Arts Hound

2015 is a year of brand-spanking new features at the Oregon Country Fair: the Dance Pavilion, the dedicated LGBTQI space — Rainbow Village — and the entire 6-acre “New Area” expansion. This expansion will house nine wondrous, wacky, weird, whimsical, whippy-dippy art installations. ArtsHound caught up with Sallie Edmunds, OCF backup manager and head of the new art program, while she prepped at the Fair grounds.

“Last year we established an art program,” Edmunds says. “We put out applications in December and people applied to bring large art for the new area.” Edmonds is particularly excited about hummingbird pieces that will be nestled into the space. “There are two hummingbirds, but they are very different interpretations of hummingbirds,” she says. “BeijaFlor” is a 20-foot-tall exercise in avian bricolage by Calfornia-based artist Darren Minke, who uses bright blossoms, sticks, peacock feathers and plastic bottles filled with colored water. The second hummingbird, “Circe Vita,” is an evolution of a quilted art piece from 2014’s Fair by Portlander Kelli Rua Klein.

An Ashland artist who goes by Tucker Tuetsch 3.0 is bringing audio “Teraniums,” or little plump pods reminiscent of Russia’s colorful onion domes that will sit on the ground. “You can go inside the large ones and put on headphones and create your own music,” Edmunds says.

Next up is “Earth Mandala” by Southern Oregon artist Corrinne Feldman. “It’s about 30 feet in diameter,” Edmunds says. “She takes stones and flowers and pieces of wood and crystals and creates this mandala over this large area.”

Edmunds advises to keep an eye out for the “museum quality” work — “Marbles in Motion” — by Ashland sculptor Jack Langford. Langford’s specialty is life-size human forms in marble and bronze. “He will be doing actual sculpting and encourages people to join him on learning to work in marble,” Edmunds says.

The Dance Pavillion will get its own OCF version of a disco ball: “Earth Lover” is an enormous chandelier made of steel and blown glass by David Gelfand, whose style looks like something snatched off the set of Game of Thrones. While Portland artist Darby Jones Harrington has created “Spectrum Splendor,” a sort of color wheel of hand-dyed silk fabric.

We can’t give away all the OCF goodies, so go check out the remaining pieces yourself: “Temple Borealis” by Jenny Roche and Mathew Barry; “Chakra Awakening” by Michelle McKeever Bishop; “Tiny House” by Shawn Stevens.

A Note From the Publisher

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