Art seems to go in circles
By Bill Duncan
The View From Here
It is said that art is in the eye of the beholder. The citizens of Bend, Ore., probably thought this recent visitor was a blind beholder of its unique street art in the centers of its 14 roundabouts. That is because I was trying to take notes while going around and around.
No. I wasn’t driving during my note-taking. Jeri Kimmel, former mayor of Roseburg, Ore., was behind the wheel. I was a weekend guest of Jeri and Max Kimmel at their home in Bend.
Jeri was determined to show me the town’s roundabouts because when she was mayor at Roseburg I had teased her about trying to put a traffic signal at every intersection. The roundabouts are Bend’s answer to traffic signals, and typical of Bend’s art bent, each roundabout has a significant art theme.
Jeri didn’t know this, but I was already familiar with roundabouts. My newspaper career was largely spent in Long Beach, Calif., a city with its famous traffic circle leading to four different compass directions.
I took the old circle in stride, but when I visited England and discovered roundabouts were England’s answer to traffic signals, I became acutely interested in the traffic waltz of roundabouts. Of course, in Great Britain, they drive on the wrong side of the street and that really made this American’s heart beat a bit faster.
Back in Bend, I was getting dizzy trying to take notes of the art in the round, and I was sure the Bend Visitor’s Bureau would have a brochure explaining the art, but no such luck. Later, I was at an event in which a Bend Bulletin photographer was taking pictures. He told me The Bulletin had produced a special section on the roundabouts in its Feb. 19 issue.
I called The Bulletin, and Andrew Moore, the writer of the piece, mailed me a copy of the story, illustrated by photographer Rob Kerr. It answered many questions, but mainly about one piece of kinetic art in the roundabout at 14th and Galveston Avenue. Jeri kept calling it “The Flaming Chicken.”
Indeed, that is what the locals call it, but its “official” name is “Phoenix Rising,” a metal sculpture of what looks to this beholder as a red goose with its tail feathers on fire.
The piece was done by Frank Boyden of Otis, Ore., who I hope will understand I am not an art critic and I even have trouble drawing a straight line. In fact, I had trouble identifying several of the pieces of art work, but in this eye of the beholder, all of them are quite pleasingly unique and certainly merit several go-arounds to study them.
I was particularly pleased with two sculptures done by Jerry Werner honoring loggers. One shows a logger with his ax laid across his shoulder; the other, called “Centennial Planter,” shows a logger replanting trees.
I liked the sculpture done by Joe Halko of a browsing mule deer, Sherry Sander’s sculpture of the grizzly bear, and Danae Bennett-Miller’s sculpture of a horse.
A fascinating sculpture done by Hai Ying Wu of Everett, Wash., simply called “Migration,” depicts the V-shaped flight of geese, an artistic symbol he explains this way: “The duty of every bird in the flock is to provide security, support, direction and companionship to every other bird during migration, the same way that every member of a community must act so that each individual can reach its destination.”
Interesting concept, those roundabouts, especially with the art displayed in the circle. One Bend resident told me the roundabouts work until there is heavy traffic and a visitor (like myself who is trying to take notes) can’t figure out the system. Then, he said, it becomes a gigantic bottleneck.
When Bill Duncan isn’t going around in circles, he can be reached by writing to P.O. Box 812, Roseburg, OR 97470, or via e-mail at elderstatesmansblog@yahoo. com.