| Green Oregon actually started out as Keep Oregon Green, and was originally a collaboration with the Keep Oregon Green Association, a 150-year-old wildfire prevention group operating out of Salem, Oregon. As an Oregon native I have grown up seeing Keep Oregon Green’s iconic fir tree shaped road signs on trips to Mt. Hood or the Oregon coast. On a trip to Salem last year I became aware of KOG’s amazing collection of original artwork that they have had commissioned over the years, mostly from illustrator Hugh Hayes. Hayes’ Keep Oregon Green 1950s-style cartoon Oregon map features information about Oregon’s industries, geography, and history, and is distributed by KOG in the form of monochromatic green screen-printed poster… |  |
Justin Bland
Green Oregon actually started out as Keep Oregon Green, and was originally a collaboration with the Keep Oregon Green Association, a 150-year-old wildfire prevention group operating out of Salem, Oregon. As an Oregon native I have grown up seeing Keep Oregon Green’s iconic fir tree shaped road signs on trips to Mt. Hood or the Oregon coast. On a trip to Salem last year I became aware of KOG’s amazing collection of original artwork that they have had commissioned over the years, mostly from illustrator Hugh Hayes.
Hayes’ Keep Oregon Green 1950s-style cartoon Oregon map features information about Oregon’s industries, geography, and history, and is distributed by KOG in the form of monochromatic green screen-printed poster as well as a restaurant placemat. They also had an amazing original Hugh Hayes illustration of a Douglas Fir tree next to the Statue of Liberty, with measurements on each that showed they were the same size.
We were excited to exhibit these historic works along with more contemporary pieces from established Oregon artists, but their ties to the timber industry (Wayerhauser and Plum Creek represented on their board), and our relationship with KOG would have kept us from including anything in the show that was viewed as critical of the timber industry, so we had to part ways with them and reinvent the show as Green Oregon.
The Keep Oregon Green Association has a very specific agenda that actually had very little to do with how green is commonly imagined, and I think this was a kind of microcosm for what the show is about. Green means many things to us today, and much of Oregon’s identity is connected to various definitions of green. Green is at the heart of some of the most important issues of our time and also the biggest clichés, and we wanted to present a diverse group of artists whose work relates to some of the many meanings of green within the context of Oregon and the greater world.
Robert Adams’ beautiful 1991 photograph of a clear cut near Astoria, Oregon presents a conventional critique of the timber industry. On the back of the photo Adams has written, “Will we learn, in time, a harmony with ourselves that will make possible a harmony with our place?”
I think it’s interesting to compare Adams’ perspective with those presented by Erik Geshke and Ryan Pierce, whose pieces reference the idea of a post-human world. Geshke’s Container is a large colored pencil-on-paper drawing of a decapitated head with wildflowers growing out of it, and Pierce’s Roadside Effigy (Owls) is a rickety burnt wood sculpture featuring a group of owls, the forms of which become less distinct from the first to the last. It’s basically saying “give a hoot, don’t pollute,” but this time in a way that makes you think about what Woodsy the Owl might actually look like if we don’t actually give a hoot.
From a series called Oregon’s Natural Resources, Marne Lucas’s piece Maya, Log is a photograph of a bikini-clad swimsuit model wearing a cowboy hat and sitting on top of a large stump. In the context of the show, I think his piece makes a statement about the often superficial nature of marketing products as green. Being green (or appearing to be green) is sexy, and often an obligatory marketing strategy for businesses.
As an artist and curator, I am really interested in clichés. Clichés often contain complex and diverse material that can be really interesting to unpack and examine, and since green has become one of the biggest clichés, and also one of the most important issues—it makes a really great theme for a show.
