all tax the health of its finite system. Without our strong environmental conscience and a voice to express it, threats to the ocean will be left unchallenged and its health subject to the whims and manipulations of politics and industry. This project, extending through the 21st century, provides such a voice.”
Visitors to the pano-mural, can start their walk in Tijuana, passing by the Huntington Beach Pier, the San Francisco Bay, Cascade Head, Haystack Rock, Astoria Bridge and Puget Sound before ending the trek with a view of the Peace Arch on the Canadian border.
The resulting free-standing work, made up of landscape paintings that are each two by four feet, is getting longer every year. This summer it will stretch nearly a half mile in length on fencing installed throughout the cultural center’s lawn. A collection of other large landscapes, those which have not been treated to withstand the elements, will be exhibited inside in the Hallway Gallery.
"For the Seventh Generation” will be open to the public from 11 am to 7 pm on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, from 11 am to 8 pm Saturday and from 11 am to 2 pm on Sunday. The Lincoln City Cultural Center is located at 540 NE Hwy. 101. For more information, go to lincolncity-culturalcenter.org or call 541-994-9994.