Coast Chronicles: Pacific County in infrared photos and obsidian

GATE GABLE PHOTO

Rich Bergeman talks about how the technique of infrared photography allowed him to captured some of the magic of James Swan's favorite places in the Columbia-Pacific region.

CATE GABLE PHOTO

Aaron Webster, who teaches the primitive art of flintknapping, is also a sought after educator at the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. His work is partnered with Rich Bergeman's in the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum's current exhibit.

A couple weekends ago I was amazed to find nueva cancion — Latin American new music — being performed at the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum. The songs of Victor Jara and Violeta Parra — their traditional rhythms on guitar with drum, pan pipes and heart-rending lyrics — echoed around the community room.

This weekend I was back for another phenomenal exhibition. I'm pretty sure that before Betsy Millard arrived to take the helm I had been inside the museum no more than once or twice. But now, twice in two weeks!

So, first of all, a shout out for Betsy's professionalism and the magnetic quality she has in attracting talented, dedicated staff and volunteers. Then there's her undeniable perspicacity in recognizing quality artists and unique exhibits.

The current show is one of the most intriguing in recent memory; it combines art, artisanal technique, local legend and historical roots that go back centuries. In the case of photographer Rich Bergeman, we're talking the 1850s, the era of James Swan and the early white settlement days of Shoalwater Bay. Rich's photos are partnered with the exquisite knapping of Aaron Webster, who is working from ancient traditional Danish flint shapes like the dagger, blade, halberd and sickle to create his own contemporary versions of Neolithic artforms.

Rich Bergeman

Rich was one of Cyndy Hayward's Willapa Bay AiR artists. He arrived for his residency in April 2015 not knowing exactly what his project would be. As he says, "I did know I wanted to experiment with either my pinhole or my infrared camera on a project of landscapes, bay water and sky." What he wasn't sure about was what the exact content of his project might be, until he found his way to James Swan's 1857 book "The Northwest Coast; Or, Three Years' residence in Washington Territory" — then an idea began forming. Rich is a journalist, editor and educator as well as a photographer. "What I like to do is a photographic retelling of history and I've done that in other places," said Rich. Soon he realized the project was staring him in the face — he began photographing the local places described by Swan.

Rich had brought a pinhole and an infrared camera. (A pinhole camera has no lens and just one small aperture for light. Infrared technique opens the camera to a different range of the light spectrum.) Infrared images are often described as dreamy or mystical, and for Rich — although it wasn't necessarily what he was thinking about before he took his shots — this fit into the idea of capturing in an almost ghost-like way, the areas that Swan inhabited so many years ago. Was his ghostly image still lingering there? At the show's opening, Rich said, "Before I came to AiR, I didn't know anything about the Peninsula — I knew Oysterville wasn't a classic ghost town. I was taking pictures of the stone bench [the Willard Espy Bench] with my pinhole camera — they didn't really come out right — and Michael Parker kept coming out and asking me, 'Well what are you doing with the infrared camera?' So I had to keep thinking about it. Although I didn't at first come u p with the idea that I was trailing a ghost around with a camera that captures invisible light — I stumbled across the idea." The images do look ghostly, eerie, starkly dramatic and sometimes other-worldly, even those of places we know and love, like the Oysterville Schoolhouse or Baby Island.

I asked Rich what his favorite images were and he paused. "Well, some I like because they work better photographically and some I like because of the romance of the story. Others I like because people have said, 'No, no, that one is better than you think it is.'" Then he does concede that one of his favorites is the large-format print of Leadbetter Point. It's a stunning image of that long curve of sand against the bay, with a tumble of clouds above. Rich says, "This one has the feeling of both land and the bay, that's why I decided to used it for the cover of my book. [His book of photographs with excerpts from Swan's journal is available at the museum bookstore.] It was one lucky afternoon. I stepped out and took this photograph and then I walked a little ways down and took another one using the sky again."

When Betsy hung the show, she decided to group the selected photographs more or less geographically. She said of her organizing principle, "Well, part of it is just the rhythm that is created, but part of it too is the dialogue that the project has internally. I wanted those pieces that were in and around Shoalwater Bay to flow. So I used the Leadbetter Point image as the entrance to the Bay — through them to Swan's claim. It's a little fuzzy in some areas. But then I went on to a Columbia and Grays River grouping. And then Oysterville comes along because there is so much Swan talks about with oysters. Then Naselle. It all just seemed to work."

She points to a lovely and delicate print on the far wall. "Even though the cow parsnip is not Oysterville, it screams Oysterville to me."

"But that's where I photographed it!" Rich said, "It was just above town."

(Get a glimpse of some of Rich's photographs at tinyurl.com/Bergeman-Photos)

Aaron Webster

Aaron Webster, Washington State Park's interpreter, primitive skills instructor and resident of Ilwaco, is a featured artist in the side gallery with his beautiful knapping work. Aaron gathers his own obsidian in the fields around Glass Butte, central Oregon. "You dig down through the soil and there is a layer of obsidian all in huge puzzle pieces that you have to pry apart." Aaron demurred — he does not work like Michelangelo who said, "Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it." Though obsidian does have special properties that constrain the artist, Aaron's traditional Clovis-like blades and spearheads are gorgeous. His knapped fish swim along the gallery wall, exchanging their solid stone form for fluidity. Knowing nothing about the art of knapping, I was surprised when Aaron brought my attention to a knapped cube by the Danish artist Sofus Stenak. "That is the best piece here," Aaron said. It turns out that stone does not want to flake that way. Knapping stone edges into hand-held shapes is a more typical collaboration of man with rock. But coaxing stone into a square cube, that shows the tour de force of a master.

Rich's photographs and Aaron's flintknapping are on display until July 13 both at 115 S.E. Lake Street in Ilwaco. Stop by and see how these contemporary artists have brought the past into our future.

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Source: Coast Chronicles: Pacific County in infrared photos and obsidian