Focus on Art at Pegasus Gallery in Corvallis

 

This month’s exhibit will feature work by artists interviewed on Paul Rickey’s “Focus on Art” with Paul Rickey monthly TV special aired on Channel 29 and filmed at the back of Corvallis High School with Amy Hunter and Sean Browne and their crew. This exhibit will feature work by artists Cy Stadsvold, Lee Kitzman, Laura Berman, Richard Helmick, Maureen Frank, Donna Beverly, Bill Shumway, Ross Parkerson, Paige Shumway and Paul Rickey.

 

This month Pegasus Gallery has put together another thought provoking collaborative exhibit, one of many since 1980. It is a show of two and three dimensional art works by several of the artists interviewed by Paul Rickey for his Focus on Art show, produced and aired on channel 29. The studio is a collaborative teaching facility located at Corvallis High School. It functions with student and adult education participants as they learn how to use the equipment and programming processes.

Paul did interviews for years on the radio in California before settling in Corvallis years ago. His first sets of interviews in this town were done in the display window at Madison and 4^th in what is now the Book Bin. When we asked him why he done this program for so many years, his answer was simple, “Oh, I just love art and artists and thought other people do also. There’s an awful lot of art in our community and never enough exposure and recognition. This is my way of helping to fill that gap and enjoy myself at the same time.” The productions can sometimes approach the caliber of OPB’s Art Beat and are often aired several times during the year. Having been interviewed three times for various presentations, I can tell you that I’m truly impressed at how fluid the productions are, given that they are done with no retakes and no rehearsals. The invitation from Paul goes like this: “Would you like to talk about your art? …show up at some time and date…bring some art work and answer some of my questions. It’ll be fun.” …nerve racking, but fun!

 

Thinking about Paul’s commitment to the arts has reminded me about the fragile interconnectedness of the arts community regionally and nationally. Each of the artists on display in this exhibit, and many more, has played important roles in keeping the arts alive and well in any number of settings, i.e.: galleries, the Arts Center, the Benton County Historical Museum, our schools, continuing education programs, Fall Festival and Da Vinci Days festival, Philomath Tour events, critique groups and all manner of collaborative and volunteer events with each other and with regional colleges. Some have been active with city, county and state funding programs, managing arts funding through the NEA, Oregon Arts Commission, Benton County Cultural Trust, the City Arts Commission and private and 1% for the Arts program for art events, education and artists and art installations. Most of us are unaware of how much behind the scenes work is happening to maintain some possibilities for a healthy state of the arts in our community.

One of the more outstanding programs, which have been privately funded, is the Arts Care program through the Arts Center, through which many talented writers, musicians and artists have brought hopeful moments to health care patients in local facilities. 

What can be very concerning, however, is that non supportive actions can take place, especially in our schools, where arts budget slicing is prone to happen undetected during the quiet months before September. The same legislative events happen monthly in local and state committees. The trend in recent years has been cut the arts first even though when you go to the web sites of local and state governments, lots of the branding points have to do with a healthy state of the arts.  

 

This show is an effort to bring all of those components together so we can see them and the people involved and celebrate their “good work” and inform the greater community about where, who and how much of those unseen efforts unfold in a well-intentioned community like ours, and how the generations can model and share what is effective and what more could be affected socially, financially, politically and creatively.

 

For more information contact:

Pegasus Frame Studio & Gallery

341 SW 2^nd Street, Corvallis, Oregon 97333

*Call us @ # (541)757-0042

*Email us @ shumway@pegasusartgallery.com