Cannon Beach
Cannon Beach Oregon is an artist/beach resort community I visited nearly thirty years ago. A friend and I were winding our way up Route 101, stopping at various spots if they seemed interesting enough before finally hitting Astoria and then to home. If you're from New England, you might recognize Cannon Beach a bit from the architecture. There are Cape Cod style houses out there that were built by...New Englanders who migrated out there so long ago.
I was more interested the beach area, to finally say I had been in the Pacific ocean, all of three inches of it as the water in late July is ice cold still. After I accomplished that, we headed into town to see what it was about. I was hoping to see one of the art galleries that didn't charge you to go in. Always on the bargain hunt I am! We find one, go in and I start looking at the paintings on the wall. Cannon Beach is known for it's seals lazing on rocks, docks, its beaches and guess what most of the paintings featured? Seals.
Seals done Jackson Pollock pop art style, photo-realism seals, surrealist seals and seals in art deco.
As I scan them, I notices the little card underneath the frame which tells you the painter, year and price should you want to buy it.
“$7,000?!!” I nearly blurt out. “For a fuckin' picture of a seal?”
I move along the wall, now more curious about pricing than the seal itself.
“Hey..M...c'mere” I say. “Look at THIS one...$27,000!!”
I look at the signage on the bottom of the painting to see if it is a van Gogh. It's not. It's someone called Martin Fernsby. “Who the f is Fernsby? Did I miss one of the greats in the art world? Am I that uncultured? Do I still use my sleeve to wipe my nose (well, yes I do, when no one's looking.).”
The painting was a seal, on a rock, silhouetted against a foggy, humid sunset of the Pacific. Big God Damn Deal I think. I see nothing special. OK, one thing special, it was a transparent water color so it looked ghostly, but not for $27k. You can take a zillion of your own pictures of seals in Cannon Bay if you want, even porn ones if they are frisky enough.
One of many Seals in Cannon Beach
**
Pawtucket runs an art festival from late August to mid September and I do attend it if I can. I can easily find parking because I am a local and know where to park and walk all of 50 yards to it. The festival culminates in Slater Park where artists and vendors set up shop and you peruse it at your leisure. By leisure I mean you can look at all the folk art, crafts and whatnot without the artist haranguing you to “buy something.” There are some tents that do show some pretty clever sculptures, paintings and Olde New England folksy artifacts.
I used to attend the Scituate Art show but gave up on it because I got sick and tired of the artists following me around their tent, breathing down my damn neck hoping I'll buy something. You know who does that with pure irritation? Cardi's furniture salesmen. These sharks circle the front door and follow you in like a bleeding surfer, hurriedly paddling to shore, waiting to snap the board and you in half. The Scituate artists aren't too much different.
I know one guy who does the art festival circuit. He's a glass blower/metal worker and will pack up his equipment and wife into the RV and hit the New England/NY festival circuit. He's retired now so he can do this full time. I once asked him how much it costs him and how much cash he can make.
“Oh, a good summer with good weather? May to October? I can get about $24,000”
I was stunned. That kind of money from glass and welded coffee table statues. I then tell him of my annoyance at the artists trying to pick pocket me.
“HA! I know what you mean, but realize this, a lot of these guys work shitty jobs and do the art to supplement their income, so they're really gonna go at you when they see you linger two seconds longer than usual in front of an item, knowing you like it.”
I then tell him that the prices I see seem ridiculous. “They'll charge you $5,000 for Popsicle stick art work if they can...they're trying to make a living and if you are willing to pay...”
No. I am not willing to pay.
What's good about the festival here, is that it's not big enough to draw that kind of vendor...and they are vendors. It's local artists who don't do the circuit and couldn't afford to anyway. Good. Keep it simple. I did part with a twenty because I saw some handcrafted bowls, carved out of tree trunks, due to the fact I needed one. Ok, that guy I will support and he's reasonable.
The event ends with the RI Philharmonic doing a free concert by the Ten Mile river, under a telescoped stage with a super cool line array sound system. I had gone by the sound engineer a few times to gawk and drool at his equipment. Four laptops were running with controls for power management, mixing boards and what not. I have a similar system in my living room except it's TINY compared to that. I knew the guy running the “board” was good because he was using what all experienced sound engineers use to reference a system, Steely Dan's Aja album.
The conductor for the philharmonic tried his best to engage the rubes in the audience with classical music. Hell, I am such a rube, I know some classical but I can't speak of it to sound informed in any manner. So he did the hits everyone else knows and also popular movie sound tracks. You should hear the theme to Star Wars done live. You can hear the rosin rasping the hell out of the strings. You can even hear the reed in a saxophone/clarinet vibrate when it's live as well. I have yet to hear any stereo system get that close. Hi fidelity isn't live, but you try like mad getting it close as possible. But it..never.quite.makes.it.
The conductor I guess, wanted to try one classical piece on the audience to raise them out of their gray, uncultured and crotch scratching lives. He introduced a piece done by Aron Copeland, who I've heard of before and when he was done speaking of him, you heard the crickets in the woods beyond chirping away.
“Not that kind of audience huh?” he said. The audience laughed.
“I can get some spoons and jugs for you if you want! We can have a real hootenanny!” He was of course joking.
Was it worth it? Sure. To see them perform live in Providence, you have to shell out $71 or $600 if you want the whole series.
Anyways, the festival is worth it in my eyes. The smaller the better and less pretentious without the huckstery of the better known shows. There were no $9 caramel apples at the one I attended and no $27,000 seals.
