Explore art in Salem this August at these exhibits.

HALLIE FORD

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art is Oregon’s third-largest art museum. It features works by Pacific Northwest and Native American artists, a diverse collection of traditional European, American and Asian art, as well as artifacts that date from antiquity. Frequently changing exhibitions include lectures, special events, tours, artist demonstrations and educational opportunities for children and adults.

The museum is located at 700 State Street and is open 12 to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Cost to explore is $8, $5 for seniors and free for educators, students 18 and older and youth 17 and younger. Admission is free for everyone on Tuesdays. For more information, visit willamette.edu/arts/hfma, or call 503-370-6855.

Through August 12
Jim Hibbard: Back in View — Jim Hibbard (American, 1936-2022) was an important Northwest artist who, after a 30-year career of exhibiting and teaching in Portland, established a new home and studio in Guanajuato, Mexico, where he continued to work productively almost until his death in 2022. This focused survey exhibition makes his Mexican work available to American audiences for the first time as well as revisits work from his earlier Portland years. 

Through August 26
Tom Prochaska: Music for Ghosts — This retrospective exhibition explores the career of longtime Portland artist Tom Prochaska. Well known for his open-ended narrative works, Prochaska has developed a body of work that often merges dreamlike memories with a dark sense of humor. Figures in desolate landscapes, sitting in cafes, or playing instruments populate his paintings and prints and take form in his paper mâché sculptures. Prochaska has lived and worked in Portland since 1978. He taught at the Pacific Northwest College of Art from 1988 until his retirement in 2012.

EVENT — Free Tuesday Gallery Talk with exhibition curator Jonathan Bucci, 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, August 8, meet in the Maribeth Collins Lobby

August 26 through December 2
Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts Biennial — Organized by the Hallie Ford Museum of Art in partnership with the Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts (CSIA), the exhibition features a selection of prints created by Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists at the Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts on the Umatilla Reservation in northeastern Oregon. Founded by Oregon painter and printmaker James Lavadour (Walla Walla) in 1992, the Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts seeks to create educational and professional opportunities for Indigenous artists to utilize their art as a vehicle for economic development.

The Hallie Ford Museum of Art serves as the repository for the Crow’s Shadow Print Archive and as a dimension of the collaborative agreement with CSIA, hosts biennial exhibitions featuring work from the most recent residencies. 

Today, CSIA is perhaps the only professional printmaking studio located on a reservation community in the United States. Since opening in 1992, it has emerged as one of the most important printmaking studios in the country, bringing together Native and non-Native artists from around the world to make prints originally under the guidance and direction of master printmaker Frank Janzen and now Judith Baumann. Prints produced at Crow’s Shadow can be found in some of the foremost public and private collections in the United States and have been included in exhibitions worldwide. 

LEVEL 2 GALLERY

Level 2 Gallery at the Salem Convention Center is curated by the Oregon Artists Series Foundation. Located on the second floor of the center, it features changing exhibits of work by established and emerging artists of the region. The Gallery is accessible Monday through Friday during regular business hours, during special events or by appointment by calling 503-589-1700. Info: www.oregonartistsseries.com 

Through September 14
Sense of Place: Four Artists’ Perspective — Sense of Place brings together four Oregon artists who look at real and imagined locations through different lenses.  Through their eyes, Place can be an area with definite or indefinite boundaries or areas within a particular spot or locality.  A Sense is an awareness or recognition of something; the stimulus may be subjective and the entire process may be real – or mental and intellectual.

Through the paintings of Eugene artists Margaret Coe and Jon Jay Cruson, Nancy Lindburg working in Salem and Matthew Dennison in Portland and the North Oregon Coast, this exhibit explores and depicts specific places and the relationships of those artists and their environments. It also examines how humans interact with the natural and built environment and the ways that locations and places have an impact on people.

The works of art collectively reflect the subjective senses of the artists reacting to places ranging from the isolated Dakota prairie of Nancy Lindburg’s youth, to the Pacific Northwest highways that Jon Jay Cruson explores, to Margaret Coe’s elegant Italian cityscapes, and the lush Oregon fauna living close by Matthew Dennison.

The paintings create or preserve memorable experiences that make each place distinctively different.

ART HALL @ Salem Public Library

A year-round gallery space under the guidance of the Salem Public Art Commission, the Art Hall at the Salem Public Library features the Salem Reads Art Exhibit each February as part of Salem Reads: One Book, One Community. During the rest of the year, the Oregon Artists Series Foundation will present curated rotating exhibits featuring regional artists. 

Through September 14
Sense of Place: Four Artists’ Perspective — This show brings together four Oregon artists who look at real and imagined locations through different lenses. It is a companion to the exhibit on display at Level 2 at Salem Convention Center.

SALEM ART ASSOCIATION

Founded in 1919, the Salem Art Association aims to engage the community in the appreciation of the arts through contemporary art exhibitions and events, arts education for youth and adults, and the preservation and interpretation of our shared cultural heritage.

Events and exhibits are located in the Bush Barn Art Center & Annex at 600 Mission St. SE. Visit the center 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday and 12 to 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. There is no charge to visit, but donations are accepted. Info: 503-581-2228 or visit salemart.org. 

August 4 through 27
In Search of Meaning: Samuel S. Hoskins — As an oil painter and graduate of The Florence Academy of Art, I see the physical world as a magical space of creation and combustion. I throw myself into the center to conduct experiments learning about nature directly. By boiling, mulling, combining, and filtering raw materials, I play a similar game to the alchemists by arranging base materials, like the dirt and oil that make up oil paint, in a way that transubstantiates into a higher dimension. I do not see myself as an individual striving to express myself but instead as a node in an interwoven thread that knits us all together.

When I am experiencing dreams, visions, and altered states, I use art as the bridge. If we stay on the rational side for too long, we become materialistic and discredit them. When we remain on the irrational side indefinitely, we become schizophrenic and have no floor to stand on. By traveling between the two, a painter can play the role of the archetypal shaman.

As humans, we orient ourselves in the world through edge detection, value range, color, perspective, and proportion. By being trained through the direct lineage of art academia, I am working on mastering these biological and intellectual tools to then be able to innoculate the paintings with insight from the unconscious. My highest aim is to create paintings that contain more in them than I am aware of; sublimating through contemplation and dialog.

These paintings are a glimpse into the lens of how I see the world; imbued with meaning. Remanessant of the natural world but dreamy and eerie in its environment and lighting, I strived to create a deeper resolution into the world of symbols, archetypes, and the unconscious. Gathering my ideas from dreams and altered states, I cast a large net into the unconscious to try to pull up something from that well to bring it into the light. EVENT — There will be an Artist Reception 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, August 4

Through August 27
RIPPLE EFFECT — Ripple Effect is an invitational sculpture exhibition co-curated by Kentaro Kojima, Stephanie
Robison, and Benjamin Mefford.

The theme of this special exhibition is about how knowledge of the arts (especially stone sculpture) is passed onward and outward, often from a mentor to a student. Invited artists include teachers, mentors, colleagues, and students. Each was asked to select works that relate to a meaningful learning experience that they’ve shared with another artist.

We three co-curators each work in multiple mediums, but it is safe to say that stone sculpture is nearest and dearest to our hearts. Stone is a material that, in searching out others to learn from, has brought us into each other’s lives, and likewise served as a bridge that has connected all of the artists in the exhibition. The end of our exhibition will also coincide with the start of one of the very best resources for learning stone carving: the annual Oregon Stone Sculpture Symposium held near Suttle Lake. Each year about 75 sculptors from novice to expert gather in one place to camp, carve, and share. For more information visit the Northwest Stone Sculptor’s Association website here.

August 4 through 27
HOW WE GROW OUR FOOD: THE FINAL HARVEST — This celebration of art and agriculture is a collaboration of Willamette Valley artists who create art focusing on the importance of growing our food. This colorful exhibition combines scenic vistas, with detailed views of Oregon fruits and vegetables, in a range of styles and media. EVENT — There will be an Artist Reception 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, August 4

Through August 26
The Key & The Towers: Santigie & Sapata Fofana-Dura — At Bush House Museum, see three new sculptures created by brothers Santigie and Sapata Fofana-Dura from found wood and metal. Each piece is finished with a deep intensional burning process, leaving a velvet black surface on the work. Sapata and Santigie design and build architectural sculpture that hinges around the storyteller. The artists create work imbued with a rugged elegance as they exclusively construct their work with abandoned timber salvaged from the Pacific Northwest. Through a dynamic of contemporary and craft-inspired construction methods the artists create work with the intention to tell new stories with a classic style.

SALEM ON THE EDGE

From fine art, up-and-coming artists, graffiti muralists and more, Salem on the Edge features work by PNW artists in a variety of media for purchase and in rotating exhibits. Stop in and visit at 156 Liberty St. NE. Info: salemontheedge.com. 

Katia Kyte, “Low Tide”, oil on panel, 8” x 10”, 2023

August 2 through 26
The Plein Air Invitational Show features more than 15 plein air artists from around Oregon. On Saturday, August 5, some of these artists will be painting at Riverfront Park, Bush Park and in the Downtown Salem area, after which, the artists will bring their wet paintings to be installed in the gallery, and artist reception from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Stop by to meet the artists and enjoy their plein air paintings along with beverages and light appetizers.

More Events at Salem on the Edge: First Friday Art Walk 5 to 8 p.m. August 4.

Plein Air artist Katia Kyte will demonstrate her work from 1 to 2:30 p.m. August 19. Katia is one of the gallery’s represented artists, a participant of the plein air show and has taught classes at Sitka Center for the Arts and Ecology.

More Art

At Gallery 444, located within Elsinore Framing at 444 Ferry St. SE. Info: 503-581-4642, elsinoregallery.com

August 4 to 26
Art of Harold Walkup — Harold Walkup is a signature member of the National Watercolor Society, the Northwest Watercolor Society, Western Federation of Watercolor Societies and the Watercolor Society of Oregon. His work is in public and private collections throughout the world. His paintings have received many national and regional awards, including The Grumbacher Silver Medal, Winsor Newton Painting Award, Watercolor Society of Oregon Best of Show and recent 2nd and 5th places in the Northwest Watercolor Society Exhibitions in Seattle, Washington. Reception: 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, August 4.

Cultural Exhibits

WILLAMETTE HERITAGE CENTER

Preserving and interpreting the history of the Mid-Willamette Valley, the Willamette Heritage Center features 14 historic structures that house permanent and changing exhibits, a research library and archive, a textile learning center, and rentable event spaces over a five-acre campus, which also has retail shops, art galleries, cooperative artist studios, and offices. It is open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays to Saturdays and is located at 1313 Mill St SE. Cost to explore is $10. $8 senior, $6 student and youth ages 6 to 17. For more information, call 503-585-7012 or go to willametteheritage.org.

Through October 7
To Your Health — Through the most recent global pandemic many have started to think about public health in new ways. What does it mean to be healthy? How do we as a society promote health in our community?

In this heritage invitational exhibit, WHC has asked museums and community organizations throughout the Mid-Willamette Valley to share an artifact and its history to help us piece together the story of what it has meant to be healthy in the past and how that has changed over time.

Partner organizations include: 

Bush House Museum

Independence Heritage Museum

Linfield Anthropology Museum & The Linfield University Archives

Linn County Historical Museum

Oregon State Hospital Museum of Mental Health

Polk County Museum

Salem Health J.A. King Staff Library

Silverton Country Historical Society

State Library of Oregon