Staff members at Eugene’s Barack Obama campaign headquarters on Broadway were too slammed to count heads Sunday, two days before Election Day, but they must have dispatched at least 500 volunteers into the farthest reaches of Eugene to knock on doors and ask registered voters, “Can we count on your vote?”
Volunteers ranged in age from high school and younger all the way to 80. One family of four (mom, dad, two girls, 5 and 8) trudged up hills near Hendricks Park in the rain, returning to the office in the dark at 6:30. A staff member asked if they would volunteer again Monday or Tuesday. “Sure,” said the father. “Are you here in the morning? I could come before work tomorrow.”
Most of South Eugene had already been canvassed and so many of the volunteers headed to West and North Eugene, unfamiliar territory for some. A thirty-ish volunteer decked out in orange raingear headed out to a neighborhood of ranch houses off of Royal Avenue and saw her very first McCain-Palin sign. She found those residents who answered their doors to be “mostly nice.” Most had already voted. At least half of the voters assigned to her weren’t home or didn’t answer their doors. One voter, a strong Obama supporter, was so pleased to have company, she talked with the volunteer for ten minutes while she raked leaves in her front yard, railing against McCain and Palin’s negativity and incuriousness.
Volunteers were asked to collect ballots if voters hadn’t turned them in already. Collecting a ballot guaranteed extra volunteer cred, and volunteers who brought ballots back to the campaign headquarters were greeted with “All right!'s” and “Nice works.”
A mop-headed twenty-something campaign veteran wearing a sweater vest asked a fellow staff member with a pierced lip where she’d canvassed that afternoon.
“Out Hilyard.”
“Any ballots?”
“Three”
“Nice. I got three at University housing yesterday.”
“Cool.”
“You want to rock it out West Eugene with me tomorrow?”
“I can’t. I’m helping the Dems at Lane tomorrow.”
“Maybe Tuesday then?”
A trio of high-school age girls greeted volunteers at the door. Earlier in the day, a filmmaker had asked them to come to his studio the next day so he could interview them for a documentary about volunteerism. A tall girl in skinny jeans and glasses with rhinestones asked a college-age staff member if they should go or if the guy was “sketch.” The staff member assured them that he was a harmless UO student. “Cool,” skinny jeans said.
The girls speculated over what would happen with the office signage after Tuesday. “I totally want that big sign for the wall of my room,” said a girl with long, straight hair with bangs nearly covering her eyes who was wearing an oversized Obama HOPE t-shirt. “My friend’s mom works at the mall and she brought home a banner like that from the OC. It’s totally cool.”
Later, Senate hopeful Jeff Merkley and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean stopped by the headquarters to thank the volunteers and rally for Merkley. The office was packed, and dozens of volunteers and passersby spilled outside to the sidewalk to watch Dean speak through the large front window. One woman noted that he looked good—“much less red” than he’d appeared while campaigning for president four years ago. A speaker was placed outside so they could hear him until a Eugene police officer told a staff member it had to be turned off, citing a noise ordinance. The outside crowd booed. Dean punched his fist in the air, punctuating a declaration no one outside had heard. They cheered anyway, and then it was time to go home, many having put in a full day’s work.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
One Great Date, a How-to
Take the afternoon off. Take the whole day even. These days of unfiltered sunlight are numbered, and we need to collect all the Vitamin D we can to store it away for the coming gray.
Grab your sweetheart and walk down 13th Avenue. Walk slowly. Note the college kids returning to campus with their tans and the giant O’s on their cars, little to do besides drive around, decorate their rooms, head to Hiron’s for more plastic cups and ping pong balls. You might see four college kids in an old Jeep Cherokee, securing a mattress to the roof with nothing but their hands out the windows. They’re all smiling.
Stop at House of Records. Inhale the smell of old vinyl, bounce on the creaky floors. Savor one of the last independent record stores in Eugene while you still can. If you buy Okkervil River’s The Stand Ins, you won’t be disappointed.
Stop at Nobody’s Baby. Try on aqua-colored cat eye sunglasses; a button-up shirtdress from the sixties in a print of golden flowers; a strand of bright red beads; a wig. Your date tries on a short-sleeved work shirt from Sears & Roebuck that makes you want to leave a little lipstick around the collar.
Stop at Max’s Tavern. Drink beer and throw your peanut shells on the floor. Watch CNN on mute. Elbow each other: “We’re at Max’s in the middle of the afternoon drinking beer and throwing peanut shells on the floor while everyone else is at work!” What romance.
Head to the Bijou for a matinee. There are no lines at 5 pm. Buy popcorn with nutritional yeast or popcorn and Milkduds or popcorn and Goobers, if that’s your thing. But definitely get the popcorn. It’s organic.
On your way in, pet Boo, the Bijou cat now in her 22nd year and weighing upwards of 20 pounds. Make a wish that the Bijou never goes away. Boo neither.
Sit in the fifth row and enjoy being the only two people in the dark theater for a few minutes. Share popcorn while you watch the giant advertisements scroll on the movie screen. Maybe your date will make a joke about the ol’ hole in the popcorn box trick.
Resist the impulse to clap when the documentary starts. Fall into a deep movie trance. Develop a crush on a French wirewalker named Philippe Petit, subject and star of Man on Wire. Wonder why the French are so poetic, how they could be talking about fabric softener or yeast infections and you would still swoon.
After the movie, the ladies in the restroom are giddy and still reeling over how breathtaking it was. Talk excitedly while you pee.
Walk home slowly. Talk more about the movie. Take the whole way home to analyze Petit and his walk in the sky between the Twin Towers the year that you were born. Analyze the characters and their relationships and motives. Agree that Petit would probably sneer his little French mouth at your conversation. Remember that he said: “That is so American to ask why.”
Admire the sky in front of you, now in shades of citrus and eyeshadow.
Grab your sweetheart and walk down 13th Avenue. Walk slowly. Note the college kids returning to campus with their tans and the giant O’s on their cars, little to do besides drive around, decorate their rooms, head to Hiron’s for more plastic cups and ping pong balls. You might see four college kids in an old Jeep Cherokee, securing a mattress to the roof with nothing but their hands out the windows. They’re all smiling.
Stop at House of Records. Inhale the smell of old vinyl, bounce on the creaky floors. Savor one of the last independent record stores in Eugene while you still can. If you buy Okkervil River’s The Stand Ins, you won’t be disappointed.
Stop at Nobody’s Baby. Try on aqua-colored cat eye sunglasses; a button-up shirtdress from the sixties in a print of golden flowers; a strand of bright red beads; a wig. Your date tries on a short-sleeved work shirt from Sears & Roebuck that makes you want to leave a little lipstick around the collar.
Stop at Max’s Tavern. Drink beer and throw your peanut shells on the floor. Watch CNN on mute. Elbow each other: “We’re at Max’s in the middle of the afternoon drinking beer and throwing peanut shells on the floor while everyone else is at work!” What romance.
Head to the Bijou for a matinee. There are no lines at 5 pm. Buy popcorn with nutritional yeast or popcorn and Milkduds or popcorn and Goobers, if that’s your thing. But definitely get the popcorn. It’s organic.
On your way in, pet Boo, the Bijou cat now in her 22nd year and weighing upwards of 20 pounds. Make a wish that the Bijou never goes away. Boo neither.
Sit in the fifth row and enjoy being the only two people in the dark theater for a few minutes. Share popcorn while you watch the giant advertisements scroll on the movie screen. Maybe your date will make a joke about the ol’ hole in the popcorn box trick.
Resist the impulse to clap when the documentary starts. Fall into a deep movie trance. Develop a crush on a French wirewalker named Philippe Petit, subject and star of Man on Wire. Wonder why the French are so poetic, how they could be talking about fabric softener or yeast infections and you would still swoon.
After the movie, the ladies in the restroom are giddy and still reeling over how breathtaking it was. Talk excitedly while you pee.
Walk home slowly. Talk more about the movie. Take the whole way home to analyze Petit and his walk in the sky between the Twin Towers the year that you were born. Analyze the characters and their relationships and motives. Agree that Petit would probably sneer his little French mouth at your conversation. Remember that he said: “That is so American to ask why.”
Admire the sky in front of you, now in shades of citrus and eyeshadow.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
If you like food writing . . .
Over at Culinate, they just posted an essay I wrote about learning to cook. While you’re there, check out the lovely meets informative essay Mangoes, memories—and motorcycles by Portland writer Sona Pai, who’s a former Eugenean (and a fellow grad from UO’s literary nonfiction program). Her essay will be included in the literary anthology Best Food Writing 2008, which is pretty freakin cool.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Pizza and Gelato, Two Ways
1.
On a recent summer night at Mezza Luna Pizzeria’s downtown restaurant, young families spilled from the tables, creating a maze of highchairs, booster seats and extra added-on chairs. It was the kind of night that you eat out, not for the treat of it, but simply because it’s too hot to cook and a walk somewhere sounds better than sitting at home, sweating. A woman, toddler in tow, ordered a pepperoni pizza and then walked outside, then back inside again, muttering “It’s as hot outside as it is in here.”
On this night, Mezza Luna had Ninkasi Pale Ale on tap. With lemon, it tasted like a like a potion that makes you fall in love with Eugene in summer.
At an outside table, a toddler wore two different shoes, one a pink sandal, the other a Navy blue Croc clog that later fell beneath the table. After her family’s pizza was delivered, the toddler bumped her mother’s plate, causing a slice of vegetarian pizza to fall cheese-side-down on the sidewalk. Her mother quickly scooped it up, tried to scrape off the bits of sidewalk grit, shrugged and ate it anyway. A waitress carrying a platter of garlic knots called out “Julie? . . . Ju-LEE? . . . JU-LEEE?” A woman who wasn’t Julie said the garlic knots sure looked good. “Here, have some,” the waitress offered, unloading a few on the woman’s plate. “ You like these, you oughta try the garlic cheese knots.”
It was a good night for a post-dinner stroll: past the graying and perfumed crowd outside at Zenon, past the billow-y romance of the new Moroccan restaurant, past Kesey square, where a guy in a leather vest strummed a banjo and a police officer asked a man with a crescent of blood around his eye: “Did you know these guys?”
Perugino was also bustling with its usual Euro-Eugene mix: beautiful servers, thirty-somethings in stylish eyeglasses, aging boomers, one baby jogger. The marsala-flavored Zambione gelato mixed with Oregon Bing Cherry Sorbet summed it up nicely.
2.
A few nights later at Mezza Luna’s new Crescent Village location (just north of Costco on Coburg), business was slower and the air conditioning was cool enough to raise goosebumps. The menu was the same as the downtown location, though the veggie by the slice option, which had been a respectable mix of mushrooms and peppers at the downtown location, was, at Crescent Village called Don Ho and included pineapples.
Cresent Village aims to be what they call an urban village. The idea is to mix upscale housing, retail shops and pedestrian-friendly zones in one dense space, making it a little pocket of self-sufficiency that also happens to weed out the riff raff. A recent visitor described it as a “toy dog kind of place.” Indeed, there were no large dogs at Crescent Village, and the sidewalks were immaculate. The six-block area remains more ghost town than village, however, due to its opening being ill-timed with the real estate slump. Mezza Luna, Lago Blu Gelato, Cornerstone Café and Belo Day Spa are now open for business in spite of this, and a bank is said to be on its way, as are a market, a wine bar, and a sushi place.
On a recent night, a family of seven sat outside Mezza Luna II and deliberated over a menu. The mother scolded a boy named Clayton for filling a plastic cup with soda without asking. Then she went inside to order, the kids ran off to play in an empty courtyard, and the father started in on a bottle of Italian wine. He looked at a child wearing two different shoes and asked her father: “Why’s she wearing different shoes?”
After pizza, gelato next door at Lago Blu was practically compulsory, and everyone lingered over the two freezer cases asking for one, then two, even three tastes from the candy-colored tubs. The pistachio, the strawberry and vanilla malt had the sticky sweet hyper-flavored quality of jellybeans.
Later, the toddler with the mismatched shoes and her family peered in windows of the empty townhouses on Lord Byron Place. The toddler slipped off one shoe, handed it to her father and took off down the sidewalk. A middle-aged woman wearing white capris and walking a Daschund asked worriedly about the girl: “Did you know she lost a shoe?” she asked.
On a recent summer night at Mezza Luna Pizzeria’s downtown restaurant, young families spilled from the tables, creating a maze of highchairs, booster seats and extra added-on chairs. It was the kind of night that you eat out, not for the treat of it, but simply because it’s too hot to cook and a walk somewhere sounds better than sitting at home, sweating. A woman, toddler in tow, ordered a pepperoni pizza and then walked outside, then back inside again, muttering “It’s as hot outside as it is in here.”
On this night, Mezza Luna had Ninkasi Pale Ale on tap. With lemon, it tasted like a like a potion that makes you fall in love with Eugene in summer.
At an outside table, a toddler wore two different shoes, one a pink sandal, the other a Navy blue Croc clog that later fell beneath the table. After her family’s pizza was delivered, the toddler bumped her mother’s plate, causing a slice of vegetarian pizza to fall cheese-side-down on the sidewalk. Her mother quickly scooped it up, tried to scrape off the bits of sidewalk grit, shrugged and ate it anyway. A waitress carrying a platter of garlic knots called out “Julie? . . . Ju-LEE? . . . JU-LEEE?” A woman who wasn’t Julie said the garlic knots sure looked good. “Here, have some,” the waitress offered, unloading a few on the woman’s plate. “ You like these, you oughta try the garlic cheese knots.”
It was a good night for a post-dinner stroll: past the graying and perfumed crowd outside at Zenon, past the billow-y romance of the new Moroccan restaurant, past Kesey square, where a guy in a leather vest strummed a banjo and a police officer asked a man with a crescent of blood around his eye: “Did you know these guys?”
Perugino was also bustling with its usual Euro-Eugene mix: beautiful servers, thirty-somethings in stylish eyeglasses, aging boomers, one baby jogger. The marsala-flavored Zambione gelato mixed with Oregon Bing Cherry Sorbet summed it up nicely.
2.
A few nights later at Mezza Luna’s new Crescent Village location (just north of Costco on Coburg), business was slower and the air conditioning was cool enough to raise goosebumps. The menu was the same as the downtown location, though the veggie by the slice option, which had been a respectable mix of mushrooms and peppers at the downtown location, was, at Crescent Village called Don Ho and included pineapples.
Cresent Village aims to be what they call an urban village. The idea is to mix upscale housing, retail shops and pedestrian-friendly zones in one dense space, making it a little pocket of self-sufficiency that also happens to weed out the riff raff. A recent visitor described it as a “toy dog kind of place.” Indeed, there were no large dogs at Crescent Village, and the sidewalks were immaculate. The six-block area remains more ghost town than village, however, due to its opening being ill-timed with the real estate slump. Mezza Luna, Lago Blu Gelato, Cornerstone Café and Belo Day Spa are now open for business in spite of this, and a bank is said to be on its way, as are a market, a wine bar, and a sushi place.
On a recent night, a family of seven sat outside Mezza Luna II and deliberated over a menu. The mother scolded a boy named Clayton for filling a plastic cup with soda without asking. Then she went inside to order, the kids ran off to play in an empty courtyard, and the father started in on a bottle of Italian wine. He looked at a child wearing two different shoes and asked her father: “Why’s she wearing different shoes?”
After pizza, gelato next door at Lago Blu was practically compulsory, and everyone lingered over the two freezer cases asking for one, then two, even three tastes from the candy-colored tubs. The pistachio, the strawberry and vanilla malt had the sticky sweet hyper-flavored quality of jellybeans.
Later, the toddler with the mismatched shoes and her family peered in windows of the empty townhouses on Lord Byron Place. The toddler slipped off one shoe, handed it to her father and took off down the sidewalk. A middle-aged woman wearing white capris and walking a Daschund asked worriedly about the girl: “Did you know she lost a shoe?” she asked.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Bach to the Farm
One winter afternoon, a rooster named Bach sashayed around the lower-level courtyard at Fifth Street Market, pecking at his food, then some pebbles, then pooping and quickly moving on. A shopper clad in black stopped to watch him, and he fanned his feathers at her amorously. “Isn’t he beautiful?” she exclaimed.
Bach— a Black Polish White Crested Rooster whose given name is an onomatopoeia of sorts—is a handsome creature with glossy black feathers and a mop of white hair from which he peeks out like an eighties hair band rocker. He was given as a gift from former Eugene City manager Mike Gleason to celebrate the market’s grand opening after completion of its $4 million dollar renovation.
Soon, Bach would be chasing shoppers, making “messes” in stores, digging up flowers in courtyard planters, and menacing the merchandise at flower seller Rhythm & Blooms—he had a fondness for ornamental kale. On more than one occasion, a bartender from the price-y tapas restaurant Vaquero had to run him down after the cock hightailed it down Fifth Avenue. A Marché employee remarked on his uncleanliness and suggested he be made into Coq Au Vin.
But shoppers pursued him as they would a celebrity. They picked him up. They posed with him for photographs. They brought their children to pet him, never mind that he’d allegedly drawn blood at least once.
In a way, Bach represented Fifth Street’s evolution from a chicken processing plant (1929) to a market and hangout for Lane County craftspeople and farmers (1976) to a destination for the latte set, with shops selling shiny kitchen gadgets, artisanal cheeses and gem-encrusted pet accoutrement (2006).
He was a reminder of the place’s downhome past, the kind of sentiment alive in this recent exchange: A patron in cowboy boots and a cowboy hat stopped by NewTwist, a lower-level shop sparkling with needlessly pretty things, to inquire about the leather goods shop—he was probably referring to longtime market tenant Eugene Leather. The man, looking and sounding like he’d stepped out of a Pace Picante Sauce commercial, hadn’t been to the market in a few years and he was dismayed that the shop was gone. “What is this place trying to be, New York?” he asked.
Indeed, a rooster who poops on the courtyard tables was a funny symbol what’s been lost and gained at the market over the years.
So it was no surprise when market staff found him a new home in January—at the residence of a Monroe woman who was mourning the death of her last pet Black Polish White Crested Rooster. Dana Howe, Fifth Street’s marketing director, says she was concerned about Bach’s wellbeing. —first published in Eugene Magazine, Spring 2007
Bach— a Black Polish White Crested Rooster whose given name is an onomatopoeia of sorts—is a handsome creature with glossy black feathers and a mop of white hair from which he peeks out like an eighties hair band rocker. He was given as a gift from former Eugene City manager Mike Gleason to celebrate the market’s grand opening after completion of its $4 million dollar renovation.
Soon, Bach would be chasing shoppers, making “messes” in stores, digging up flowers in courtyard planters, and menacing the merchandise at flower seller Rhythm & Blooms—he had a fondness for ornamental kale. On more than one occasion, a bartender from the price-y tapas restaurant Vaquero had to run him down after the cock hightailed it down Fifth Avenue. A Marché employee remarked on his uncleanliness and suggested he be made into Coq Au Vin.
But shoppers pursued him as they would a celebrity. They picked him up. They posed with him for photographs. They brought their children to pet him, never mind that he’d allegedly drawn blood at least once.
In a way, Bach represented Fifth Street’s evolution from a chicken processing plant (1929) to a market and hangout for Lane County craftspeople and farmers (1976) to a destination for the latte set, with shops selling shiny kitchen gadgets, artisanal cheeses and gem-encrusted pet accoutrement (2006).
He was a reminder of the place’s downhome past, the kind of sentiment alive in this recent exchange: A patron in cowboy boots and a cowboy hat stopped by NewTwist, a lower-level shop sparkling with needlessly pretty things, to inquire about the leather goods shop—he was probably referring to longtime market tenant Eugene Leather. The man, looking and sounding like he’d stepped out of a Pace Picante Sauce commercial, hadn’t been to the market in a few years and he was dismayed that the shop was gone. “What is this place trying to be, New York?” he asked.
Indeed, a rooster who poops on the courtyard tables was a funny symbol what’s been lost and gained at the market over the years.
So it was no surprise when market staff found him a new home in January—at the residence of a Monroe woman who was mourning the death of her last pet Black Polish White Crested Rooster. Dana Howe, Fifth Street’s marketing director, says she was concerned about Bach’s wellbeing. —first published in Eugene Magazine, Spring 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Tracking John Cooney
Journal entry January 24, 2007, 8 pm, South Central Eugene.
I’m walking west on 18th Avenue at the foot of College Hill, hoping for a glimpse of the elusive John (that’s with an h) Cooney, the earnest voice of the weekly KLCC program “The Natural World.”
Cooney records ordinary moments in nature and infuses them with adjectives, adverbs and encyclopedic facts, transforming them into six-minute radio segments that many Eugeneans find either oddly compelling or repelling. My friend John Heasly, a fan, likes the ambient noise. “You hear all those nature sounds and suddenly you're right there with him, shivering your ass off in some muddy predawn bog,” he says. “And then there's the cheesy/spooky drum thing that concludes each dispatch; I like that too.”
Cooney’s distinctive long-drawn cadences have a way of lingering in your mind the way leaves linger on the sidewalk long after they’ve been shed, or, depending on who you ask, the way nutria linger in the Amazon Slough. The program’s been on KLCC for nine years, these days airing Thursdays at 7:30 am and 4 pm.
He declined my request for an interview, saying that “The Natural World” is best served by his anonymity.
As I approach Cooney’s urban habitat, the exact location of which I won’t divulge here—wanting to protect him as I would a snowy plover—I’m struck by the dazzling display of Christmas lights still hanging off the front porch of his green two-story 1920s house. A minivan sits idly in the gravel driveway, and a blue recycling box has been plunked askew in the parking strip—not that any of us ever doubted that Cooney recycles.
Cars roar tempestuously by. According to the city’s 1999 "Arterial Collector Street Plan," 18th Avenue in Eugene (classified as a "minor arterial") carries an average of 14,700 vehicles per day. I think I hear the gentle trickling of water over rocks coming from John Cooney’s yard, but maybe not.
After I pass the house, two raccoons suddenly emerge and scamper conspiratorially from the sidewalk into the leafy tangle of a photinia bush. I shuffle home under the blue-black sky, wondering what John Cooney looks like.
If you have sightings or events you would like to report or suggestions of events you would like to see profiled in Eugene Diaries, e-mail jpassaro@efn.com.
I’m walking west on 18th Avenue at the foot of College Hill, hoping for a glimpse of the elusive John (that’s with an h) Cooney, the earnest voice of the weekly KLCC program “The Natural World.”
Cooney records ordinary moments in nature and infuses them with adjectives, adverbs and encyclopedic facts, transforming them into six-minute radio segments that many Eugeneans find either oddly compelling or repelling. My friend John Heasly, a fan, likes the ambient noise. “You hear all those nature sounds and suddenly you're right there with him, shivering your ass off in some muddy predawn bog,” he says. “And then there's the cheesy/spooky drum thing that concludes each dispatch; I like that too.”
Cooney’s distinctive long-drawn cadences have a way of lingering in your mind the way leaves linger on the sidewalk long after they’ve been shed, or, depending on who you ask, the way nutria linger in the Amazon Slough. The program’s been on KLCC for nine years, these days airing Thursdays at 7:30 am and 4 pm.
He declined my request for an interview, saying that “The Natural World” is best served by his anonymity.
As I approach Cooney’s urban habitat, the exact location of which I won’t divulge here—wanting to protect him as I would a snowy plover—I’m struck by the dazzling display of Christmas lights still hanging off the front porch of his green two-story 1920s house. A minivan sits idly in the gravel driveway, and a blue recycling box has been plunked askew in the parking strip—not that any of us ever doubted that Cooney recycles.
Cars roar tempestuously by. According to the city’s 1999 "Arterial Collector Street Plan," 18th Avenue in Eugene (classified as a "minor arterial") carries an average of 14,700 vehicles per day. I think I hear the gentle trickling of water over rocks coming from John Cooney’s yard, but maybe not.
After I pass the house, two raccoons suddenly emerge and scamper conspiratorially from the sidewalk into the leafy tangle of a photinia bush. I shuffle home under the blue-black sky, wondering what John Cooney looks like.
If you have sightings or events you would like to report or suggestions of events you would like to see profiled in Eugene Diaries, e-mail jpassaro@efn.com.
Saturday, December 2, 2006
Art, Science, Revelations
This winter, an exhibit at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art explores questions of authenticity in art by featuring original works alongside forgeries.
What’s perhaps more interesting than the exhibit is what inspired it: a collection of paintings possibly by the artist Jackson Pollock but of questionable provenance. The paintings landed in Eugene last year to be analyzed by University of Oregon physics professor Richard P. Taylor, who studies Pollock’s renowned drip paintings using computer analysis. Taylor has found that Pollock’s paintings exhibit something called fractals, which are geometric patterns that recur in finer and finer magnifications—like a snowflake or frond of a fern—and his analysis has become one tool in determining their authenticity.
Taylor turned up in the audience during a lecture Schnitzer director David Turner gave in conjunction with the exhibit in October. Mid-lecture, when Turner projected an image of a drip painting under the heading “Pollock?” on the screen in front of the audience, he called on Taylor to talk about it. The painting, a gorgeous swirl of swoops and drips called Revelation 2, had been one of the ones that Taylor studied in Eugene. A similar painting, Revelation 1, spent months hanging on the wall in the living room of Taylor’s College Hill home while he studied it. (The paintings have since been returned to their owner in California.)
Taylor, soft spoken with a British accent, talks with the caution of a scientist and looks like an artist (he’s both). Often in jeans and a sweater, he has the rumpled appearance of a bike commuter, and his hair is a mane of brown ringlets, which earned him a nomination into the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists by a former student. He is humble and quick to point out that his work does not stand alone as a way to authenticate Pollock paintings. Still, he has attracted international attention from scholars, journalists, art collectors and wackos alike, many wanting to pay him money (which he won’t take) to prove that a painting they bought at a thrift store or were given by some distant relative claiming to have partied with Pollock is the real thing, thereby making them a millionaire.
Motioning to the image on the screen, Taylor said, “On a painting like this, the sadness is that if it’s a Jackson Pollock it’s very exciting and if it’s by another artist, it’s not very exciting, even if it’s a completely epic painting.” Taylor did find that there were consistencies between Pollock's work and the paintings that were in Eugene. The paintings' history is now being researched by a gallery in New York.
While Taylor is careful about any appearance that he’s over-promoting his fractal research, his work with the potential Pollocks is decidedly sexy—with elements of mystery, money, mayhem, conflict and celebrity. The audience was rapt while Taylor gave a quick impromptu lecture. He talked about his surprise at finding himself at the center of art debates where as much as $40 million is at stake—an awkward spot for a lifelong academic. “I’m amazed at how nasty it can get,” he said.
Taylor is moving on from the Pollock analysis. “The visual perception side was always more important than the authenticity side,” he said later. “We never intended that to be a long-term venture.” He’s currently looking at fractals in nature, art and architecture, particularly how the interiors and exteriors of buildings can be constructed based on the fact that our physiology responds positively when we look at fractals. “We think that we can use fractals to reduce peoples stress levels,” Taylor said. A PBS film crew visited Taylor’s lab in November for a documentary on the subject.
After the museum lecture, audience members lined up to talk with Taylor and followed him upstairs for a tour of the exhibit.
When asked why the exhibit didn’t include the paintings Taylor had been analyzing, regardless of whether they were Pollocks, Turner said it was too risky. “Why would a museum put something up that we did not know what it was?” he asked.
Taylor said he thought it was the right decision for the museum, but he acknowledged some disappointment. “There’s no doubt it would have been very exciting,” he said. —first published in Eugene Magazine, Winter 2006/2007
What’s perhaps more interesting than the exhibit is what inspired it: a collection of paintings possibly by the artist Jackson Pollock but of questionable provenance. The paintings landed in Eugene last year to be analyzed by University of Oregon physics professor Richard P. Taylor, who studies Pollock’s renowned drip paintings using computer analysis. Taylor has found that Pollock’s paintings exhibit something called fractals, which are geometric patterns that recur in finer and finer magnifications—like a snowflake or frond of a fern—and his analysis has become one tool in determining their authenticity.
Taylor turned up in the audience during a lecture Schnitzer director David Turner gave in conjunction with the exhibit in October. Mid-lecture, when Turner projected an image of a drip painting under the heading “Pollock?” on the screen in front of the audience, he called on Taylor to talk about it. The painting, a gorgeous swirl of swoops and drips called Revelation 2, had been one of the ones that Taylor studied in Eugene. A similar painting, Revelation 1, spent months hanging on the wall in the living room of Taylor’s College Hill home while he studied it. (The paintings have since been returned to their owner in California.)
Taylor, soft spoken with a British accent, talks with the caution of a scientist and looks like an artist (he’s both). Often in jeans and a sweater, he has the rumpled appearance of a bike commuter, and his hair is a mane of brown ringlets, which earned him a nomination into the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists by a former student. He is humble and quick to point out that his work does not stand alone as a way to authenticate Pollock paintings. Still, he has attracted international attention from scholars, journalists, art collectors and wackos alike, many wanting to pay him money (which he won’t take) to prove that a painting they bought at a thrift store or were given by some distant relative claiming to have partied with Pollock is the real thing, thereby making them a millionaire.
Motioning to the image on the screen, Taylor said, “On a painting like this, the sadness is that if it’s a Jackson Pollock it’s very exciting and if it’s by another artist, it’s not very exciting, even if it’s a completely epic painting.” Taylor did find that there were consistencies between Pollock's work and the paintings that were in Eugene. The paintings' history is now being researched by a gallery in New York.
While Taylor is careful about any appearance that he’s over-promoting his fractal research, his work with the potential Pollocks is decidedly sexy—with elements of mystery, money, mayhem, conflict and celebrity. The audience was rapt while Taylor gave a quick impromptu lecture. He talked about his surprise at finding himself at the center of art debates where as much as $40 million is at stake—an awkward spot for a lifelong academic. “I’m amazed at how nasty it can get,” he said.
Taylor is moving on from the Pollock analysis. “The visual perception side was always more important than the authenticity side,” he said later. “We never intended that to be a long-term venture.” He’s currently looking at fractals in nature, art and architecture, particularly how the interiors and exteriors of buildings can be constructed based on the fact that our physiology responds positively when we look at fractals. “We think that we can use fractals to reduce peoples stress levels,” Taylor said. A PBS film crew visited Taylor’s lab in November for a documentary on the subject.
After the museum lecture, audience members lined up to talk with Taylor and followed him upstairs for a tour of the exhibit.
When asked why the exhibit didn’t include the paintings Taylor had been analyzing, regardless of whether they were Pollocks, Turner said it was too risky. “Why would a museum put something up that we did not know what it was?” he asked.
Taylor said he thought it was the right decision for the museum, but he acknowledged some disappointment. “There’s no doubt it would have been very exciting,” he said. —first published in Eugene Magazine, Winter 2006/2007
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