Eugene Weekly : Culture : 07.15.04

That an extraordinary painter of the Northwest such as Carl Hall (1921-1996) has not received the broad public recognition he deserves illustrates the vagaries of the art world, especially since his early paintings brought him a measure of national acclaim.

Prestigious art institutions, including the Whitney Museum, exhibited and acquired Hall's work. Influential art dealer Julien Levy offered to represent Hall with a group of artists called the Neo-Romantics or Magic Realists. By 1947, Hall had a one-man show at the Levy Gallery, following which Life magazine featured six of his paintings in a four-page article. Then Abstract Expressionism took over the avant-garde marketplace, and Levy's gallery closed in 1949. Hall settled with his wife, Phyllis, in Salem, where he taught at Willamette University, wrote about art for the Oregon Statesman, and painted.

Today, beyond the savvy collectors of Northwest art who have long appreciated Hall, only the Hallie Ford Museum of Art in Salem, which named its gallery of Northwest art after him, houses a number of Hall's works. Locally, Karin Clarke Gallery is now showing Hall's work from the 1960-70s in hopes of increasing public awareness of this important painter.

Hall was never strictly a regional painter. His paintings convey not only his visual perception of the Northwest environment but also the emotions it stirred in him. His powers of observation were complemented by exceptional draftsmanship and medium mastery. The magic in Hall's realism derives in part from the spiritual mystery of geography which he sought to render.

His palette is subdued, inspired by the colors around him: deep greens, blacks, blues and grays, pale yellows. His landscapes are strikingly accurate, whether a full panorama (Mountain and Fog) or a piece of driftwood. Yet it is never photographic accuracy — his images are never frozen. He captures the quality of light, atmosphere, movement, fluidity, patterns, texture in Spring Woods #2, with its impressionistic flash of vivid new green surrounded by dark old growth, and in Vetch, muddy soil that resists the suffused winter light. Hall's exquisite detail leaves ample room for our imagination to roam.

Hall succeeded equally at evoking the blurry, quiet melancholy of winter (Rookery) and the tortured form of old trunks (Dark Chamber) or driftwood — and in Hidden Bird did both at once. In Allegory, the fantastic aspect of contorted driftwood is emphasized. The wood appears ghostly and weightless, in part because our eyes are level with the sandy beach, the branches floating above us. A palette of yellowish gray-blue, shared in slightly different proportions by earth and sky, reinforces this impression.

Hall experimented with mixed media, materials and processes. He variously combined India ink, watercolor, gouache, silkscreen gel, acrylic and graphite. He also used pure oil, as in Hooded Figure, in which the boy's gentle, meditative expression is offset by a forceful composition and strong lines defining the folds of his garment.

Hall's subtle yet rich texture could be the result of scratchwork, rubbings from acrylic relief masters, tissue paper and collage elements or line itself, for he was a master of line. He produced elaborate, rigorous layerings (Log Raft), or spontaneous studies with fluid, sometimes calligraphic, strokes, as in Hidden Valley, a favorite of mine. Asian in its sensibility and aesthetics, this mountain-and-waterfall landscape is barely suggested yet whole and alive.

Hall's work often functions simultaneously at a representational and an abstract level. One can appreciate the paintings as pure abstractions of form, color and texture (Ocean Forms, Sea Ghosts, Skull with Rocks, Allegory, Hidden Valley). Viewers project into these paintings an extra layer of metaphor, symbol and allegory, so that Hall's work acquires for them personal meaning.

Bundle of Sticks, another favorite of mine, engages us in purely sensual terms with its varied textural effects. Compositionally, it relies on a contrast between simple geometric forms on both sides and a pile of organic shapes in the center — wood sticks to which water-erosion has lent the aspects of sun-bleached bones. Although the content bears the force of Hall's perception and personality, the artist nonetheless leaves meaning to the viewer. He gives form to the mystery that preoccupied him without reifying it or destroying the mystery by solving it.

Hall thought and felt deeply, and he went honestly where his own thought and curiosity took him, which allowed him to become a truly distinctive painter. There was a price. In his monograph, Eden Again: The Art of Carl Hall, art historian Roger Hull noted: "Carl Hall had become a prolific anomaly that accorded with no contemporary trends, with the result that he was increasingly an outsider in his own region and on the national scene." Trends, however, fade. We now have enough perspective to allow quality to reassert itself. It is time to give Hall's work its due — and treat ourselves in the process.

"Carl Hall (1921-1996): Paintings from the 1960s — 70s" at Karin Clarke Gallery through July 31 is an exhibition not to be missed.

For its season finale, The Actor's Cabaret of Eugene presents the Tony award-winning thriller Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Set in 19th century London, Sweeney Todd is a deliciously macabre tale of vengeance, murder and pies.

Sweeney Todd, aka Benjamin Barker, escapes from prison and returns to London 15 years later to avenge the wife and child that were unjustly taken from him by an evil judge. He rents a room upstairs from Mrs. Lovett, a seller of meat pies, who has kept his shaving implements all these years. Todd sets up shop again, hoping to bide his time until he can exact revenge upon his nemesis and his accomplice, Beadle.

However, when a rival barber threatens to reveal Sweeny Todd's true identity as Barker, Todd slices his throat while shaving him. Realizing that something must be done with the body, the enterprising Mrs. Lovett, whose pie shop hasn't been doing so well lately, offers Todd a moneymaking proposition — that he supply the "filler" for her pies.

In next to no time, Sweeney is killing with relish and Mrs. Lovett's business is booming. Meanwhile, Anthony Hope, a young sailor who saved Todd from drowning at sea, has fallen in love with Todd's daughter, Johanna, but the Judge, who wants her all for himself, has her committed to an insane asylum. Todd and Anthony hatch a plan to free Johanna and lure the judge to the shop for the kill. All seems to be falling into place until Beadle comes snooping around the pie shop inquiring about complaints of a strange odor coming from Mrs. Lovett's bake house and things quickly escalate as the body count rises.

Joe Zingo has united many talented Jekyll & Hyde alumni for this performance. The high mark, however, is the outstanding pairing of Kevin Boling and Kristina Seleshanko in the lead roles of Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, respectively. Seleshanko is both comedic and expressive and Boling is a master of the brooding, sinister character. Together, they form a spirited twosome, as in the darkly humorous number "The Little Priest." Also providing a number of superb duets are Blake Hodgetts and Carson Shelton with "Ah, Miss," "Johanna," and "Kiss Me," as well as individual solo performances by Erica Jean (the Beggar Woman), Bruce McCarthy (Judge Turpin), Marcello Innocenti (The Beadle), Greg Mathans (Pirelli), and Anthony McCarthy (Tobias Ragg).

The production staff deserves recognition for the excellent props and set design, as well as great attention to detail in the selection of period costumes. The only real drawback was that the background music seemed a tad too loud at times, often obscuring some of the vocals.

Obsidian Trail
Highway 242 is a short cut to a wilderness paradise.
BY JAMES JOHNSTON

Scenic Highway 242 was the brainchild of Clyde Sietz, supervisor of the Cascade National Forest, the forerunner of the Willamette National Forest. In 1915, Sietz commissioned a report recommending the construction of a route over the Cascades to provide access to some "60,000,000,000 feet of high grade standing merchantable timber." The report also predicted that, "With the completion of the… highway … this beautiful country will be a veritable paradise for sportsmen, motorists, fishers, campers, and all lovers of outdoor life." The narrow, windy mountain road was completed in 1925.

Wildflowers abound at the "Sunshine" meadow.

Today most people traveling over the Cascades take the faster and more modern Highway 126, which was completed in 1964. That same year Congress created the Three Sisters Wilderness, which now encompasses nearly 300,000 acres of pristine forests, lava flows, glaciers, lakes and wildflower meadows. Hwy. 242 provides easy access to the most spectacular scenery in the wilderness, including Linton Meadows, Sunshine and Obsidian Falls, all at the feet of the 10,000 foot tall Three Sisters.

The highway is closed for the winter and spring, but generally opens in time for the Fourth of July weekend. You can get to the Obsidian Trail, the area's most popular destination, by taking Highway 126 east from Eugene/Springfield for approximately 46 miles. About two miles past the McKenzie Ranger Station, take a right onto old McKenzie Pass Highway (Hwy. 242). Drive 242 for approximately 15 miles. Between mileposts 70 and 71, take a right at the sign for the Obsidian trailhead. Drive about a quarter of a mile and find the trailhead at the end of a loop with dozens of small parking stalls.

This hike is so popular that the Forest Service limits access by issuing permits for day hikes and backpacking trips. You can pick up your free permit at the McKenzie Ranger Station on Hwy. 126. On busy weekends, you may want to call ahead, (541) 822-3381, to reserve your trip.

The first half of the Obsidian Trail climbs gently through a relatively boring sub-alpine forest. Stay straight at all trail junctions, following signs for White Branch Creek. After three and half miles you'll climb to the top of a lava flow for the first of many views of the Three Sisters. Four miles from the trailhead you'll cross the White Branch and find a trail junction, the beginning of a mind-blowing four-mile loop.

Stay to the left on the Glacier View trail and climb .7 miles to the Pacific Crest Trail junction. Straight ahead is "Sunshine"— a wildflower dotted meadow that reaches up Glacier Creek valley to the foot of the Middle Sister (a trail follows the creek to the summit of the mountain, a strenuous, but non-technical ascent).

At Sunshine, turn south (right) on the Pacific Crest Trail and traverse a plateau strewn with small lakes, springs, glacial tarns and outrageous views of the Sisters (the PCT north takes you past a series of bizarre volcanic sculptures including Collier Cone, Four-in-One-Cone and Ya-Po-Ah Crater). After a mile and half you'll descend pass Obsidian Falls to another trail junction. Turn right to complete the loop back to the White Branch crossing (four miles south on the PCT is Linton Meadows, an avalanche of knee-high wildflowers).

The major attractions of the return leg are boulders of jagged obsidian left over from past lava flows. This was a center of the prehistoric economy, with obsidian tools from this area traded as far as 500 miles away.

Notes: A deep snow pack may leave parts of this route covered by snow for a couple more weeks. The height of the wildflower season is in August.

Obsidian gets loved to death during the summer. If you're doing an overnight trip, camp at least 100 feet from streams and lakes, and only in areas that have already been cleared and smoothed for camping. Don't pick flowers, or pack out obsidian or other souvenirs. DO pack out any garbage you encounter. I recommend leaving your pets at home, but if you bring a dog, she (and you) need to stay on the trail at all times. In short: Do whatever you can to help keep Clyde Sietz's paradise intact for generations to come.