Thursday, January 19, 2012

Phase III-2 Weather

Trish and I both lived in Corvallis, OR, she '75-'78, me '79-'82.  She was there to pursue her housing studies at OSU (Go, Beavers!); I was transferred there from Seattle to work in the corporate headquarters of CH2M Hill.  Coincidentally, Trish worked as a night shift keypuncher at the same company.

One of the few off-campus Corvallis structures that had any architectural interest was the Benton County Courthouse.  Upon my return from Egypt, I was ensconced in the Portland office and occasionally had cause to visit the Corvallis office.  On one such visit, there was a black and white print of the Courthouse on display in the office lobby.  The artist was offering limited edition prints to company employees; I bought one on the spot, took it home, framed it and hung it on the wall of my Beaverton home.

Benton County Courthouse

The print has hung on numerous walls in the intervening 30 years, including one here in LHC.  I still like the print but was ready for something brighter and fresher on that section of wall, something with potential visual interest to folks other than Trish and me. Thus, my second Phase III acrylic was done with that venue in mind - and the self-imposed caveat that it had to be wall-worthy.


Weather

This is my first venture into collage and I like it.  It's fun, easy, adds shapes and textures and visual interest limited only by one's imagination and creativity.  As collages go, mine is pretty tame and the rest of the piece is typical paint-by-number amateur stuff, with a touch of whimsy.  But - you have to admit that it brightens up that piece of wall a whole bunch. 

Before I hung it on the wall, I had to get Trish's concurrence on the worthiness issue, which required only 2 days of heinous torture. In her case, heinous torture = no dark chocolate.  48 hours without it has her twitching, gasping, flopping around on the floor like a freshly caught trout, agreeable to any absurdity - if dark chocolate is the reward.  Alternative torture methodology - like waterboarding - is crude, uncreative.  Bunch of doggone hacks.

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