Not sure how many people would agree with this sentiment found on Oregon City’s Willamette Terrace walkway. But I do believe we can all agree that the city, some 30 minutes south of Portland, is extremely polite. There is a welcome sign, wherever you turn.

You get encouraging advice (if I only knew what “there” is…)

perhaps leading to Eternal Impact, equally mysterious,

or fortification at the end of the road (the fountains themselves long dried out.)

Jokes aside, there is history wherever you look, preserved and displayed in public and museums. A lot of it can be found just looking at the buildings, the murals, the signage they offer, or the names they chose for their establishments.

Jail cells at the end of the alley center top – Masonic Temple center bottom. Municipal elevator from one level of the city to another.

Arch Bridge and original marker

I had come to Oregon City to look at the work of several artists displayed for the day at the Stevens Crawford Heritage House, another place where you can learn about the past. It was empty (still my condition to go inside in public places) on an early Saturday afternoon before a gathering organized by Art in Oregon to celebrate local artists and their work.

This is a collage made of paper clippings by one of the early inhabitants of the house – art always having been present, it seems.

The Craftsman American Foursquare House was built in 1908, and made into a museum after the last owner passed in 1968 and donated the property to the Clackamas Historical Society. It is furnished and equipped with everything original to the period, transporting you into the past. A large room on the ground floor has now been made in to the Mary Elizabeth Gallery, with local art hung there and in upstairs spaces as well.

On view were paintings by Kelsey Birsa, her Livingroom series containing a number of works dealing with the psychological effects of the pandemic and her ways of coping with it. One of the colorful attention magnets was a wall paper she created to reflect the garden surrounding the gallery, one of the few spaces to interact socially given the threat of infection. Her oil paintings, sometimes with added media, gold leaf, newspaper clippings or fabric draped over, were hung on top of the colorful background.

Upstairs you could see some of Natalie Wood’s photographs,

Natalie Wood Were such her Silver Will (2019)

On display for the day were also the work of Clairissa Stephens, in the process of setting up her delicate botanical drawings with silverpoint on a gesso-like underpainting, from ink and pencil sketches.

All three of the artists had participated at some time or another in Art in Oregon‘s unique opportunity to spend a one-month residency at the Heritage House to work on their art in solitude. They are granted 24 hour access to a studio room and facilities (although they cannot live in the house,) in exchange for 20 hrs. of volunteer services at the museum. The Mary Elizabeth Gallery offers a chance to show work at the end, but is not exclusively slated for residents. The next exhibition, for example, is comprised of a huge variety of local talent, opening on September 23, 2022. The Ghost Show features Alycia Helbling, Autumn Cornell, Don Hudgins, Elliott Wall, Erik Sandgren, James Dowlen, Jennifer Viviano, Kelly Shannon Chester, Kristin Neuschwander, Laura Weiler, Leslee Lukosh, Leslie Peterson Sapp, Nanette Wallace, Owen Premore, Tim Dallas – quite a range of divergent styles and media.

Mary Elizabeth Gallery
603 6th St. Oregon City, OR 97045

September 23 - November 1, 2022
RECEPTION: Friday, October 14, 6-9pm
Open on Halloween: 4-7pm
Gallery hours : Friday-Saturday 10-4pm

***

I am regularly drawn back to Oregon City because of the river, the falls, and the not-so-distant past that still affects a complicated presence. The industrialization of the place provided homes and work for many colonial settlers, while displacing the tribes who lived on the land and for whom Tumwater Falls was a place of great existential and cultural significance. A bit of a walkway can be found at the north end of the river, surrounded by informative signs and public art. A view point further south does the same and allows visitors to look at the falls from afar.

Adam Kuby and Brian Borrello are the public artist team that created the Waterfall sculpture at Willamette Terrace Walkway.

Mill after mill, using the power generated by the water for processing lumber, wool, flour and eventually paper, clogged the banks of the river and interfered with access to the falls.

Several years back I had actually participated in a walk through one of the old mills, Blue Heron Paper Company, now condemned, for an extended photoshoot that resulted in this compilation. (If you click on the book in the link and then on full view, you can scroll through the pages. Some of the resulting montages (below) were hung in a show at the Oregon City Hall.)

The site of the bankrupt paper mill, some 23 acres, was purchased in 2019 by the Confederate Tribes of Grand Ronde, who announced the new name for the planned restoration project just 2 weeks ago: Tumwata Village. It refers to the Native name for the falls and reflects the historic tribal connection to the area. Much demolition still going on, lots of rebuilding in the future. Details can be found in a newly launched website: www.tumwatavillage.org.

The planning process itself has been complex, though. Since 2011, much debate involved historic rights, and differing visions for a development that would protect tribal history and also would allow the general public to access the falls. Under the umbrella of the Willamette Falls Legacy Project multiple constituent partners focused on a commitment to public access, environmental and cultural restoration, as well as economic development. Oregon City, Clackamas County, regional government Metro and the state of Oregon partnered with the Grand Ronde Tribe, and eventually the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation and Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs were invited by the Willamette Falls Trust, which began as the Legacy Project’s fundraising arm before expanding operations. As is so often the case in projects with numerous participants, conflicting needs, demands and eventually tensions were difficult to resolve.

This spring the Grand Ronde tribe left the project to pursue the restoration on their own propriety bordering the river directly and independently. Information about claims of conflicting interests can be found here and here, and in an OPB interview. Of importance to those of us who are not entitled to take a position, given our lack of historic knowledge and access to innumerable facts, is to remember:

“… these fractures stem from painful histories. None of these confederations, or the boundaries between them, existed before colonization. In fact, in 1855 there was only one western Oregon reservation: Siletz, which is where the tribes that became part of Grand Ronde were originally scheduled to be sent. But President James Buchanan abruptly decided to establish the Grand Ronde Reservation as a second western Oregon reservation instead of an extension of Siletz. On a foreigner’s whim, the tribes became separate peoples.

“Over the years, there’s been a lot of trauma and historical legal wrongs done to the tribes just falling out of that history.” (Ref.)

That is what I am thinking about when looking at this natural marvel, the largest waterfall in the Northwestern United States by volume, and the seventeenth widest in the world. It is 1,500 feet (460 m) wide and 40 feet (12 m) high with a flow of 30,849 cu ft/s (874 m³/s), located 26 miles (42 km) upriver from the Willamette’s mouth. Images below are from last week and from winter months, showing the effects of season on the river.

The falls are one of the few remaining places to fish for lamprey eels.

Maybe the town itself is not one of the prettiest ever, but the nature at its doorstep is. They both hold a lot of history.

Here is what I currently listen to, water (or sea) foam, in musical form.