HOOD RIVER NAMED ONE OF TOP 40 MOST VIBRANT ARTS COMMUNITIES IN 2018
Thanks, in part to our Sponsors, Hood River (for the first time!) was identified as one of the top 40 most vibrant arts communities in America! BIG ART was specifically called-out as a contributing factor for being included on the list. We were No. 4 for small communities under 50,000, after Vail area, CO; Jackson, WY; and Summit Park, UT.
Hood River BIG ART Outdoor Galley Sculptures
In its fourth exhibit, the Hood River BIG ART Outdoor Gallery consists of 27 Sculptures on loan from artists, and six permanent sculptures. Though a competitive process, artists are selected to exhibit their sculptures around the downtown Hood River area for a period of about two (2) years.
ARTWORK
1 Peer
Artist: Mike Suri
Sponsor: Hood River Inn/Best Western
Size: 12’x5’x2’
$20,000
2 Last Love
Artist: Patrick Sullivan
Sponsor: Hood River Inn/Best Western
Size: 36"x12”x8”
Permanent Installation
3 Swan Song
Artist: Whit Poor
Sponsor: Hood River Inn/Best Western
Size: 11'x3'
Permanent Installation
4 Constellations II
Artist: CJ Rench
Sponsor: Hood River Chamber of Commerce
Size: (3) 10’x4’x3’
Permanent Installation
5 Columbia Gorge Morning
Artist: Cathleen Rehfeld
Sponsor: The Griffin House
Size: 4’x8’
$2,300
6 Trillium
Artist: Matt Cartwright
Sponsor: Columbia Area Transit
Size: 6’x12’
$15,000
7 Big River Woman
Artist: Lillian Pitt
Sponsor: Port of Hood River
Size: 5’x2’x8”
On Loan from David Radcliff
8 N'Chi Wanapum
Artist: Foster Kalama
(died: 2019)
Sponsor: Port of Hood River
Size: 9'x5'x5'
Permanent Installation
9 Thinker
Artist: Ralph Trethewey
Sponsor: Port of Hood River
Size: 2’x1’x1’
Permanent Installation
10 Perch
Artist: Mike Suri
Sponsors: Jane Duncombe & Jay Sherrerd
Size: 6'x4'x7'
$28,000
11 inside Out
Artist: MacRae Wylde
Sponsors: Dickinson & Pickhardt Families
Size: 6.5’x4’x4’
$12,000
12 Urban Decay
Artist: Jamie Burnes
Sponsor: Solstice Wood Fire Pizza & Cafe
Size: 8’x5’
$12,500
13 River Trident
Artist: MacRae Wylde
Sponsor: Port of Hood River
Size: TBD
$ TBD
14 Steel Head
Artist: Ben Dye
Sponsor: Columbia Area Transit
Size: 10'x4'x4'
$12,000
15 Mama Bear
Artist: Ann Fleming
Sponsor: BMP LLC on behalf of the Yasui Building tenants
Size: 18”x8”
Permanent Installation
16 wined
Artist: Phillip Rainey
Sponsor: Scott Edgar DDS - NORENDO
Size: 10’x5’
$3,000
17 Cosmos: Starry, Starry Night
Artist: Catherine Daley
Sponsors: Grateful Vineyards and the Bunch, Salmon & Wells Families
Size: 8’x30”x5’
$9,500
18 TBD - Female Figure
Artist: Breezy Anderson
Sponsor: Thread Creative
Size: 72”x48”x40
Base: 30”x18
$ TBD
19 Modern Man
Artist: Jacob Novinger
Sponsor: Columbia Center for the Arts
Size: 55”’x30”x37”
$9,000
20 Constellations
Artist: CJ Rench
Sponsors: Peachy, Davies, Myers, & Dunn, PC and Union Building LLC
Size: (3) 10’x4’x3’
TBD
21 Icarus
Artist: Ben Dye
Sponsor: Double Mountain Brewery
Size: 6’x12’
$5,500
22 Sun to Moon
Artist: Mary Angers
Sponsors: Nan & Henry Fischer and Doppio
Size: 6’x3’x6”
$15,000
23 Discipline
Artist: Steve Tyree
Sponsor: Fran Finney & Vawter Parker
Size: 6’x5’x3’
$12,000
24 Horse
Artist: Jesse Swickard
Sponsor: Columbia River Insurance
Size: 5’x9’
$9,500
25 Reflections of a Cultural Landscape
Artist: Yasmin Arlette Acosta-Myers
Sponsor: Hood River Taquerilla
Frame Structure: Schlosser Machine Shop
Size: 4’x80”
$1,700 (painting only)
26 Red Bench
Artist: CJ Rench
Sponsor: Reed & Reed Inc.
Size: TBD
$ TBD
27 City of Life
Artist: Carlos Cobos
Frame by Jim Wilson, Roughcuts, Mosier
Sponsors: Novedades El Potrillo and Hood River Chicken Teriyaki
Size: 4’x8’
$1,800
28 Hood River housing
Artist: Dale Reiger
Sponsors: Tropicali Fresh Fruit & Juice Bar and Providence Hospital
Size: 69", 54", and 44" with pedestals
$4,950; $3,950; and $3,150
All professional photographs above by Michael Peterson
ARTISTS
Mike Suri - Portland, OR
Mike Suri was born and raised in the California Bay Area and began sculpting directly in metal and other materials at the age of 16. Since moving to Portland, Oregon, in the late 1990’s Mike has established a design and fabrication business focused on executing commissions and speculative works large and small, public and private. His works can be found throughout the region.
Patrick Sullivan - Pine Valley, UT
A dual citizen originally from Vancouver, British Columbia, Patrick Sullivan now lives in Pine Valley, Utah. Patrick works in stone using a hammer and chisel allowing the piece to emerge from materials of granite, basalt, and marble. His art can be found in over twenty communities throughout the US, Canada and Germany.
Whit poor - Hood River, OR
Whit Poor is a metal sculptor in the Columbia River Gorge. Originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, from an early age Whit found great success from his wood carvings. He went on to follow his other great passion, windsurfing, taking him around the globe as a professional sailor. Whit’s greatest influences come from his travels, the study of nature and body movement. His innovative designs can be seen throughout the west in both public and private collections.
CJ Rench - Hood River, OR
Originally from Illinois, CJ Rench is a self-taught industrial engineer and designer. He creates large scale abstract metal sculpture for both public and private collections. His work has been exhibited in Palo Alto, Colorado Springs, Napa, Orlando, Denver and Aspen to name only a few. CJ recently completed a skate park installation jointly commissioned by the Seattle Parks and Recreation and Red Bull that explores the intersection of art, athleticism and imagination.
Cathleen Rehfeld - Hood River, OR
Cathleen Rehfeld is one of the premiere landscape, figurative and still-life painters of the region and sells her work internationally. She completed her BFA from the University of Texas at Austin and attended Gage Academy. Cathleen has studied with several well-known masters and now instructs throughout the Pacific Northwest. Cathleen is the founder of the annual Pacific Northwest Plein Air Event, Columbia Gorge Arts & Culture Alliance and a former long-time board member of the Columbia Center for the Arts.
Matt Cartwright - Portland, OR
Matt Cartwright is a designer and fabricator who has worked within many different communities. Much of his work is created with an organic geometry in mind. With development of structural, sculptural or mechanical elements, Matt is guided by mathematical and scientific axioms that appear in nature. He is most prolific with steel but also likes to work with found or reclaimed materials, wood or concrete. Matt is interested in seeing how things can be rearranged and combined to enhance or evoke emotion.
Lillian Pitt - Portland, OR
Lillian Pitt is a Native American artist from the Columbia River region of the Pacific Northwest. Her Native American name is Wak’amu (camas root), chosen because it represents a "stubborn plant that won’t let go of the earth", referring to the long periods of time she spent wandering the hills during her childhood. Pitt is primarily known for her sculpting and mixed media artistry, which focuses on 12,000 years of Native American history and tradition of the Columbia River region.
Foster Kalama - Warm Springs, OR
Foster Kalama was an artist since the second grade. He was a Wasco descent from his father’s side, one of the three tribes of Warm Springs. On his mother’s side Yakama. Foster grew up on N’Chi Wana, the Big River and was a Columbia River Treaty Fisherman for 34 years and fished the scaffolds since he was eight with his father Roland Kalama Sr. who had the greatest opportunity to fish the Celilo Falls. Foster was chosen as a Ceremonial hunter and fisherman.
Ralph Trethewey - Walla Walla, WA
Ralph Trethewey was born in Arizona, raised in California’s Mojave Desert and Utah’s Wasatch Mountains where the diverse wildlife inspired his early sculptures. Ralph trained at the University of Utah under sculptor Angelo Caravaglia and has completed commissions for the US Fish and Wildlife and National Park Services. His work is in select galleries, museums and private collections and is well known for the “World Record Antlers Series”.
MacRae Wylde - Hood River, OR
Hailing from Boston, MacRae Wylde attended Colorado College, School at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, College of Santa Fe, International School of Art in Umbria, Italy and the Northwest School of Wooden Boat Building. Fascinated by architecture, engineering and construction, MacRae has been building sculptures since a child. With recycled steel from locale structures, he develops bold statements reflecting community and the environment.
Jamie Burnes - Santa Fe, NM
Born in Boston and living in Santa Fe New Mexico, Jamie earned a Bachelor of Science in Studio Art from Skidmore College. Since his graduation, Jamie works with heavy and industrial items such as CorTen steel, cedar wood, rocks, wires, and other durable material to construct forms of airy grace and beauty. He portrays natural wildlife in wild combinations. Jamie exhibits and sells his artwork throughout the country.
Ben Dye - Oregon City, OR
Born in Saskatchewan Canada, Ben Dye traversed the US and was eventually introduced to the world of commercial diving and a diver's favorite tool: the welding torch. That's all it took, he could not be separated from the welding machine. Following his diving career, Ben transitioned his passion full time into art. Now he uses his experience and skills to design, fabricate, transport and complete installations of large scale work that reflects his years under and near the water.
Ann Fleming - White Salmon, WA
Following a 25-year career of creating colorful functional ware and architectural accents throughout the Pacific Northwest, Ann Fleming started to create figures in clay and then bronze. Transitioning from functional design to fun, her full, round, playful and thoughtful women and quiet and companionable animals are her primary subject matter. The stories the pieces tell are now their function. As an arts organizer Ann contributed to the Art in the Pearl Arts Festival, and now locally in the "Window Gallery" in White Salmon.
Phillip Rainey - Hood River, OR
Phillip Rainey came to the Columbia River Gorge obsessed with windsurfing in the early 80’s and later started designing surf and standup paddleboards in California. His design experience made an easy transition into creating hand built metal and wood wind sculptures. Phillip’s first real exposure to kinetic sculptures was in Zion National Park where he saw pieces from Lyman Whitaker and other kinetic artists inspiring him to dive into the wonderful world of wind powered sculptures.
Catherine Daley - Windsor, CA
Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Catherine Daley is an interdisciplinary artist who enjoys combining non-traditional materials into her artworks. Nature is a source of inspiration for Catherine while her deep background in photography as a former photojournalist informs her artwork in capturing the effects of light. She is a board member for the Pacific Rim Sculptors Group, a chapter for the International Sculpture Center.
Breezy Anderson - Bend, OR
Breezy Anderson, a self taught Oregon based metal sculptor, creates expressive, lifelike and life size figures in a space that can be imagined. Her works prove the strength and beauty of the human form, while showing equal deconstruction and deterioration - transforming ordinary matter into something extraordinary. Breezy’s work is widely collected both nationally and internationally. Committed to creating Public Sculpture, Breezy has successfully installed large scale works with the belief that Public Art inspires us to dream and delve into unknown spaces.
Jacob Novinger - Gooding, ID
Jacob Novinger initially drew for an artistic outlet when he started working at an ornamental blacksmith shop, then sparking a passion for metal. Now he creates metal sculptures that represent his life’s path and where he's going with his creative expansion. He taps into his subconscious bringing sculptures to life. Jacob's inspiration comes from natural form and textures, abstract shapes and surrealism.
Mary Angers - Long Branch, NJ
Mary Angers, multi-disciplinary artist, was born in Manhattan in the late fifties and has resided in Long Branch, New Jersey for the past 20 years. Working in two and three-dimensional media as well as video, television, light and computer generated work, she has shown extensively in Manhattan, New Jersey, France, California, Florida and other states around the country as well as completing public installations around the United States, Canada, and abroad.
Steve Tryee - Amity, OR
Born into an artistic family, Steve grew up in Modesto, California, Guam and the Hawaiian Islands. Steve’s love for wildlife took him to Alaska and Florida and eventually Oregon where he became interested in welding steel sculptures of wildlife. Steve fabricates each sculpture from bronze sheet metal and rod and has been selling wildlife sculptures through galleries, shows and privately since 1974. His work varies in size from small humming birds to large big game animals, herons and sea birds and has been sold nationally and internationally.
Jesse Swickard - Sherwood, OR
Native to Oregon, Jesse Swickard is sculptor and painter who's work can be found in art collections throughout the NW and as far off as Europe. An outdoorsman at heart, his work is nature based and reflects his love and respect for the environment. If Jesse's not building sculpture he's climbing or snowboarding along the Cascade Range.
Yasmin Arlette Acosta-Meyers - Hood River, OR
Yasmin Arlette Acosta-Myers, a Mexican-American artist, spent most of her childhood in Tecate, Baja California Mexico then settled in the Pacific Northwest. Her visual art expresses a quest for cohesion between her two culture with self reflective themes of communities as well as isolation, built environment as well as nature, traditions as well as innovations, thinking as well as feeling. She works in a variety of media including drawings, paintings and photographs that are composed of layers and the poetic truths of her experience.
Yasmin’s piece, Reflections of a Cultural Landscape, depicts the multiple perspectives and represetations of the cultural influences in Hood River, Mount Hood, and the local Mexican-American performing arts.
Carlos Cobos - Hood River, OR
Originally from Southern New Mexico, Carlos Cobos has an eye for the unique and somewhat unusual. Creating metal sculpture, jewelry, and oil paintings are only a few of his creative talents. His passion for art has led him to explore the opportunities in most mediums, including from an early age, the endless possibilities in found recycled materials…of any form! His diverse background and life experiences are the inspiration of his installations.
Dale Reiger - Widbey Island, WA
Born in Seattle, Dale Reiger grew up in Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington and Seattle then settled down on Whidbey Island in 2006. With a Washington State University degree in English, Dale wrote poetry, fiction and plays and owned and operated two successful businesses, before finally painting and creating glass sculpture. Dale describes his style as both primitive and elegant. Themes from his paintings also flow into his glass. He uses elementary shapes which translate into symbols.
