Oregon Art Beat; #227

Tonight on Oregon Artbeat, meet some musicians on a mission. The Oregon Symphony's Besoon Brothers use a sense of humor to gain attention for this often misunderstood instrument. We'll get in on the fun. We'll see how Joshua Green, son of fame celebrity photographer Milton Green, is using computer technology to restore thousands of his dad's pictures, including the most famous photos of Marilyn Monroe. Then we're off to Hood River to see the world's largest collection of carousel animals, and we'll go behind the scenes to watch Crasman carve a new life for some long neglected animals. Oregon Artbeat is next. Support for Oregon Artbeat has been provided by the following, the James F. and Mary and L. Miller Fund. The Oregonian, where arts week faithfully appears every Sunday. The Gail M. Nelia State. O. B. Media, proud to support arts in Oregon, and A. K. Media, proud to help bring the arts to our community. Good evening. I'm Mike Pipi, along with Casey

Cowan. Thanks for tuning in to Oregon Artbeat. We're just two weeks away from our Oregon Artbeat special, two hours of some of your favorite stories, plus some brand new features, including a story on a local woman who paints icons. That's all June 21st at 8 o 'clock, so we hope you'll tune in. Do you know what a bassoon looks like? Or even how it sounds? Well, if not, you're in good company. Bassoon players sometimes call it the Rodney Danger Field of Instruments, because it doesn't get much respect. But a small group of musicians is out to change all of that. They hope to shift the image of the bassoon from the clown prince to the crown prince of the orchestra, all by poking fun at its image. Melissa Mills chronicles the unlikely rise of the Oregon Symphony's bassoon brothers. This is a quartet of bassoon believers,

classical musicians, so devoted to this instrument that they have worked and played together for 16 years. Yet all confess, it's been an unlikely love affair. If there is anybody who started out to play the bassoon, I don't know who that is. Nobody else played it in school, and I'd never seen one before. It's the Rodney Danger Field Instrument. And the bassoon players don't tend to get too much respect. And my parents said, you're going to play the bassoon. I had to look it up in the Encyclopedia. I was unhappy. But if it wasn't love at first sight, it was love at first sound. There was a guy sitting next to me with this bright red bassoon, and out of my left ear all the time I was hearing this wonderful sound. Around the same time the Alfred Hitchcock television show had their theme played by a bassoon ensemble. And I heard that, and the combination of those two things made me want to play the bassoon. To musicians and

composers, the curious -looking instrument is by turns comical and captivating. So if you have something like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, and you think about Mickey Mouse and the brooms and all of that, you'll get this one. And that goes on. And then you take something like Chekowski's Sixth Symphony, which starts with a bassoon soul. Of course, all the great pieces start with a bassoon soul, don't you know. And it's very low and somber and soft, and sounds something like this. Composers from Chekowski to Mozart have turned to the bassoon for both its humor and its haunting quality. Listen closely to any symphony orchestra, and you'll hear one or two bassoons at work. They're most often in the baseline of an arrangement, just under the smaller woodwinds. Yet, despite

its devoted fans and distinguished musical history, the bassoon suffers from an identity crisis. He plays the oboe, they'll say. You'll say bassoon, and then later when you're introduced by that same person who you told what you're playing, they'll usually say he plays the oboe. The quartet decided it was time for gentility to give way to a little gorilla marketing. Meet the bassoon brothers and their soul as an only sister. They're wanted for low down playing and bass behavior. Quartet members are not only shaking up their image, they're showing up in places bassoons that probably never been. They play music in jails and nursing homes, community centers, and concert halls. And at each stop, they have a little fun with what remains an essentially classic repertoire. This is a very serious piece that actually comes up about 300 years ago. This is called Concerto La Fenix.

And we're not poking fun at classical music necessarily, but we're having fun with classical music. Still, it's not your average classical concert, and that, of course, is the whole point. By the time the group arrives at the blues classic Night Train, the audience is having as much fun as the quartet. In this case, a trombone slide attached to a bassoon becomes an entirely new kind of instrument, the trombone. I really enjoyed that. I really enjoyed showing what the bassoon can do to people who many of them had never even seen one before. They come up to us afterwards and they said, you know, I came here not expecting to enjoy myself, but I really did because you guys are having fun. They're funny. I like their hats. They should come more often. They should give us lessons.

In the end, the bassoon brothers hope to offer enjoyment and perhaps even a little inspiration. We hope that in the future, that in the middle schools in Portland, and certainly in the high schools, there'll be at least two bassoon players in every band. At the very least, the players hope next time audiences see a bassoon, they'll not only recognize it, but recall the instrument's influence. And that whether listeners prefer the art of Mozart or the beat of the blues, they'll remember it's the oon in bassoon that helps make the most of the music. The bassoon was once so popular that Bavaldi wrote 37

concertos for it, but only the bassoon brothers would attempt a bassoon -only version of Jimi Hendrick's purple haze. Catch the bassoon brothers next fall in a special concert with a symphony, and Mark is playing with the chamber music Northwest this summer. One of the things we found in producing art beat is just how many world -class artists and performers make their home right here in Oregon. Tom Dantoni joins us now with a story about one street -wise New Yorker who's set up shop in Florence. And a world -class street -wise New Yorker too, as you'll see. You know, we like to think of photography as a way of recording history as well as an art form, but until recently it was nearly impossible to restore photographs that had faded and changed color. The son of one of the world's most famous photographers has devoted his life to preserving great pictures, and he lives in Oregon. Let's meet him. America thought she was the most beautiful woman on earth. They knew her through her movies, but also through photographs. The dashing young man with her hair was her photographer Milton

Green, one of the best -known photographers of the 1950s and 60s, and the one who captured Marilyn Best. These wonderful pictures of her, and in fact many photographs of the greatest stars of the era, would be lost, faded, destroyed, where it not for Milton Green's son Joshua, who lives in Florence on the Oregon coast, along with 300 ,000 of his dad's negatives. Yeah, I asked myself as you are now, what's a street -wise New Yorker doing in Florence? I joined the witness protection program. I was raised in the country. I was raised in Weston, Connecticut. I grew up there, and at around 10 years old my parents decided to move full -blown to New York City, and it was like all of a sudden I was thrown into Westside's story. And after years of therapy, I learned that after I loved New York and it was great, it was a great way to grow up, but my heart was in the country. Before we find out how Joshua found the

process that would save all of his father's work, let's take a look at some of Milton Green's greatest hits. Life magazine asked Milton to photograph the Marlena Dietrich in 1952. This image was selected one of the 100 photographs of the 20th century. This is my father's sweater and hat. I still have the sweater to this day. I don't have the hat, however. And this picture became one of the family's favorite, one of his mom's favorite, Sinatra's mom's favorite picture. She always kept it on the mantle. It's all here in what was formerly a cold storage locker, just off

Highway 101. All of the negatives and the task that Joshua has devoted his life to, restoring photographs. Since my father was Milton Green, I started with his collection because that's how I knew it was needed. All of his pictures from the late 40s and 50s are completely unusable photographically. Just as your wedding pictures or your class pictures when you were a kid, you know, they fade, they turn magenta on the wall. Well, the same thing happens with actual transparency film. Joshua was his dad's apprentice. They both knew that the photos were doomed and they did everything they could to save them. As early as the mid 70s, my father and I tried the photographic methods of restoration, which in those days was to reproduce film to another transparency, to make a dupe transparency, and use filters literally to try to enhance or add back the color that has faded

away. With the advent of the Macintosh, we were able to start doing digital work on a whole different plane where we can clean up pixel by pixel, dot by dot line by line. We isolate the areas of the image in a masking form. We actually separate the sweater from the legs, the hands, or the skin area. Sometimes the lips and the eyes have to be separated out. With each one of these things in layers, I can go address them in a color sense differently. Is there some father and something that happens? There is always a father and something. I mean, Milton was my best friend growing up. We boated together. We fished together. We took pictures together. I worked for him. I printed for him since I was 11 years old in the dark room. I ran a studio as a teenager as my summer job, so to speak. What kind of guy was he? Very sincere. Never stood on ceremony. Funny. Quiet in a way. Shy and humble.

In the final analysis, no matter how many other great photographs are in his catalog, Milton Green is best known for his pictures of Marilyn Monroe. They were partners. They were friends. There was an intimate relationship of four and a half years where they helped each other and did some great work together. Did she play with you when you were a kid? I had the good fortune of being played with as a child, but I mean, you're talking about a four -year -old who gets tickled and bubble baths and pillows and gets chased around the furniture kind of thing. It was just innocent play, but it was wonderful. Why is this image indoor so long? Marilyn has endured because she died young. She was beloved. And I believe that she always held a place in everybody's heart for being a compassionate being. And there's a certain amount of mystery and intrigue around her death, which I guess helps also attract

a certain amount of attention. I don't buy into that routine. I don't care for the death scenario. I really think of her more from the point of view of the lively person that represents heartfelt human nature, good, good -natured human -ness. Joshua also has a thriving business mounting shows of his dad's photographs. Currently, he has a Marilyn Monroe show that opened in Tokyo in mid -March and will be traveling throughout Japan over the next year and a half. In May, the book Milton's Marilyn was reissued. The book focuses on the four -year relationship between Milton and Marilyn. It contains 214 photographs which were restored by Joshua and were published for the first time. Oh, Tom, they're really wonderful. Now does Joshua restore pictures from other photographers? He's branching out in that direction with 300 ,000 of his dad's negatives. That's his main focus. But there's such a need for this kind of restoration. He's taken on other photographers' work. It's like restoring a movie prints. You know, it's a real race

against time. Because they're just deteriorating. Now can we see a show of Milton's photographs anywhere? I thought you'd never ask. The Benham Gallery in Seattle will show his work in September and Joshua will give a talk. Also, you can call them at 206 -222 -24804 details. Great. Thanks very much, Tom. As unlikely as it may sound, the largest collection of carousel animals in the world is located in Hood River. The International Museum of Carousel Art is in Hood River simply because that's where the owners wanted to live. But why did they decide to collect and restore carousels in the first place? You have Douglas headed out to Hood River to find out. Visitors have to look around Hood River a bit to find the Carousel Museum in an unmarked old bank building. Once inside, they are taken back to a world of memories of the first amusement ride. Most of the people that we attract are people who just have a fawn feeling for carousels. And that's just about everybody. And then you pull the other way. Dwayne Parent loves to help people relive their memories,

complete with authentic sound. This is the musical instrument they had for carousels and roller rinks. It's a 153 Whirlitzer. It's the next to the biggest Whirlitzer they made. And this is what it sounds like. This is what it sounds like. It was an essence to give you five minute fantasy. That's why the horse is someone who carved as armored horses. If you wanted to be a knight or if you wanted to be a princess, you'd ride a horse like that. If you wanted to be a cowboy, you'd get on a cowboy horse. Dwayne says most horses were done by three carvers with the work divided by the amount of detail. So the master carver always did the head and the journeyman always did the body and the beginners did the legs. And this is a very, very fancy English horse with Gaelic riding on it. The other side is really quite plain because the viewer never saw it. Somebody will come in here one of these days

and tell us what it means. This is the most patriotic American horse ever carved. That's the American eagle and the American flag. It's not painted. This is the most patriotic horse ever carved in England. If you look at that, it has the fissile and the shamrock and the rose, which is for England, Ireland and Scotland and the National Animal and the Union Jack Flag. For Dwayne and his wife Carol, the international museum of carousel art is the result of a hobby begun years ago that kind of got out of hand. I just wanted one horse and we were into antiques and being an animal person I suppose had something to do with it. She wanted one and we ended up with 750. The collectors want the big fancy ones and they go in price anywhere from $2 ,000 to $100 ,000. Ironically, the collecting craze which hit in

the 70s put many operating carousels out of business. Owners made more money selling individual horses than they could running the merry -go -round. The parents went the other direction, restoring entire carousel and putting them back in operation across the country. These carousels to us are like 14 -year -old daughters. We won't let anybody near them. We take the money that comes from them, comes in here, we pay all the bills, anything left over, we restore another carousel. That's the whole mission. We had 5 ,000 carousels in this country and there's only 125 left. Because of the pressure of keeping a carousel running, operators generally resorted to quick fixed repairs on the animals. But at the carousel museum, Wayne gets some help from volunteers, painstakingly restores every animal. This is a little board that is pretty rotten in the middle. Now the question is, do you take off this board, put in a new piece and recarve it. Probably would be the strongest, but I

don't want to lose all of this original contouring that they've had. So what I've decided to do on this piece, I think it's salvageable and what I'm doing now is putting an epoxy into this wood, I'm going to rebuild this middle back up. Now these legs are all behind you and hooves and stuff and tails that are in the thing. Do you know what all those go to? Yeah, it would be like if you had an old Ford factory and you had a bunch of vendors and so forth. This is a parker tail. This is a new parker tail and I'll put this in a parker downstairs in the storage area that's here's an original parker tail. And these are all, they will go on back on the horses that we have, you know, I have a lifetime of restoration to do here. So the areas too rotten to save have new wood added and are recarved to match the original. Okay, now this is an example. This is a Philadelphia DeBoggin company horse made in

1906. This is a new little piece here and as you look here, this is a new piece of mane and this is a piece of mane and the ears are new and look at this little piece of mane we put in this little piece over the eye, this little tiny piece here and then the whole nose. And they say, wow, that's really a nice horse. Well, that horse was resurrected from that just that pile of scrap that you might even not even want to worry about, but that's what we're here and that's what we're all about. In the beginning, Carol helped restore the animals. Now she concentrates on supplying the finishing touches. I would rather paint than then restore. So then I've painted about 325 or something like that. If you need to paint a horse, they come alive at that point. They gain a personality. When you choose your paint colors, are you trying for an authentic color or...? No, I don't. A lot of people do.

If we had original paint, of course I wouldn't touch it because it is more valued that way. After you get one all finished, is it hard to let it go out? Yeah, it is. It is because they're so brown and so special. And of course you put many, many, many hours into it and I name them all and you know all of that stuff. So yeah, it is tough. Eventually, Dwayne and Carol hope to have a full size working carousel at the Hood River Museum. For now, they have this amazing hand cranked antique. This carousel is made in about 1890 in England. It's all hand -done. All of the metal work is hand forged. All this artwork is all original. Isn't that just the most marvelous thing you've ever seen? Oddly enough, Mary Go -Rounds didn't begin as pure amusement. The carousel actually was originated in Persia as a war game for children. They

put them on suspended logs and spin them and then they tried to lance a ring. The recreational carousel with carved animals developed in Europe. This was a traveling machine. You can set this machine up in about two hours. So they would take this right into the neighborhood and they would set it up on holidays and on weekends. This is the second stage of carousels. The first stage was powered by a horse in a pit. The second stage was powered by man. After the man came the steam and then after the steam engine came electric motor. In fact, it was electric trolley companies looking for weekend riders that led to development of the large American carousel. They'd buy the land at the end of the trolley line put in a park. So therefore the people would ride to the park on the weekends. Well, in a park you needed some amusement. So the only amusement ride was a carousel. So that's why our carousels became so much more wonderful in the European carvings because our carvings got bigger and bigger and they were

located in facilities that protected them from the weather. Americans also changed the way carousels rotated. Americans went this direction and European went this direction. And the reason for that's not because they drove on the other side of the road. It's because we originated the brass ring game. So as a result, America machines had to be going this way because Americans are right handed. However, the proper side of the horse to present to the rider is the left side. This is the side of the horse you're supposed to get on. So they wanted to present that side to them. So in America we were interested in a free ride and in Europe they were interested in the propriety of the situation. Hey Dave, the carousel is right around the turn of the century. It started about 1876. It went right up to 1929. The reason it quit in 1929 is because of depression. The depression put all the carvers out of business because no one was spending that kind of money on amusement rides. When the economy got back on its feet, aluminum and fiberglass replaced the old hand

carblents. Because of the work of Dwayne and Carol Perrin, hundreds of carousel horses have not only been saved, they've been given a chance to ride again on working carousels. A trip down the stairs to the museum basement shows how much work is left, hundreds of horses waiting for their turn. They kind of find us now because we're well known enough that if anybody has anything significant for sale, they get in touch with us. Well you know when we started, I was bound to determine I was going to paint every horse in our collection. And of course now there's no way with my time left that that will ever happen. But yeah there's a lot of horses down there, I still want to paint. They have a better chance of going back on the carousel and going round and round than most do. One of the ironies of this story is that the parents could make a lot more money by selling off the collection than they could by

operating the carousels and the museum. But they'd rather try to raise funds to pay off the museum mortgage so that the collection can stay intact. You can visit the International Museum of Carousel Art at 304 Oak Street in Hood River or find out more about them on their website www .carouselmuseum .com One hardly needs an excuse to go to the coast, but this year the Cascade Head Music Festival is celebrating its 15th anniversary in Lincoln City. The festival starts June 14th and runs through the 30th. Among the artists is Robert Levin, one of the most recorded pianists in America. You can buy individual tickets for the six different shows or a complete book of six. Go to www .CascadeHeadMusic .com for information. If you enjoy the art of writing, check out the Valley Calligraphy Guild's new show at Mount Angel Abbey Library Gallery. The show runs all this month and the gallery is open from 1030 to 430 daily. Now all the galleries have new shows for the month and you may want to check out artist Elyma

Considine's show after the baby. It's an exploration into newtons. It's at Regenerate. That's a cultural and healing art center in the Everett station lofts. And that's our show for tonight. Next week we'll introduce you to a man who has combined the art of music and sculpture. We'll also find out why some of the world's finest classical musicians choose to spend five weeks in Portland every summer. And wider riders both novice and well -known flock to allow a county each year. We'll tell you next week. Some of you may remember Dahlia. It's an electronic music group. We featured on Oregon Artbeat this year. Well, the group's getting ready to release a new CD. The release party will be June 19th at OM. That's on Northwest First. We'll leave you tonight with some more of their unique music. Thanks for watching. Good night. Thank you very

much. Thank you very much. Support for Oregon Artbeat has been provided by the following. The James F. and Marion L. Miller Fund. The Oregonian,

where arts week faithfully appears every Sunday. The Gail M. Nelia State. OBE media, proud to support arts in Oregon. And AK media, proud to help bring the arts to our community. Thank you. Thank

you. Thank you. Thank you.