Mari-time for some culture
An opening reception will help kick off two separate exhibits at Newport’s Pacific Maritime Heritage Center this Friday, Oct. 14, featuring a carefully curated selection of oil paintings by Michael Gibbons and a rich collection of photographs by Rich Bergeman.
“The Yaquina Exhibition – A Painted Voice for a Sacred Landscape,” showcasing oil paintings by Gibbons, will be on display through Jan. 15.
The traveling exhibit, created by the Yaquina River Museum of Art, includes 35 plein air paintings that Gibbons created on-location throughout the Yaquina River Watershed.
A book on Gibbons’ work and giclée prints will be available for sale in the museum store.
The purpose of this exhibit is to offer a visual documentation of the beauty, history, health and viability of the Yaquina Watershed to create a benchmark for sustaining this significant environment for forests, fish and wildlife. The artist’s vision emphasizes the benefits of the watershed, which provides employment, a water source, healthy air quality and recreational venues for the region.
Born in Portland in 1943 and a fifth generation Oregonian, Gibbons painted the Oregon landscape for 55 years. He continued working in his signature style to create intimate views of the ever-changing Northwest landscape until his death in 2020.
Preferring to work alone, he isolated himself among the trees and waterways where he could listen to the “voice of the land,” and used his painter’s tools to give substance to that voice and spirit by communicating space, color, form and light through his innate talent and refined execution.
“What is painted is of secondary importance; how it is painted is the critical aspect,” he said. “It is in the execution of the painting that the possibility of interaction with it takes place.”
Gibbons’ paintings communicate nature’s sacred voices onto a painted surface for the viewer to experience, become part of and respond to.
“All of the world we experience, every human being, every bush, every tree, and every rock is a gift to us for this part of our earthly experience,” he said.
The collection of photographs by Bergeman, “Tidewaters: Looking Back on Oregon’s Coast Range Rivers,” will be on display through Jan. 29, 2023.
A series of vintage platinum/palladium prints depicting scenes along Oregon’s major estuaries, “Tidewaters” includes 25 prints, maps and text panels showing the history of Native American life and early Euro-American settlement along the Columbia, Yaquina, Alsea, Siuslaw and other navigable rivers along the Oregon Coast.
Bergeman spent several years exploring the lower reaches of the rivers, looking for scenes that reflect the region’s early history.
“I’ve always loved photographing in places where the past seems more palpable than the present,” he said. “On these rivers time’s passage is plainly seen in the old docks, wooden fishing boats and gnarled pilings climbing out of the ebbing tide.”
While researching the region’s history at coastal museums from Astoria to Coos Bay, he discovered a complex, multi-layered story.
Each of the river systems was home to its own distinct Native American population, and all were disrupted in the 1800s by encroachment of Euro-Americans in pursuit of the region’s resources. For a time, beginning in 1855, the entire Central Coast — more than a million acres from Cape Lookout to the Oregon Dunes — was a congressionally designated Indian Reservation, but was gradually chipped away until all that remained was the small present-day tract at Siletz.
During that time, new towns slowly began to take shape near the mouths of the Rivers — some flourished while others disappeared altogether. Among the so-called “lost cities” were Bayocean, a Tillamook Bay resort once billed as the “Atlantic City of the West;” and Yaquina City, the ill-fated “San Francisco of the Oregon Territory.”
In keeping with the historical nature of the images, Bergeman printed them in the traditional platinum process, which dates to the early years of photography.
A book on the exhibit that expands upon the show will be available in the museum bookstore, along with digital reprints of images in the show.
A retired community college instructor, Bergeman has hung more than 50 solo shows at galleries, art centers and museums throughout the region.
Besides “Tidewaters,” he has exhibited and published portfolios on several historical projects, including the lost homesteads of Oregon’s Fort Rock Basin, the early settlers on Washington’s Willapa Bay and the Rogue River Indian Wars of 1851-56.
Originally a large-format film photographer and darkroom printer in silver and platinum, he also has created portfolios with pinhole and Polaroid cameras, and currently works primarily with digital infrared cameras and archival pigment inkjet printers.
The Friday, Oct. 14, reception is from 4 to 7 pm. On Tuesday, Oct. 25, a panel discussion will help to more deeply explore the two exhibits from 2 to 4 pm.
The Pacific Maritime Heritage Center is located at 333 E Bay Blvd. in Newport and is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 am to 4 pm. For more information, go to oregoncoasthistory.org or call 541-265-7509.