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Visual Arts: Theater: Poetry: Gardening: Morsels:
Wearable
Fine Art Sculpture
For five decades counted among contemporary metalsmiths who demonstrate that jewelry can be approached as a fine art, Hannah Goldrich creates unique pieces, which stand alone as small-scale sculpture. Her aesthetic vision is not subject to the whims of fashion and time, however deeply it may belong to this period and culture. Goldrich's 50-Year Jewelry Retrospective is exhibited at the Jacobs Gallery through May 29. Jewelry is not merely a fine art. It is functional, and function imposes formal constraints. Wearable art must be pleasing to both the eye and to touch, not just to the skin but to the three-dimensional, moving body, in a most intimate relationship. Goldrich does not forget this. Jewelry is also a craft, which means that quality of workmanship and materials are paramount, whereas in non-functional art other considerations may override. In her attention to detail, Goldrich thinks like a master craftsman as well as a fine artist. Even the hidden parts of her work — her clasps — deserve display. Goldrich grew up in an aesthetically appointed home in New York City with supportive parents who loved and understood art. Early on, she became acquainted with the work of modernist metalsmiths Paul Lobel, Sam Kramer and Ed Wiener, who broke away from mainstream jewelry design and laid the ground for subsequent generations of fine-artist jewelers. Goldrich never studied jewelry formally. Her university degrees were in sociology (Antioch) and education (Harvard). To learn the metalsmith's craft, she became jeweler Charles Hopkins's apprentice in Chapel Hill, N.C., in 1956. She designed pieces for him, and he in turn showed her the techniques to create them. After moving to Eugene in 1963, Goldrich took courses from UO professor Max Nixon, who became her mentor. Although she taught 15 years at Maude Kerns Art Center, to this day she still enjoys taking workshops.
Goldrich's aesthetics and grasp of design were in place from the start, as were the hallmarks of her style. Sterling silver, 14-carat yellow gold, gemstones and pearls have always been her materials of choice. She generally uses construction techniques instead of casting. She cuts out small, individual component parts from metal sheet and wire. She textures and shapes them, soldering them together "like a jigsaw puzzle," a patient, work-intensive process. Goldrich favors a strong, fluid line and elegant simplicity, whether the piece is minimalist such as "Sawtooth Serenity" pin, a 1958 choker with a bold, wing-like horizontal pendant bearing an off-center pearl, or created from component parts, such as "Proud Headpiece" or the solar "Fritz Goro's Opal." Her forms are usually organic, inspired by female curves, leaves, buds or teardrops. And central to her design is an exquisite sense of asymmetrical balance. Asymmetry provides visual complexity, which, combined with flowing lines, gives a sense of freedom and the unexpected. Goldrich learned the techniques of inlay and texturing with a rolling mill in 1978 at a workshop in Haystack, Maine, and a variety of subtle textures became another characteristic of her work. "Haystack Moon" (1978) is a rounded rectangular pin whose abstract landscape we may interpret as a lightly textured silver ocean reflecting the light of a pearl-moon and lapping at an ebony shore. Goldrich considers 1990 to have been the beginning of her properly narrative work, when the death of friends prompted her to tell stories and express emotions through her art. But from the start, she created figurative pieces, which inevitably hint at a story, as well as non-representative, formalist jewelry. Early neckpieces, "Intimate Leaves" (1976) and "Winged Foliage" (1977), reach an apex in terms of formal design, based in both cases on a leaf motif. I think of them as royal pieces. Not the stilted, fussy, glittery kind associated with institutional royalty, but royal in a simpler, freer, more personal and primary way, for a queen such as Hatshepsut of Sheba or for a pagan goddess. "From the Boreal Depths" (2002) follows in the same vein. Its biomorphic shape evokes both an opening bud and a female form. Goldrich often replicates in the metal section of a piece the characteristics of a stone used in that same piece. Here the silver's texture at left mirrors that of a fossilized coral at right, while the color of both is echoed in a dark gray pearl at the bottom. The form of that pearl is in turn repeated in the silver beads at the top.
"Hannah's Pendant," with its poised balance and light texture, shows a more geometric design, although angles are still softened, and asymmetry still plays a central role. Her figurative pieces include landscapes. Whether pins or pendants, these are genuine bas-relief sculptures, albeit miniature ones. "Urban Views" (1958) is the earliest in the show, with individually enameled, colorful skyscrapers against a deep blue night sky and foreground elements in relief. A majority are exquisitely stylized renditions of the Northwest, which bring to the fore her sense of composition, her subtle use of contrasting textures, and an ability to maximize the effects of individual stones. "It's Just the Tip" was inspired by Alaskan glaciers whose color and brilliance is captured by a chrysocalla drusy placed off-center among richly textured mountains. "Oregon Wonder" distills Western Oregon in three tightly integrated parts: a stylized silver-and-gold mountain landscape, a Morrison Ranch jasper with hill-depicting striation, and a luxuriant green indicolite. Goldrich visits Mexico every year. To Oaxaca we owe several delightful pieces. "From the Museum Window in Oaxaca #1" and "#2" represent views from the Santa Domingo museum. The first, framed in the shape of a shrine, is a delicately textured bas-relief of houses, trees and mountains. The second is a one-point-perspective, vertical tableau of a building-lined street under a tall sky. "Casa Panchita," unframed, has the power and magic of a miniature world. The female figure is a recurrent motif in Goldrich's figurative and narrative work. Gentle, affectionate humor characterizes her few animal figures ("Hansel," "Hoot") but is also often present in her portrayal of woman ("Senora," "Hampelfrau"). A sense of liberated energy imbues "Go, Girl!," a bellydancer, torso bared and a pearl in her navel. "She's Dancing Through Her Sixties" was inspired by Carolyn Heilbrun's book. Goldrich's ongoing story of woman includes themes not often found in art, let alone jewelry. "Menopausal Moods," a reversible pendant, shows what a woman experiences during menopause. With understanding and humor, one side expresses the torment of hot flashes irradiating from a fire-opal womb and the storming emotions that accompany hormonal changes. On the other side, inner peace is regained, and the womb, a cool green tsavorite, is settled. "The Wonder of Birth" tells of an earlier stage of womanhood with a wonderful mix of symbolic stylization and realism. The pregnant belly is a locket that contains a cast-silver infant with a hand-wrought chain for an umbilical cord. "Secrets" (the woman's chest is another locket), "Woman Embracing Her Stories," "Elusive Totem" and "Turquoise Mother," all differently convey the mystery at the core of womanhood. Some pieces tell stories in an oblique, symbolic way, while others bring cultural symbols to bear on personal stories, as does "Hamsa for Ursie," a "healing hand" with amethyst created to make her sister feel better. "The Crying World of 2001," which the title describes, was done after 9/11. Making "Never Again" and "Forgive, but Don't Forget" was a way to deal with her emotions after a visit to Heilbronn, the German town Goldrich's family fled from in 1937. Similarly, "Peace in the Middle East 1992" followed a trip to Israel. Powerful in its economy, the pin beautifully combines stylized religious architectural elements and symbols from the three religions that hold Jerusalem sacred.
Reunion
Reflections Universally, it's one of the foremost anxiety-inducing events in life. What I'm referring to, of course, is the dreaded high school reunion. From the moment the invitation arrives in the mailbox, the angst-O-meter skyrockets. In Lord Leebrick's premiere production of The Pavilion, drama and long suppressed memories — good times as well as emotional scars left over from high school injustices — all come into play.
Written by Craig Wright, whose work can be seen in the TV series "Six Feet Under," the production is a smart, funny, and thought-provoking blend of pain, pleasure, and pathos, as well as a measurement of time irretrievable and time remaining. Opening in Pine City, Minn. at a dilapidated dance hall on the edge of a lake, the class of 1984's 20-year reunion is about to commence. From the narrator, we receive a lightning-fast history of the universe — the significant role each of us occupy within it; and how even the seemingly minor choices we make can affect others and permanently alter their universe. We are also introduced to Peter and Kari, two former high school sweethearts fated to reunite years after their less than amicable parting. Peter, a psychiatrist returning to his hometown for the first time since leaving for college, views the reunion as an opportunity to rectify a 20-year-old "cosmically stupid" mistake and to perchance rekindle a relationship with Kari. However, Kari isn't the least bit interested in making up. For one thing, she's married, albeit unhappily, and as far as she's concerned, Peter is a closed chapter. As the evening unfolds, a mélange of well-meaning friends advise the couple on a variety of topics; particularly, whether they should get back together or not. Adding to the already bittersweet emotions swirling through the night, a gathering fleet of fire trucks awaits outside to burn the old memory filled pavilion to the ground at the stroke of midnight. In his directorial debut, Bill Hulings has cast three multi-talented individuals. Dan Pagoda and Valerie McMahon are the ill-fated couple, who have terrific onstage chemistry. Pagoda is both comedic and tender as the mixed up and remorseful Peter. He also demonstrates his formidable musical talents during a poignant guitar solo. Likewise, McMahon is splendid as the ill-treated Kari. From righteous anger to moments of maturity and wise introspection, her range of emotions is remarkable. And finally, playing an actor playing an actor playing an actor, Jeff Pierce is fantastic and relentlessly entertaining as the narrator, who not only chronicles and provides powerful imagery and insight into the emerging cosmic drama, but seamlessly transitions in and out of an assortment of both male and female roles that embody every conceivable high school stereotype — from the sweet-but-clueless cheerleader, the bitter feminist and the chronic doper to the conflicted chief of police and the world-weary church minister. If what you're craving is a night of witty comedy, high drama, and nostalgic '80s tunes, The Pavilion's got it all.
Poetry
Slamwich Poetry. Sublime descriptions of sadness souring the corners of your mouth below the tongue, and you fight back tears. Maybe motivational elation on swifts' wings, taking flight from stretched smile to twirling microphone, causing you to shake your fist and silently promise that tomorrow, dammit, you'll mow the goddam lawn. Or a poet, shouting sexual elations, searing, sating frustrations, might awaken a stirring in yer' loins, and make you squiggle, yelp, look around for help. Slam! Announcing, Saturday, May 15 at Foolscap Books, a competitive conflagration of wordsmiths among you, a bare-bones, blood-thirsty battle of maximum verbosity, or sometimes, poignant silence, from some of Eugene's finest poets. Last year, Foolscap owner Marietta Bonaventure put together the first-ever Eugene poetry-slam team. It went to Chicago, placing 36th out of 64 teams, a remarkable accomplishment for a first-year squadron of quill-wielding romantics. This year the competition's on steroids, featuring 80 teams, all going mic-to-mic, Aug. 3-8. in St. Louis. But first, Eugene poets gotta duke it out amongst themselves. Hence, the finals: Six poets, three rounds, each poet reading one poem a round, and the four poets with the highest total at the end of round three, well, how do you spell St. Louis? The evening begins at 8 pm, featuring an open mic and performances by Seattle-based poetry collective, ORATRIX. This is Foolscap's final event. From now on Foolscap will move to internet sales, at www.foolscapbooks.com Books before May 15 are 75 percent off. Head there for your literary lusts and page-turning thrusts. Support local bookstores. And now, on to the finalists!
Cassie Sorenson Sorensen a 21-year-old queer female studying English literature (which reminds her not to write like pretentious dead white guys) and women's and gender studies (which informs her poetry with politics and women's issues). Her best work comes to her in the wee hours. Do you have any sneak attacks for winning the slam? My secret technique is that I plan to flash the audience.
Kitt Jennings Jennings has been a firefighter and muralist, a riverboat deckhand and snake handler. She strives to tell an entertaining story through specific experiences, with the belief that the more personal a thing is, the more universal underlying feelings become. If you could have any super power? The ability to control bugs. If you could just control three flies in a room, you'd pretty much have free reign to do what you wanted.
Shea Shattuck-Faegre She has been a janitor, a tutor, a mime, a forensics data assistant, a stripper, a vegan baker, a waitress, a painter, a tutor and an organic farmer. She's marched in the streets of Boston and New York, and claims that she writes especially for her 6-year-old sister. Do you have a special technique for slams? Most people want to be mad. They're mad about something but they can't put their finger on it. I try to connect people to their intuition.
Jahan Khalighi Originally from the Bay area, Khalighi has been active in the slam poetry community for about three years. Khalighi was a member of the first Eugene Slam Team to compete at the 2004 National Poetry Slam in Chicago. What makes a poem work at a poetry slam? It's got to reveal something about the poet's personal experience, and in that uncovering, the rest of the room can partake.
Samuel Rutledge Growing up in a middle class development in northeast Eugene, Rutledge struggled with his identity as a white, middle-class male from a young age. This struggle has been thematic in his writing from the beginning. Any secret techniques you have to winning a slam? I try to be as blatantly honest as possible, without going overboard into self-indulgence.
Olivia Pepper Pepper is a 21-year-old novelist hopeful who has vivid dreams about Frida Kahlo stealing her cigarettes while they get matching tattoos. She's a mixed-blood pirate-queen descendent of Penahwapskiek Indians, Roma gypsies, Irish Farmers and French Jews. She hopes to go on a slam tour, move to San Francisco, publish novels, marry her best friend, have babies and settle down into some form of radical feminist domesticity. What is poetry slam? Poetry slam is a horrendously nerve-wracking experience of tragic bliss and horrifying beauty. If you had a super power? Invisibility. I'd find out what people secretly want, and then I'd do whatever I could to make that happen for them.
FUTURE SLAM EVENTS: Eugene vs. the Universe 2003 Eugene Slam Team documentary, 12:30 pm, Bijou Theatre; Slam, Saturday, June 12, Downtown Lounge; Slam, Friday, July 2, John Henry's; Slam, Saturday, July 3, Saturday Market; Slams, July 9, 10 and 11, Oregon Country Fair; Slam, Friday, July 30, Sam Bond's Garage; 2005 Eugene poetry slam season kickoff, October 23, Territorial Winery Pressing Room, 907 W. 3rd. Ave.
Lusty
for Lavender
Anyone with a sunny garden who is looking to reduce water use should be thinking lavender: not just one token plant, but lots of it. This fragrant marvel from lands around the Mediterranean needs little care, tolerates poor soil, and is more cold-hardy than that provenance might suggest. Rocky or sandy conditions may be ideal for lavender, but it is remarkably adaptable to ordinary garden soils, even in soggy Northwest winters. Its only real requirement for a long life is decent drainage. At the Sawmill Ballroom Lavender Farm on Hamm Road, Joey and Nancy Connolly Blum claim to have heavy, clay soil: Planting on sloping ground provides the drainage the plants need. A thick mulch of sawdust conserves moisture. "We used to make a big deal out of telling our customers we never water our plants," said Joey when I visited last summer. "After this very dry year, we may have to say we seldom water our plants." Established lavender doesn't need irrigation to survive, he said, but the plants will look fuller with adequate moisture, and the quality of the flowers improves. In small spaces, multiple lavender plants look great laid out in severely geometric designs. Alternatively, you can mix it with other drought tolerant plants for a more informal effect. Lavender's tolerance for dry soil makes it a good container plant for water-wise gardeners. The drought tolerance of plants in containers won't equal that in the open garden, but waiting a few days for water shouldn't hurt. (Potted lavender can go in a frost-free but unheated garage for the winter.) While any lavender variety can be grown in a pot, my personal favorite is Spanish lavender (Lavandula stoechas). The jaunty wings at the tip of every inflorescence add color and character, and there are several flushes of bloom throughout the summer. L. stoechas is not as hardy as other popular varieties, although many specimens have lived through several recent winters. A typical purple flowered variety is 'Otto Quast.' In 'Leucantha' the flowers and showy bracts are white with green veins. Joey and Nancy Blum grow and sell about 65 lavender varieties, both old and new. Their farm is a great place to compare flower and leaf color, plant size and blooming time. Gray-leafed 'Tuscan,' their own introduction from a farm in Italy, is a variety of English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia). Others are 'Twickel Purple' and a compact old favorite named 'Munstead.' Early blooming and hardy, it's about one- third the size of most its neighbors at the farm. Nancy says, "It has a lovely, soft fragrance without sharpness." English lavender self-sows, but many popular lavenders are sterile hybrids. Crosses between Lavandula angustifolia and L. latifolia, they are grouped under the name L. x intermedia (books sometimes refer to them as lavandins). 'Provence' and the fat-flowered 'Grosso' belong in this group. The hybrids tend to bloom a bit later, and foliage color is variable, from green to gray. Lavandula latifolia 'Silver Frost' has foliage of the brightest silver, standing out like a beacon in mixed beds at the Lavender Farm. If you are planting lavender in masses, you can choose two or more foliage colors to make a pattern. In nature, old lavender grows irregular and leggy, with the thick, gnarled stems exposed. Most gardeners prefer the neat bun shape associated with young plants. Provided they get a full eight hours of sun a day, a regular annual clip after flowering can keep plants that way for years. It's good for hedges, or anywhere plants need to be uniform. Nancy recommends clipping in July or August. Alternatively, you can shear the plants when growth begins in spring. Or you can prune individual branches for a more natural look, leaving about one quarter of last year's growth. Healthy plants in ideal conditions can be cut back hard, even into old wood if you can see buds there, but this should be done only in spring. Nancy recommends doing it right around Mothers Day. "Some varieties push new growth right from the bottom," she says. "By late spring, if you can see that new bun of leaves, cut back to it." Here is another tip from Nancy: If you are not in production, don't rush to harvest your lavender. Insects, bees in particular, just love it, and the plants are constantly in motion from dawn to dusk. Nancy suspects some bees sleep right in the plants! Bees continue to work the plants long after the strongest flush of blue is gone, and she's learned that even the dried-out stalks are full of fragrant oil. She crushed a brown head in her fingers to show me the shiny black oval seed; even with the seed already ripe, the old flowers were still intensely fragrant. So you and the bees can enjoy your lavender for a long time and still cut fragrant stems. Sawmill Ballroom Lavender Farm (29251 Hamm Road, Eugene) is a blissful spot in the country to buy lavender or just visit. Open 11 am to 4 pm Wednesday through Sunday, April to October. For details, call 686-9999, or go to
The
Corner Café
We all know the adage that good business is about location, location, location, and Novella Café has a supreme one: the lobby of the Eugene Public Library on the corner of 10th Avenue and Olive Street. Novella serves a selection of coffee drinks, teas, hot cocoa and Italian sodas, as well as bagels and pastries provided by Bagel Sphere. I order a blueberry pastry ($1.50) and the day's coffee special, an Almond Mocha ($2.50 for 12 oz.), both of which are sweet and comforting and a nice way to spend a morning coffee break. I'd love to see a broader selection of baked goods at Novella, but I did get there late morning, when pickings might have been slimmer than earlier in the day. Maybe even more than the fare, it's that location — not to mention the atmosphere and people-watching that go along with it — that makes Novella a great place to hang out. No matter the weather, the three-story walls of windows allow in plenty of light and a fantastic view of Eugene's downtown hustle and bustle. The seating area is about a dozen stainless steel bistro tables with bright pastel plastic, steel-framed chairs to match; patrons can sit and relax whether they purchase Novella food items or not. This is as true a cross-section of Eugeneans as I've ever seen in an eatery: white-haired ladies eating brown bag lunches of egg salad sandwiches and lemon-lime soda; the young bus depot crowd kickin' it cool at a back corner table; parents with children sipping at hot cocoa and looking through the day's library loot; person after person engrossed in literary selections borrowed from the library or bought from the Secondhand Prose Bookstore; the daytime downtowners looking very official in neckties and wingtips. This is a corner café that will really make you feel like a part of the community. 7 am-8 pm M-Tu, 7 am-6 pm W-F, 8 am-6 pm Sa, 11 am-5 pm Su. Wheelchair accessible. V/MC, $.
Leftovers New Korean and American cuisine restaurant Cho Ga now open in Springfield, located at 3540 Gateway St. inside Gateway Inn. Call 726-1212, ext. 5 for more information. Mitchel Hescheles has taken on Café-131-turned-Marco's-Café on Main Street in downtown Springfield, renaming it Marco's Café & Coffeehouse. If you're looking for what Hescheles calls "something different over the river," you'll want to check this out: Marco's Café & Coffeehouse specializes in fresh-baked pastries and lunch items that Hescheles says are "everything usual with a twist." Marco's Café & Coffeehouse focuses on fresh fare, even making its own mayonnaise and dressings. You'll find the new place at 602 Main St. in Springfield, or you can call 726-4827 for more info. Looking for hot stuff online? Check out online hot sauce retailer SweatnSpice.com, headquartered in Springfield and owned by local Nick Lindauer. Lindauer, 23, started the online store to fill a void he discovered as a hot sauce collector. "I had a hot sauce collection of about 100 different sauces, all of which I had bought from different retailers. I wanted to start an online business that I could enjoy… ." SweatnSpice.com carries over 150 different hot sauces that cannot be found at local grocery stores and is enjoying a growing fan base of hot sauce aficionados.
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