The Yachats Gazette, Issue 79, April 1 2018

Click here for a printable version of Issue 79.

Interview with Emily Crabtree and Tom Beare

Emily and Tom are artists who have recently settled in town.

TYG: So how did you guys get to Yachats?
Emily: Hmm. You’re going to start with that one.
Tom: Yeah. I graduated from Portland State University, and I had friends living on a farm up-river. Next to Lester’s old property—100 acres. They were renting it, and it was beautiful. I went out there and did some work in their garden, and ended up staying for two years. [laughter] I’d just graduated, and I didn’t have any job prospects, and I didn’t really care to start working right away.

TYG-Graphic Design: What did you major in?
Tom: Economics.

TYG: Good field!
Tom: Yeah! Good field. It didn’t lead me to a career, but I enjoyed learning it. [laughter] Became a staunch communist for four years, and then I graduated, and it was welcome to the real world. [lots of laughter] But I lived there, moved back to Portland, and when Emily and I started dating, three weeks in or something, I brought her out here, and she immediately said, “This is where I want to be.”
Emily: Yeah. I was like, “I know we just started dating, but I’m going to move there.” And he’s like, “But that’s where I’m going to move!” And I’m like, “Well then, I guess we’re going to do that thing that people say don’t do right away!” [laughter] 
Tom: We did it for a year and a half before we moved here.
Emily: Yeah, it was like a year and a half before we were able to find a place to live. You know, the housing issues here are so much. I was ready to come back to the country; I grew up in rural Virginia, and really missed living in the country. I’d been living in Portland for the last—I’m bad at numbers—13 years? A while. I was just ready to come back to Mother Nature. Portland was getting really hard to live in, too. When I first moved there, it was kind of hard to find a job, but you could also find rent for not too expensive, and there was a lot of underground art. There’s still underground art, but then it was all free. [laughs] By the end of it, it was like, oh my gosh, six women, one bathroom, really nice Craftsman home, but still... but it was really kind of nice timing that we both met when we were ready to move to another stage in our lives.
Tom: Perfect timing when I got evicted, and then a house opened up here! [laughter]

TYG-GD: Why did you get evicted?
Tom: Oh, it was kind of the thing that’s been happening in Portland a lot. Landlords buy a house cheap, rent it for a few years, the prices are going up, and sell it for dear. And so I got evicted just because they were selling their house.
Emily: So nothing bad. They kind of have to go through this process. This is happening really rapidly to a lot of us.

TYG-GD: That’s terrible!
Emily: Yeah, all the artists, all the people, most of them are being displaced. And it’s something [that repeats]: we move out to another neighborhood, then that gets cool, and... I also think there is going to be more of a move back to the country with a lot of folks around our age. It seems like everyone’s really talking about wanting to do that.

TYG-GD: Where did you grow up in rural Virginia?
Emily: I grew up in the Shenandoah Valley, on the Shenandoah River. It’s very beautiful—Appalachian, which is gorgeous, but also a lot of the ideals just really didn’t match up with my family’s. [They]’re very liberal, and open-minded...

TYG-GD: Yes, that is weird.
Emily: [laughter] I’m like, “Why did you guys move there?” So I moved out of there—I put myself in boarding school in tenth grade. And I was a good kid! Well, kind of good. I didn’t get caught, so I guess that doesn’t count. [laughter] So I moved out early to see more of the world, and then I got to the west coast from high school. College was in Santa Fe, and then I went and moved with one of my best friends to Olympia, Washington. Unseen, because I was really ready to get out of Santa Fe, and Olympia has really cool record labels.

TYG-GD: Were you into music?
Emily: Yes, yes. More as a spectator. My family are all musical, and my Dad says I was too strong-willed to teach. [laughter] But moving there was really interesting. I got to start performing, and meeting with other like-minded people. I was only there for a year, and then I moved to Portland. Olympia and Portland are like little feeder cities for each other—[there are] a lot of the same people. Musicians and artists kind of bop back and forth—a natural progression, sort of.

TYG-GD: So, what kind of musician are you? 
Emily: I sing, write music, guest on a lot of tracks. I have a friend who’s an electronic musician. He doesn’t sing, so if he has certain tracks that he wants vocals on, he’ll ask me. I’ve done that for a metal band as well, which was sort of interesting and fun. Then I’ve had my own groups. My friend Andrea, who moved here, she’s been in three of my bands with me. And then since I’ve moved here, I bought myself a really nice semi-hollow body electric guitar, and a bunch of guitar pedals, and I’m trying to teach myself how to play guitar, which is a steep learning curve, so if you know anyone I could take lessons from... I just need someone I can be accountable to. That’s mostly what it is. I just don’t practice enough. I think for me, music is this beautiful epicenter to be surrounded in every other aspect of art. When you’re in a band, you have to know Photoshop to make your pictures look good. You have to be creative for your album cover art. So it’s a fun way to encompass mixed media stuff. That was really fun. Plus, it was a way to soothe my social anxiety, because I really liked going to shows, but it would make me [blows up her head gesture] sometimes. So if I have a reason that I’m here, I’m allowed that because I’m playing, so that would give me a reason to be somewhere, to feel involved.

TYG: Certainly, to me, going to these shows where it’s body to body, completely packed... I’d kind of just rather listen to records or recordings.
Emily: I feel you! I went to a show in Portland a month ago, and I was like, “I’m too grown up for this front row!” [laughter] “I’m going to go up in the balcony and calm down, and just enjoy myself...” Yeah—there’s a time and a place. It’s funny how that mood can change.

TYG-GD: [To Tom] So, I know you’re an artist, because I’ve seen your paintings! [Tom has a couple of paintings on display in the back room at Ona Restaurant and Lounge.]
Tom: Yeah! I paint, a bit; do print making, a little bit of collage...
Emily: He writes, as well.
Tom: I write a bit. I run the gamut. We just moved into a new place, and I have a nice, big painting studio. So this winter I’ve got to buckle down. I’m making prints of local dogs. That’s my new thing. [laughter]

TYG-GD: Really? That’s awesome!
Tom: Woodblock and linoleum prints of our friends’ dogs.
Emily: They’re pretty great!
Tom: It’s kind of crafty, but yes, it’s fun.

TYG-GD: I don’t know, I did linoleum stuff and I really liked it! 
TYG: And you did [rubber] stamps for years!
TYG-GD: That’s true! 
Tom: Yeah! I enjoy it a lot. Doing a few different layers, or just one.

TYG-GD: Have you talked to Mike Guerriero?
Tom: Oh, he’s a print maker—did he have a show at Ona?

TYG-GD: Yes!
Emily: He did the big fish.
Tom: And the big landscapes... his work is beautiful! I’ve talked to him in the restaurant. But I haven’t hooked up artistically.

TYG-GD: So how does your economics fit in to your art?
Tom: Ooh! [laughter] I paint a lot of patterns. I like them as a design concept. Conceptually, I think—it was my third year in college, I started imagining a work of art describing visually a planned economy, or a volatile capitalistic economy. I think patterns sort of emerged. We have a bunch of similar commodities going one direction, and they’re processed in this way—and the outcome, visually, is patterning.

TYG-GD: That’s a cool way to think about it!
Emily: I see it in the things you choose—the sort of architectural imagery you pick to represent this stuff.
Tom: Definitely. Right on! [laughter] I’ve strayed pretty far from economic thinking in my life... [laughs] I think that aspect of my personality comes out more in game playing.

TYG: Oh, you play games?
Emily: Big time.
Tom: I play a lot of games, yes.

TYG: Computer games, or...?
Tom: Chess, right now. My favorite game for years was Magic, the Gathering. I was on the Magic, the Gathering pro tour, in Valencia, Spain. I got to go—it was fun.

TYG: Nice!
Emily: I was like, “Wait a minute! There’s a game that will fly you to Europe?” [laughter]
Tom: Yep! [...] It was five years of my life, and I was just obsessed with it. Then I got to the pro tour, then I was like, “Okay! I can probably calm down now.” [laughter] [to Emily] I was actually in Spain when I saw your dating profile!
Emily: That’s not how we met!
Tom: It’s not how we met! It is how we recognized each other.
Emily: I didn’t. You did. I was like, “What are you looking at?” [in a growly voice]
Tom: Heavy metal show in North Portland.
Emily: [laughter] He kept walking by, and I was in a bad mood. “What are you looking at?” And he’s like, “We’re talking.” And I’m like, “No we’re not.” [laughs again] 

TYG-GD: How’d you get her out of the bad mood?
Emily: Beer...
Tom: A couple of drinks, yeah... [laughter]
Emily: Portland rent is really expensive, so if someone wants to buy you a drink, you say yes.

TYG: [to Emily] So, what kind of art do you do?
Emily: I do a lot of different kinds. I started doing photography in high school, and I’ve always really loved that. And on and off over the years, depending on whether I could afford film, or to get it developed. But I’ve always done it. And I bought myself a medium format camera—the film is bigger, and the grain is really small, so if you blow the photo up, you can make it really, really large and it still has all the clarity.

TYG: Nice. So that’s like a professional film camera.
Emily: Yes. This one is a Yashica—it’s really cool, you open it up and look down in it, and it’s multiple mirrors. It’s really cool looking. And that camera is from the ‘60s. Then I have a bunch of other cameras too, but that’s my favorite one. So actually in our new house, Tom’s going to help me build my own dark room.

TYG-GD: Wow! You still have film? 
Emily: Yes—so much. I have bags of undeveloped film.

TYG-GD: And it hasn’t gone bad?
Emily: Who knows if it has or not—I mean, the light flares can be weird, but sometimes that gives you really beautiful, strange stuff that happens, that you can’t plan.

TYG-GD: Sure, absolutely. 
Emily: So I do photography, and I do collage art as well. Right now I’m working on a collage that’s commenting on how American culture sort of eroticizes hyper-masculinity that’s found in the Army, the Navy, as this kind of way to sell it to young men. Which I find really kind of horrifying.

TYG: It’s immature, but it’s like, “We need recruits!” 
Emily: Yeah, so I’m working on a collage of that. I’ve always wanted to figure out how to make them bigger, in a way that’s not just blowing them up. Now what I’m doing is cutting the pieces, organizing them, and I’m going to scan them, and print each piece large and put them back together, so it’s still actually collage. Because every time that I’ve just enlarged them from a photo or a scan, it loses the texture of the collage.

TYG: And also, that’s going to make it feel like it’s much closer to a memory. Because instead of having just one, clear image, you have smaller images, but they’re still separate, so they’re more like what the human eye remembers and sees. 
Emily: I’m excited about it—I think it should be fun. Sometimes it’s slow-going—I have bursts where “Oh! I’m almost done!” and then like, “Well, I’m not almost done.” [laughter]

TYG-GD: So when you say “big,” how big are you talking about?
Emily: Um, I don’t know, four feet by four feet, maybe? A lot of times I work in a square format, because I use old record sleeves. I collect vinyl records, sometimes from thrift stores, where the record will get messed up but the sleeve is there. It’s just a really nice, heavy weight cardboard to work on. So a lot of times they end up being square. So yeah! I do collage stuff, photography—I write, as well. Since moving here I write a lot of poetry about the ocean. Not sure how great it is, but usually right after, when I read it to myself, it seems amazing. [...] I also do micro-stories—really short stories. Maybe a page, or something. That’s been fun. My great-uncle—my grandfather’s brother—passed away two years ago, and I really got into researching who he was, and I got some good short stories out of that, going through his memories and stuff. I haven’t had a big flush like that for a little while. I think it’s coming soon, now that we both have our own art studio! It’s so awesome!

TYG-GD: So, now that you have your nice, big house and studios, do you have any big projects planned? You said you were going to work on some new paintings?
Tom: Ah! I have the dog prints that I’m still working on... I do have a big project planned! I built a four foot by three foot light table for tracing. I’m tracing these images from this print series—I can’t remember who put it out—about Napoleon’s adventures, Napoleonic history. So these really cool old prints of famous works of art, or any work of art relating to Napoleon. Lots of French soldiers in lines, lots of coronations. So I’m using pieces of those images, those reproductions—because someone made a reproduction of them—pieces of those images, sort of putting them together into a pattern over a five foot by three foot sheet of paper. So creating almost like a piece of wallpaper, but politics and history and war, using or stealing these other images. And then I’m trying to figure out how to interject sort of a little bit of humor, or guiding principles into the pattern, with disparate objects that aren’t from Napoleonic history, like plumbing diagrams, parking lots, things like that [laughter] ... if that makes any sense.

TYG: No, it makes perfect sense! It’s like straight plumbing, straight plumbing, [makes a dropping noise and motions downward]—that’s when he invades Russia. [laughter] 
Tom: There you go! [...] So that’s my big [project]. It’s long-term.

TYG-GD: So you’re tracing these things... are you reproducing them just by moving the pattern underneath?
Tom: Yeah! So I’m sort of learning the process—the big pieces haven’t really started coming out yet. But yes, so you have one piece of this image—I can copy it a couple times if I want, using the light table or just drawing it, or tracing paper—and then I can sort of play around before I actually commit to the pattern, like where everything is going to be placed. I can move it around under the light table and see how it’s going to come out. So that’s why I built the light table. It’s pretty fun. You get to really work it out before having to put it to paper.

TYG-GD: Wow, that’s pretty wild. What about you? [to Emily]
Emily: Me, let’s see. My big thing is this summer, I really want to save up and get myself a really nice digital camera, because as much as I do love working in film, it’s really nice to be able to do both. But I love to take photos, and then sort of digitally keep—on my phone, there’s a program where if you keep on over-editing, the program gets confused. And in ways you may not anticipate, it sort of degrades the image, but in this way that I find really, really interesting. I call them over-edits, and then layering of images I think is really fun. I do a lot of self-portraits, mostly because I’m around myself all the time. [laughter]. It’s easy to do, and convenient. And then I have bigger photo project ideas that I’m going to need help with—we have a lot of willing friends. And I recently had someone who’s like my god-brother give me a really beautiful computer, so that’s very exciting. So when I can get it together I can have something to edit with. Which is really great. Now I have a place to record my music, a place to edit my photos... I think that with being an artist out here, it’s just so nice to remind yourself that you have time, and not to measure the success of your own inertia. You do it just because of how therapeutic it is to do it.

TYG-GD: So, you recently went to England, and you have lots of artsy friends there too! 
Emily: Yes! It was really fun. One of my best friends I grew up with in Virginia—her name is Nikki Kvarnes—she’s incredible. She’s a musician, she was in a very successful band called Those Darlings, and she was able to have that be her job. She comes from a line of musicians and painters—she is also a painter, an oil painter. She just now, actually, has announced that she’s having a show in a gallery in London. I’m really excited—the stuff I’ve seen is incredible. She does really beautiful portraits of people, and she also does fruit that’s in half decay, flowers that are falling apart—it’s just really beautiful stuff.

TYG: That sounds incredibly hard to capture.
Emily: Yes! I can show you guys sometime—it looks like you can touch it.

TYG-GD: So where do you guys think you’ll be in five years? You guys did get married, right?
Emily: Yes!
Tom: We’ll still be married. [laughter] We’ll have five acres up river...
Emily: There we go. Dream big, baby. [laughter] 
Tom: ... a barn...
Emily: Ooh yes, big barn, big studio, where I can do huge art. Maybe a sculpture or something.
Tom: Hopefully we’ll have started paying for our own house. Separate out-buildings for our own projects. I’d like to still be here. We fantasize about moving back to the city, but...
Emily: I think if we moved to the city, it would be what we’ve fantasized about becoming ESL teachers and going to live in Thailand. We hope to go back maybe next year. But all my friends keep on getting married, so we put off our trips! [laughs]

TYG-GD: So you’ve been to Thailand before? 
Emily: Yes! Not last winter, but the winter before.

TYG-GD: Wow, so what was that like?
Emily: It was incredible. We loved it.
Tom: Stunning. We stayed for a month; we traveled sort of up and down from the Island of Ko Tao, up through Bangkok, the ancient city of Ayuttayah—just as tourists, stayed each place about a week, got settled in, enjoyed the food, the temples...

TYG-GD: Did you know any Thai?
Tom: We learned [a couple of phrases]. If we go back, we’d like to take like three weeks of language classes so we can start getting the hang of it.
Emily: Because we really appreciated that country—I think we need to do our due diligence the second time, to show that. It was really, really beautiful. The people are just... everyone is stunning. We got into watching Muay Thai boxers. Typically boxers ... but these boxers were beautiful. I was like, “Are these models going to fight?” [laughs] There’s really a lot of Buddhist mysticism, which was really neat. Everyone was just so gentle and kind.

TYG-GD: So, is there anything else you’d like to share with the community of Yachats?
Emily: Oh, I do, yes! I’m on the Yachats Annual Pride Planning Committee, and [Pride] is June 1, 2, and 3. It’s going to be really fun. It’s not only been great to just hang out with folks in the community and plan something, but we’re getting a lot of artists from outside and inside the community. To come, there’s going to be, on Friday night, a cabaret show. It’s going to have some of my friends in Portland. I brought this friend who does a pet psychic drag act; it’s totally weird and out there. My friend who’s coming is a DJ, and there’s going to be a good dance party. On Saturday there’s a trans tea party, which will be for folks in the community to just come and ask questions and be educated on trans issues and all that stuff. What’s really sweet is that the Lions is donating their hall for that. After that, Cris [Williamson], who’s a very influential, lesbian folk musician—she has quite a following—she’s coming. Last year she was really popular. And then after that there’s going to be dinner and Bingo in the Commons, with acts in between. For Bingo, my friends’ band HURTUR is going to play—they’re kind of a synthwave dance band, emotive, and there’s a light show. They’re really fabulous friends of mine and they work really hard to create a whole experience. And there will be food trucks, and a beer garden. And Sunday there’s going to be a hike in the morning, just up the 804 trail, and there will be a person to talk about plant life. After that, there’s a picnic in the Commons picnic shelter. It’s a potluck, but also lots of stuff is going to be provided. And then there’s an open mike with some music, and then a Puppy Parade—dress up your dogs and bring them. [“Aw”s abound] [laughter] You don’t have to dress up—it can be just you and your puppy. And after that there’s a seminar about navigating consent in relationships. My friend Cassie, who’s a teacher at Waldport High and runs their LGBTQ club, she’s getting a lot of the kids involved in volunteering, and they might do some acts too.

TYG-GD: This sounds very awesome!
Emily: It’s going to be fun!

TYG: That is going to be so cool.
Emily: So, that’s the biggest thing I have!

TYG: Well, thank you so much!
Emily and Tom: Thank you!

The Yachats Gazette, Issue 24, July 31 2013

Interview with ROBERT ANTHONY of Luna Sea Fish House

The Yachats Gazette caught up with Robert Anthony at Riverbend Marine Services, where he’s currently refitting his fishing boat, the Liberty II.

The Liberty II

Robert: This is called the haul-out, and on a wood boat you do this every year. You take the boat out of the water and pressure-wash the bottom. The bottom has a special paint that keeps sea life from eating into the wood—like worms, things like that.

TYG: Is this a wooden boat?
Robert: It is a wooden boat.

TYG: Interesting. I would have thought metal.
Robert: Built in 1939. And she is in really good shape, according to a lot of the surveyors and boatwrights that have looked at Liberty—they’re astonished: for the age of the boat, what good shape the hull is in. So during a haul-out, we pressure-wash the bottom and get all the barnacles and growth off of the boat and check the seams for loose corking. The reason why we hauled the boat out early this year is that we were leaking about 10 gallons an hour in the water.

TYG: What happened?
Robert: [In] one of these seams the cotton rotted away.

TYG Graphic Design: Cotton?
Robert: Yeah, there’s cotton in between these seams here. These are planks. They are designed so that when they’re put on they are tapered joints. They have a tool called a corking iron. The cotton comes in a bundle and it’s all a single length. They fold it and cork it in the seams—pack it in the seams—so they overlap each other. It’ll swell up and keep the water from going in. After they go through and cork it in they paint a compound on the cotton […] and it sets up, and then it’s waterproof.

TYG-GD: Why does it have a hole under the water line?
Robert: It’s a drain for a sink in the galley.

TYG-GD: So it has back pressure?
Robert: Yes.

TYG: What’s that?
Robert: That’s called a keel cooler and it’s like a radiator—the water circulates through that and through the engine, and the seawater takes the heat away. […] Then we put these zincs on—wherever there’s metal, we put on a zinc. The ocean is like a big battery. [The zinc pieces] keep the electrolysis from eating up the fittings—the nails or screws. Electrolysis is like metal plating.

TYG: I don’t remember seeing this structure on the other side of the boat.
Robert: Oh this? This is a casing. The Liberty is a crabber, so…

TYG: Oh, I see—is that what keeps the crabs from hanging on?
Robert: Good question! Right here is where I normally have my crab block which reels up the crab pots. When they’re coming up, sometimes they bang against the side of the boat. This is really hard wood, and it keeps the pots from damaging the keel. [The pots] come up pretty fast. Sometimes, the way the current is, they’ll come shooting this way.

[...] And this is wiring. Every piece of metal is tied together and it’s called a bonding system and then this is bonded inside the boat.[…] And if you can see that wire, that’s connected to that scag—it’s all connected to that big zinc in the front. And then there’s a bonding wire that goes inside the bulk. So everything is bonded together to keep the electrolysis from eating the metal.

TYG-GD: And if there were lightning it would just act as a Faraday cage?
Robert: No, that has nothing to do with lightning. The forestay on my mast is insulated with porcelain insulators—see those porcelain insulators on the stays [the cables leading from the mast to the deck]? So if there were electricity, it would die—it couldn’t pass through to the rest of the cable.

TYG: Could the metal plates possibly be used for gathering electricity? Because you said “electrolysis.”
Robert:  They do gather electricity.

TYG: Okay, so does that help for the mundane tasks, like providing electricity for the boat?
Robert:  No… If your boat is too hot—the term hot means you’re putting out voltage—that’s what eats away at your metal fixtures. And also if you have a hot boat it doesn’t attract the fish. Some boats fish better than other boats.

TYG: This boat fishes pretty well?
Robert:  This boat fishes very well. It’s a very well respected boat in the fleet.

TYG-GD: What fleet are you part of?
Robert:  [laughs] The West Coast fleet.

TYG: You said this boat fishes very well but you said you do crab…
Robert: December through the end of March is crab, Dungeness crab. And then I always switch over, bring the crab gear in and target the salmon. I fish salmon primarily May through October. But in July is when the albacore start reaching the West Coast.

TYG: Albacore? 
Robert: It’s a tuna. And that’s what we’re going  to be doing when we go back in the water [after refitting the boat], is we’re going to be heading out for the tuna.

TYG: That must be a large catch, because I know a lot of tuna, if they survive more than three years, can get to be 2 meters long.
Robert:  Yeah, albacore get pretty big. The biggest albacore that I caught was like 60 pounds.

TYG-GD: And how do you catch those? With a line?
Robert: Yeah, all trolling, hook and line.

TYG: But it’s not like the fishing that you use in a lake—it’s power probably, powered reel-in?
Robert:  Yes, the salmon gear is hydraulically reeled in. They have what’s called a tuna puller that’s run by hydraulics…

TYG: Yeah, because you can’t just pull with one of those little reels!
Robert:  We pull by hand. The way the gear is rigged up is that you have a long line, let’s say it’s 40 fathoms long, and then your next line will be like 35 fathoms…

TYG: What’s a fathom?
Robert: Six feet. … And then your next line will be like 30 fathoms, and it tapers on in. So on your short lines, sometimes you just grab it and pull it on in.

TYG-GD: How far out do you have to fish?
Robert:  Tuna is traditionally 60 to 150 miles offshore, but lately, like right now, they’re 30 to 80 miles offshore.

TYG: Why are they so close?
Robert:  It depends on the water current. The tuna like 60° plus water. So where you’ve got warm water pushing against cold water, that’s called an edge. And that’s where feed build up and the tuna follow the feed. Everything follows the food.

TYG-GD: And how far offshore are the crab?
Robert: Some boats fish 6 to 10 fathoms when it’s flat calm. My crab gear is 20 to 45 fathoms in three strings. I have a 100-pot string for 20 fathoms, another 100-pot string for 35 fathoms and then another 100-pot string for 45 fathoms. So it’s about a half mile from shore, 5 miles from shore, and 12 to 13 miles offshore.

TYG-GD: How far from shore can you still see shore?
Robert:  About 25 miles, 30 miles—you can still see the tops of the mountains on a clear day.

TYG-GD: How far out do you have to be to see the lighthouses?
Robert: Oh, you can see them for quite a distance because of the light. It depends on your visibility.

TYG-GD: Is it nice to see them at night?
Robert: Yeah!  It’s kind of cool because I do so much coastal running, California to Oregon. It’s good to know off in the distance—you go “Well there’s Cape Blanco! I hope the weather’s good when I get up there! ” [laughter] When we get up to these capes, or points, there’s two different fronts that meet, and the ocean can get pretty wild.

TYG: By the way, if you see a lighthouse, how can you tell if you’re in too close or too far out?
Robert:  Well, you have electronics on the boat and a fathometer tells you how deep you are.

TYG: But in the old days, how did you tell when you were too close to a lighthouse?
Robert:  [in a very dry tone] If you hit something. [laughter all around]

TYG: I would think you could precisely measure the size of the lighthouse…
Robert:  Well, in the old days, they had a sounder—a piece of lead attached to a string that had wax on it. Then they dropped it down and when it hits bottom than they bring it up and it has knots in it and they could tell how deep it is. Then they could look in the wax and see if it’s sand or gravel.

TYG: And you probably want to anchor not when it’s sandy. If you can, you probably want to anchor on the rocks.
Robert:  No, you want to anchor in the sand.

TYG: Really? I wonder why.
Robert: Because the anchor will dig into the sand. When you’re in the rocks it’ll skip over the rocks. It’ll get stuck in the rocks and you can get your anchor back up. So you don’t want to anchor in the rocks.

TYG-GD: How long is it going to take you to finish refitting this?
Robert: The painting will be done in a couple of days, but we have some woodwork that we’re going to do on the stern up there, and it’s pretty intense. We just came up with all that stuff this afternoon. The project was put off in the fall, and I was going to kind of temporarily fix it. But as we looked at it a little bit closer and took some things apart , we saw that it was more serious. I’m going to be offshore, you know, I could be 80 to 100 miles offshore in rough weather… So since we’re here in the boatyard we’re going to bite the bullet and make the repairs. In Oregon this year we’ve had a lot of tough weather and we haven’t been out fishing, so some of the fishermen are getting kind of uptight. They need to go out and make their money, but it’s been blowing so hard and so long… But now the weather’s going to break. Tuesday, the weather’s going to back down, and they’re all going to go—and I’m going to be here making repairs! [laugh] But, to miss another five days, and have the boat fixed… There’s nothing worse than fishing a worried boat. You’re out there and you’re always thinking of this one problem you have, and it’s best to eliminate the problem.

TYG-GD: So how does it work from fish to restaurant?
Robert: I’m out there catching the fish and I pack them in the fish hold in ice—belly-ice them really well—pack them in layers of ice. So I come in and let’s say I have a big load, 3000 or 4000 pounds. I belong to a seafood produced co-op out of Alaska—it’s a fisherman owned co-op—and I’ll sell 2000 pounds to the co-op and I’ll take 1000 pounds for the restaurant. I’ll have it filleted, vacuum packed, and flash frozen.

TYG: Why only take back 1000 pounds out of 3000?
Robert: Well, you need a paycheck. I just take a portion of the main load for the restaurant, and as it gets closer to the end of the season I’ll put away more for the restaurant. It’ll be vacuum packed and blast frozen; that gives you the best quality, sushi-grade fish. So tuna this year, I’m going to be producing a lot of it for the restaurant: vacuum packing the loins, and really stepping up the production on my canning. My canned tuna is really popular.

TYG-GD: Yes, it is, we go in there all the time and we can never find any!
Robert: My gosh, I have so many people screaming for it… If I had 1000 cases I’d be sold out by the end of August. So my main deal is to get out and get on the tuna right away, start gathering product for the winter market from here on out.

Oh, and that’s my brother Gary. Gary is my main man on the boat: he’s the engineer and the deck officer…

TYG-GD: How many people do you usually crew with?
Robert: Just my brother and I.

TYG-GD: What attracts you to the work?
Robert: Oh, just being a free spirit, being your own boss, dealing with Mother Nature-- you live by the weather. You’re free out there: it’s just you and the boat on the hunt for the fish­—among other things that you see out there. You get to see things that other people don’t normally get to see. Whales all the time: whales, killer whales, great whites… I was making a run up from California one year, at night, with my sodiums on—that big light up there? That’s a sodium—and I was talking on the radio and I had the door open and I was looking out. I saw movement in the water and it was a seagull, but there was something odd. The ocean was flat calm. A shark came up out of the water and nailed the seagull. I was so astonished to see that in real life, just 10 feet away!

TYG: So, can we talk about the restaurant a little? What kind of products do you sell?
Robert: We sell a full variety of local seafood and things like scallops, which are East Coast. I target what’s in season: Dungeness crab in the winter months, salmon, tuna. I am allowed 400 pounds of lingcod a month. And when I’m fishing salmon, I have an incidental halibut permit, so for every three salmon I catch I can keep one halibut, up to 20 halibut per fishing trip.

TYG: When did you first take an interest in sailing? 
Robert: Fishing? I started getting interested in commercial fishing when I had a housemate who had a job on a boat in Alaska. He told all these interesting adventure stories about fishing in Alaska. So it got my interest up. I ended up moving to Seattle with all these housemates that I had. We had a flying club. One of them was a flight instructor that owned an airplane and we all lived together in this big house that I had in the country in California and they all formed this kind of flying club. Then we all moved to Seattle and they invited me to come along and continue my flying career. And one of the guys worked on a boat that fished in Alaska, and when we moved to Seattle I started helping the guy working on the boat to get it ready. It was a pursainer, which is a big boat and had a seven man crew. So I showed up to help them get the boat ready, and the next thing you know, I’m on my way to Alaska crewing on this fishing boat!

That was in 1970. It was not a very good fishing year in Alaska that year, so when the season was over I went on my way and got into construction and became a journeyman carpenter.

And then one day, in 1978, I was in Santa Cruz walking the docks at the yacht harbor where I’m from and I started asking around. I thought how fun it was when I was on that fishing boat and started asking people on the docks if they needed a deckhand. One person said: “Oh, I have a friend who just bought a boat!” So I talked to him, and he tossed me a $100 bill and told me to go get a pair of deck boots and a crew license… That was 1978 and I haven’t missed a season since then. And that’s how I got interested. So it doesn’t run in my family at all. […] It’s funny, I grew up around Moss Landing which is a commercial fishing port, and it was big on albacore and tuna back in the 60s. So that’s how I got interested in fishing. I crewed for two years and then bought the Luna my third year fishing. Now I’ve been fishing for 35 seasons.

TYG: How much was the Luna?
Robert:  The Luna? I think I paid $20,000. […]

TYG: I think that maybe when I grow up might like to get a pleasure craft.
Robert: Well, I’ll sell you the Liberty after I get it all restored!  [laughter all around] And a restaurant!
TYG: No nononono!  [laughter] Thank you very much for talking with us Robert!
Robert: Thank you!

Interview with Sandy Mier of Bloom!

TYG: So, what kind of programs do you offer here?
Sandy: We offer a variety of art workshops, depending on what artists I find who are willing to teach. Some are craft, some are art, some are a mix—just what people are interested in!

TYG:  Interesting! Where did you get the idea to start this business?
Sandy: I think it came from the idea that I really liked taking art workshops and art classes. But I was interested in learning a lot of different ones—you know,  I haven’t really specialized. I was interested in learning a lot of new techniques. Sometimes I will see somebody’s work, and I will see if they offer a class so I can either try it myself, or learn more about what they’re doing. And I like mixed media. I really like a variety.

TYG:  What relationship do you have with the other galleries around here? Because I know you’re part of the same complex, but I’m not quite sure what the relationship is.
Sandy:  Well, that’s a good question. They are good neighbors. I’m really, really happy to be here. I get of a lot of people just walking by, because they know about these galleries—they’re very famous, they’re well known—and so as they go by, they peek in the window and say: “Oh! What’s going on in here?” So I get walk by traffic. And I’ve been really fortunate that people like Jacquee [Christnot] at Touchstone [Gallery] will recommend that they come see me. If they mention that they’re really interested in something, she’ll say: “Well, you know, Sandy has Bloom! here, and she’s offering classes.” Or, “She has Marion Moir coming to teach a class!” Actually, I think the person that we have the best connection with right now is Donna Sakamoto Crispin, the basket weaver. She taught a class here last year, and then Jacquee really liked her work and started showing it in the gallery. So now we have people who come to buy her baskets, then they find out about the basket-making classes-- I think you came one afternoon when we were doing that!

TYG:  I have made a couple of baskets, sometimes out of paper or sometimes out of palm fronds leaves, you know, the big shrubs that live around here.
TYG-Graphic Design: Yucca.
TYG: They make great baskets. They’re long, they’re sturdy, fairly easy to flex…
Sandy: Do you soak them?
TYG:  No, I don’t. I just take them raw.

Sandy:  Donna does that. She’ll bring yucca, all kinds of grasses and seaweed, eelgrass…

TYG-GD:  What kind of seaweed?
Sandy:  Kelp! And then she’ll grow certain things, Sweet Grass is one… Some of it is for the main part, and other more for the decoration, for the embellishment. So we’ve learned a lot from her. She’s coming back August 9, because one of the people in town has access to antlers. She brought a whole lot of antlers, and Donna is going to teach us how to weave a basket and then use the antlers for handles. […] I’m not positive, but I think it’s a Native American tradition. I think the antlers are coming from a reservation in Minnesota. So we really do a variety of things. Right now we have someone who might come to teach bookmaking. We can do journals, we can do bookbinding—depends on who wants to come and teach and who wants to come and take a class.

TYG:  Even though the Yucca is cool , and you can make the largest baskets from it, the easiest material is paper, regular paper. You cut paper strips, and if you have crafting paper—multicolor paper—just leave them. Be prepared to have a couple of staples handy and maybe some tape, and you can just make a regular basket! And they’re quite sturdy.
Sandy:  We always used to do that in the springtime, a kind of Easter basket. I taught grade school for a long time, and I taught a little bit in college.[...]

TYG-GD: You were teaching art?
Sandy: No, I was teaching reading. I wasn’t an art teacher at all. Except that I would bring art into the classroom, because I think you can learn a lot through art. I ended up teaching children about your age [indicates Allen].

TYG:  In first grade?
Sandy:  No…

TYG:  In college? [incredulous]
Sandy: No… [laughs] back to the elementary school I went, they needed fifth and sixth grade reading.

TYG-GD:  So what other classes have you given this summer?
Sandy:  This summer so far, we had metal embossing and made mini-journals. We took brass plates and embossed them and then patinaed with special metallic paints and then you sand off the raised parts. Actually, this is a very easy project, but it takes all day. It’s just a lot of steps to follow, but it’s not hard. And then you can experiment—this is what I like: you get to play around, mess around a little bit. You can put different colors, different embossments…

TYG-GD:  Did you stamp on one side and then punch it up?
Sandy:  Nope, it went through an embossing machine, like the Vintaj. If I’d chosen this side, and painted this side, see it’s debossed, down in there? Then there would be a lot of brass showing on top, and all the paint would be down in the bottom. It would be a different look but I wanted those little flowers to show. There are actually several layers of paint on there. […] And then Amanda Cargill Austin, the artist who came, she cut all these little pages for us. So we had mini-journals—people can use them for photo albums, or to write in, or for drawings. […]

TYG-GD:  So you had that, and what else you have?
Sandy:  Well let me think. We started off with two basket classes, market baskets like this [she shows us a basket with handle]. They actually all went to the farmers market at lunchtime on Sunday, and shopped with their new baskets. So I got a lot of feedback from people saying “Hey, I saw all those neat baskets that people made.” It was [awesome],  like a little parade. And then the next day, we did a small basket—Donna called it a napkin basket. It had a little cross stitch.

TYG:  […] It must have been great to hear people talking about your store.
Sandy:  It was! It made me feel good—getting the word out, so more people can come… [Bloom!] has changed a lot, every year it has grown. This is my fourth year, so word is spreading. So let’s see… I had the basket classes, the metal embossing, the fish printing [gyotaku with Marion Moir]… We have one about every week. Oh, and we had Soul Collage. This was collaging pictures onto cards, and trying to find pictures that were significant, that meant something personally to you. That was led by a friend [Sandy Short] who has just become certified in this process—it’s kind of like self-discovery art. It was very interesting. People said it meant a lot to them.

TYG-GD:  It was well-attended?
Sandy:  Yes! We have a variety of people. Yesterday [for the gyotaku class] was probably the most mixed. We had two or three couples, husbands and wives, who came together; we had one person who brought her father, who was—I think—90 years old (he did really well. I’m going to post some pictures on Facebook, and he will be in a lot of them); people from out of state—I would say half the people are from out of state—tourists on vacation, or friends of friends. For example the 90-year-old person came from Colorado Springs and she’s actually from Kansas City, Missouri. We have a lot of people from Arizona, we had somebody from Seattle—so, coming from all over! And then the people connect—they talk, and connect.

TYG:  You did such a good job decorating this place!
Sandy:  Thank you!

TYG:  Where did you get the idea for the Pueblo style yellow painting on the walls?
Sandy: I cannot take credit for that: that was Zeora [of Gentle Dragon Massage]. In fact, she had a sale that I saw posted on Facebook, where she was selling this [stack of shelves] from her new studio, and I bought it, and she delivered it. I was in Phoenix the whole time. So when we arrived, there it was. And you can see how she painted it to match. And I still have a lot to unpack. We have been so busy! I bring a lot of materials with me from my home studio.

TYG-GD:  How do you travel?
Sandy: We have a Prius, and I PACK it. At home, I’ll fill up a couple of tables like this with everything that I want to bring, and then my husband, who loves puzzles, figures out how to get it into the car! [laughter] And somehow he manages, every time!

TYG: Maybe you should get a Prius plus, because they’re much bigger!
Sandy: I know! We’re actually looking at that.

TYG-GD:  How long will you be offering classes here?
Sandy:  Until October 1.

TYG:  Will there be another basketweaving class after August 19?
Sandy:  There might be one. There is a woman who is a Native American basket weaver, Brenda Brainard, who has come to all these classes, and now she wants to offer one. We just have to find a date for her. She prepares cedar. So she’s going to show us how to prepare cedar strips. She makes baskets, and she also makes roses and hearts that people buy for decoration. Can you imagine the aroma from that cedar smell? That would be great.

And I have to say, one of the things that really attracts people are my driftwood flowers, which we made this kind of just for fun from driftwood that we found.

TYG-GD: Did you make the ones at the Village Bean?
Sandy: No, but I did see those, and I thought well, we want to make our own. We’ve been collecting driftwood here and there, and I wanted purple… I thought we’d offer a workshop, but so far, nobody has taken me up on it.

TYG: I’d like to!
Sandy:  You would like to? You have to drill it, and wire it up, and you can paint them any color you want. I’ve got red, yellow, purple…

TYG:  I actually have some tool experience, because I have my own full toolkit.
Sandy:  Oh great! You know what happens? People just come back and say: “Can I just buy one?” [laughter] it turns out really there was another artist in town who makes the yellow ones, and when she moved a couple of years ago, she asked me whether I wanted the rest of her driftwood pieces. So I bought a box full of driftwood that she couldn’t use. So maybe I will post a class and we’ll see…

TYG:  I’ll be there! As long as it’s not [during the time we’re traveling.]
Sandy:  It won’t be then, because we have one on the ninth, and then I have a really big one coming up August 17. That’s the encaustic wabi sabi. Do you know what wabi sabi is?

TYG:  No…
Sandy:  Well, it’s a Japanese term, and let me show you… This is the artist’s book [Wabi Sabi: Art Workshop, by Serena Barton. 2013.] And it just came out. It’s a fantastic book. Serena Barton is an encaustic artist. She uses hot wax, beeswax, oil pigments… And you paint with it. It’s a very ancient [art]. You find it in old Greek tombs, and people used to do their portraits in it. I love working with the wax. But what she’s done now, is taking some of those classic things, and combined it with a lot of mixed media technique. And wabi sabi is a Japanese term that means finding beauty in imperfection. We like that, right? [laughter] [shows us some pictures] lots of layers, lots of texture, lots of color… This is going to be so exciting. And then were going to have a reception for her, because she’s going to bring some of her work. And Steve Dennis, who owns all of this, and Earthworks, said I can use that front building for the reception and an exhibit. So Serena Barton will be there, and she’s going to bring some of her books. The sign-up is limited to eight people, and the class is $135, because she supplies everything. And encaustic wax and all this is very expensive. […]

TYG-GD:  Do you rent this place in the winter?
Sandy:  Just for storage. […] We have one more encaustic artist I should mention: Lisa Marie Sipe. I met her in Phoenix, and took an encaustic class with her there. I’ve been to a lot of her shows. She moved to Bend, and so I told her “You know, Yachats is not that far! Would you like to come over and teach a class?”  So she is coming over the weekend after Labor Day and teaching a class [September 7, 10-4, $110]. She has a different approach. You know, Serena has a mixed-media approach. Lisa Marie is more classic in the way she approaches her process, but her paintings, when they’re finished, are very, very contemporary, like modern abstracts, like a Picasso. But even more minimalist than that. She almost does sculptures with this wax painting. It’s really fascinating.

TYG:  Sounds almost like a 3-D printer, because they use hot wax to replicate shapes.
Sandy: I was just reading about that.

TYG:  There’s already a company doing that, making 3-D printers. They’re almost like replicators. Personally, I think that two or three more steps, and will have replicators, just like in Star Trek, that can replicate matter out of thin air.
Sandy: [laugher]  I can’t even envision how this happens. Here I am, playing with mud and paint and wax, and you guys are concocting these unimaginable inventions.

TYG-GD:  Where do you see the business going from here?
Sandy:  That’s a good question. I’m not sure. I had a five-year plan, and I’m in my fourth year. I’m really enjoying it and it is growing…

TYG:  Don’t stop now!
Sandy: One thing that really strikes me here is the community spirit. I’ve had such good feedback. People been so supportive, very encouraging, even people who can’t make the classes for whatever reason—because of schedule, money, or whatever—they still are very encouraging. That means a lot to me. That’s one of my purposes really. I’m not doing this for financial gain. I’m not making any money. [laughter] What I charge basically is what the artist’s fee is, and then I add a little bit for the studio, to help pay the electricity and that.

TYG:  And the rent.
Sandy:  Yes, and the rent. It doesn’t quite cover that, but… That’s part of my contribution to the community. I feel like this is something that I really enjoy and I’m giving back to the Yachats community. And we’ve been coming here for years and years. This is like our second home. We started about 22 years ago.

TYG:-GD: The question is, why do you ever go back [to Phoenix, AZ]? 
Sandy: [laughter] You think it’s too hot! I love it in the winter in the desert. So I’ve got the best of both worlds for me right now.

TYG:  About the positive feedback thing? I think one of the main reasons is because the town is almost entirely retired mathematicians and science professors, and especially teachers, this just what they had to do for their work. So they’re just fitting in that way and never lost that aspect of their personality of constant encouragement.
Sandy:  Ah, I see. And I think a lot of people are at a stage of their life where they want to try something different, and that maybe they’re interested in art. Now they have the time… You move into different stages of life and you say “Well, what do I want to do now?” It’s a constant life learning thing.

Thank you for interviewing me. I like your paper a lot.

TYG:  Thanks! It’s weird, because they go so fast, we’re starting to wonder whether they are being used for fire cooking! [laughter all around]

The Yachats Gazette regrets that the second part of our interview with Julie Davies of the Yachatian Station can no longer be included in this issue because her store lost its lease, and she has been forced to close. We are sorry for this necessary omission.