Oregon Art Beat; #1029; Kathy Deggendorfer

Okay, is this Rebecca? Yes. What happened to her? Did the craver want to do the panko? Are we in your space now? No, she's going to walk to you. Okay. Okay, do you want me to be doing something? No, just walk over. Okay. Okay. You ready? Yep. Okay. This is a cramp. Where are the, where are the purple circles that go with that? I don't know. Oh. You need to put the eyeballs more up like that. I had a big

discussion about this. And I think we got them upside down, and then we decided we liked that better anyway. So that works. We looked and looked at all the pictures. Purple dots. That is really hideous. Oh my god. Yeah, but the more hideous the better. Purple. That's the thing. Purple. You know, they're like the little things that go at the end of your ski rack so you don't bump your head. The tennis ball? Yeah. Only purple. It's not like this. Yeah, the kind of extended eyeball up there looks sort of looks like a olive. Like an olive. Yeah, like it should be a martini. Maybe it actually would

be a martini. Crab martini. A crab martini? You could garnish it with, um, I don't know. I'd say the crab eyes. I'd say the crab eyes. If it, uh, all of you could, uh, with, um, it would be good. No, this is a, a fateful purple slap. We garnish it with, I don't know, this looks like a little cyclopic. Very nice. Too far. Too much. This one has no connections to it. Claws. Abbie. That's nice. Yeah. Because it kind of ties back

in with the legs. Right. Yeah. Very cool. Really? That doesn't look like an olive. No, but we don't care. I like the gold. Okay. So Kathy, tell me a little bit about your art background. You are self -taught. I am self -taught. Um, you know, I grew up, my mom was an art major. And so we always had paint brushes. I think down at our beach house, we probably have about 8 ,000 painted rocks. So it started there. I just, I love to paint. I love to doodle. You don't want to be sitting across from me at a board meeting because I'll be doing sketches of you. And probably not such a great light. But, yeah. I like to, I like to do that. I love watercolor. I love the effect that the paint itself uses. And so, yeah. I just like it. I mean, one target.

Goodness. Water? Yes. One quick sip. Basically, self -taught. You don't have a degree in art? I don't. I have a really salable degree from University of Oregon, a home of water, in medieval English with a minor in Italian. So I can say, would you like fries with that? In multiple languages and old English as well. So how did you become the successful artist you are? You know, I, I've always painted. I, you know, did it as gifts for people. I did cards. I did, you know, lots of things like that. And then when my daughter was born, I wanted to take some time off from selling real estate. And so I started doing some children's books. So I wrote and illustrated a book for the hospital here in Bend. And then I also illustrated for a couple other children's writers. And I used to show my work up at Younglands back in the day in Portland. And so I started doing that and just really liked it. And then took off on a couple other different careers. And then when we, we

lived in Bend, sold our business. And I just decided to start painting full time. And ran into the folks at High Desert Gallery, just having some pieces framed for myself. And they said, wow, you ever sell anything? Yeah, sometimes. And so just started painting with them. And it was great. I could just paint whatever I wanted. And I ended up sort of journaling what's around me. You know, I guess like they tell a good writer is good at kind of showing their pieces that have to do with their life and what they see on a daily basis. That's kind of what I think of myself as a painter. How would you describe your style? I think it's very colorful, obviously. Tell me. I think so. Colorful, very whimsical. I mean, how do you describe it? Yeah, I guess it is whimsical. It's a slightly stilted, contemporary bright. You know, I think it's, I don't, it's definitely not representational art. But it's also

not like, you know, there's no dripping clocks or anything like that. It's probably just like what it looks like from inside my head. What, you were saying how you see patterns? I do on a really good day, you know, oftentimes only walking along. Instead of seeing the trees or the bushes or the field as a solid matte color or, you know, just as what it is, I see the color and the light the way it plays. And it creates sort of like little boxes or little triangles around here. It's a lot of triangles. We have the mountains, pine trees kind of look like triangles. We have a lot of triangles. And you love to paint the mountains. I do. You know, it's like when somebody takes a flash photo of you and that image sticks in your eyes kind of... You know, I think that's the way it is for the mountains for me. It's like I have that image in my head and oftentimes I need to just paint it to like express that. And you know, sometimes it switches back and forth. But the mountains are pretty

prominent in our lives, your insisters. So how many years now have you been working as an artist full -time? You know, about nine, I think. And, you know, really just putting more heart and soul into it, feeling like I could, you know, buy more than two sheets of watercolor paper at once. Your work is, especially when you're kind of working with Tony, she's saying how she kind of sees quilting that you paint almost like a quilter quilts. Yeah. You know, I always wanted to be able to quilt. I love fabric growing up in a manufacturing family. We had a lot of fabric around and we were always talking to fabric reps and, you know, color. And it was always pretty much took up most of our lives. And I had an aunt that lived for many years in Denmark. And she used to send this terrific fabric back. And it was great colors and shapes. I don't know, I was really intrigued with it, but it totally skipped a generation for me

to be able to do anything with a sewing machine. I had some pretty dreadful times in high school trying to be in homec class. And so it doesn't mean that you don't love something like that. So oftentimes when I'd see things and I see all this patterning, it would just end up that the pieces looked like quilts. And so having moved to sisters where everything is all about quilts, I got to meet other people. And I was at happen to be at the quilt show, which is always the second weekend of July. Yeah. And Tony actually had a show. She was one of the featured quilters. And I walked by, it was just like phenomenal. I mean, her choice of colors, the way she put things down, it was just so much like what I would have hoped I could do. So I kind of hung around and hung around and hung around and finally introduced myself. And it ended up that her sister had actually bought a piece of mine at the gallery. And so she knew my work. And so I kind of roped her into

by harassing her continually to get her to work with me. And it's been just a blast ever since then. What do you like about the collaboration about the partnership? You know, oftentimes working as an artist is pretty singular life. You're pretty much focused and you get these ideas in your head that, oh, maybe I'll work those things out through the paint and paintbrush. And then you need some feedback sometimes. But oftentimes coming back from a painter, they're actually talking to you about the way you apply the paint on the paper or, you know, it's not about the spirit of the thing. And so Tony and I just seem to have this kind of connection. So she'll come in one morning with some piece that she's done. And I'll just like, wow, and I look at the shape and the line and think, I'm going to recreate that with a paintbrush. And then also because she lives out in Camp Sherman and we have a cabin out there that we love to go to, some of the images that we have in our head are sort of the same. She's got

a yellow lab that lives next door. I have a yellow lab grand dog. We are basically always covered with yellow lab dog hair. So that's good. That's kind of like a permanent part at any piece that we do pretty much. So you've been collaborating not that long actually. Just like maybe two and a half years. We started with the piece from that Miss Dottie series, which every year, there's here in Sisters, we have a gathering of artists called My Own Two Hands. And it's a way to kind of have a booster club for the arts that we help support art and music in the schools and in the community through this community art auction. And so I had done a piece from our cabin in Camp Sherman and I approached Tony and I said, oh, it'd be so great if you would just do a very, very small quilted piece to go on the bottom to kind of compliment that. And I'd actually kind of gotten the idea from some of those wildlife stamps where the painter does a piece and then in the corner actually fit into the mat is like a carved feather or another piece like that. So it's a mixed,

media thing that actually framed together. Oh, this would be terrific. You know what a better place to do that then? Sisters and what better thing then to have somebody like Tony who's really truly a master quilter. And it's been well -received. Oh, it just went, everybody went crazy. I don't think we've ever sold anything for higher price and it was wonderful. And so from that, we decided to do a series of five pieces. And so we did that. That was two years ago and that's the Miss Doddy does summer in Sisters. It's seen and she has her faithful dog, Yellow, the Yellow Lab. It has to go with her all places. And then this last year we did another series of five pieces that were kind of based on the idea that everyone here in Sisters is so completely immersed in the quilting world that even the animals we begin to be quilted. So we have a couple images of you know a goose running down the road who's done in the wild geese pattern. Oh, okay. And the owl that sitting over top of

these really cute little pine cones and he's got the sawtooth pattern. So it's been fun. We have a great time with it. Now how did the farming practices project begin? Well, actually I got invited to go to a thing back in Illinois called the Art in Agriculture. And it was a community that's getting together and they bring 50 artists in from the United States. And it's actually a really terrific program that helped them get more sculpture in their community. And yours to stay with the farm family. So I went back and the people were more than gracious. It was wonderful. But it was a whole experience about corporate farming. And it was pretty disturbing because I guess I just didn't even realize you know when you go and buy corn that's raised in Iowa. I thought it would be great. But they put a lot of fertilizer on those fields, a lot of chemicals. And a lot of the communities have kind of fallen apart because corporate farmers farm in huge scale.

So we've stayed in this terrific farm that had been in this family for over 100 years. And I went out for a walk in the morning and there was a house on every 60 acres. Beautiful places. No one there. Not a soul. I kept hearing these noises up the road so I walked maybe three miles up the road. And it was a corporate hug farm. And they were self feeding. They had automated feeders. So it's like there was no one there anymore. The town, like the roofs of some of the buildings that caved in. And it was just kind of like an eye opening experience. And I had come back and I went up to Dundee and where I was doing a project up there. For land winery painting on location there. And I ended up meeting Susan Sokolblosser and a few other people, the derands from Red Ridge Farm. And they invited me back along with a group of other painters. And it was just such a contrast about how they just had this love of the land and how they really treat the land in a totally different way. And they think about the consumer in a totally different

way. It's not that the folks back there in the Midwest are, you know, in some way less. But it's just a whole different way of living. So I thought, you know, this would be a really terrific project to go around and meet all these different farmers and ranchers. And really catalog what's different is that. I grew up kind of in a marketing background. And I can remember when Patagonia came out with their one catalog. And it was all these stories about how they person climbed Everest or did all these fabulous things wearing this park. And it was like not that the person reading it would ever get to do that. But it was the romance of the whole thing, the story about how those things were built. But you know, that's one thing maybe I could contribute to the Oregon agricultural scene. It's to look at farming in a whole different light from in terms of an artist perspective. And kind of write the story about what these people feeling are. So one of the examples would be I went out to the Hatfield Ranch, which is out in Brothers,

Doc and Connie Hatfield and their son Travis. They're just four of them out there running this 30 ,000 acre ranch. And it was such a wonderful experience, such beautiful country. And they are running these cows. The cows live almost twice as long as any other production cow. Because they really treat them well. And it's interesting that in terms of them looking at things with an artist eye, they actually bred this breed of cows. It's a Swiss and a couple other breeds. So that they would actually match the color of the sloughed hills out there. There's this red cinder. And that's actually what their thought was. It's like, oh, well, we should make them so that they really look great under complementary to the landscape. It's amazing. That's all hormone -free. If you want to give money to the environment, just buy

a stake from country natural beef. It's doing the same thing. Because those people have a total different way of the land, the way they do everything. They used a horse trainer to help them train the cows. So there's, you know, they just make three beeps on the horn. And the cows don't care where they are. They just come running for that truck. And they move in between the fields. It's really a wonderful thing. And they've done so much for the environment out there. So the art that you do, and I've seen the sketchbooks, are wonderful, is everything going to become a painting? Or is it you're just keeping them in the sketchbooks? What happens to it? You know, I'm kind of, I mean, the whole idea in the end would be that I would find maybe 12 to 15 wonderful farms and ranches. And then I would find 12 to 15 artists who would go to those places that I've already sort of pre -catalogged. They'd go out there. They'd actually do paintings on site. Then they'd come back and we would have this wonderful food fest, where the artists would show the work that farmer and rancher would be there, and a terrific chef would create this wonderful meal. And we

would do something that would help some statewide organization, like court appointed special advocates, or somebody like that. So it could be sort of a win -win win, and the artist could get some exposure. The ranchers and farmers could get some exposure. And it would be just a neat thing. And then hopefully we would put it into some kind of a tabletop book, or some kind of format that the Oregon State egg could use when they go like to the Pacific Rim to promote Oregon products. It would be just a different look than a typical photographer would do, and maybe have a story that would go with it. In the meantime, so that's what I'm doing. I'm kind of going out, and I'm checking out all these different places, and seeing who would be amenable to having an artist, and who has a story. And they also have to be producing, because you don't want to be advertising or promoting a product from someone who is not prepared to be able to answer the call, if people said, oh, man, I've got to have peaches from that place.

So it's not like you're trying to preserve the way they're farming. It's more like you're celebrating it. Celebrating telling their story. Just like I end up kind of telling the negative story about what's going on in Illinois. It's like I want to do the opposite here. I want to tell the story of why it's worth paying more money for strawberries from Leopold farms, because they actually taste like a strawberry. I'd rather eat fewer strawberries than the piece that tastes like wood. Looks great. Tastes like wood. There's just something, and if we don't support that, if we don't do anything about it, at the cash register going ahead and buying those products, all those things are going to go away. People can't afford to stay in business just because it's a lovely thing to do, or something their parents started in 1955. Yeah, they've bills to pay as well. So to me, it's sort of a neat thing. So in the meantime, what I'm hoping to do with my things

is I'm really thinking I want to do a book. And what I'm going to do is use that yellow dog. All that lab here is going to come and pay off, and have the little dog traveling around with this guy, going all different kinds of places. And that way, you could follow the dog's travels with the guy in the trucker, and what is a little car. Going out to the farms and boring, or going out to the brothers, or going down to the coast, and hopefully that will tie together the pieces that I'm doing. That would be a great idea. Yeah, I hope so. Oh, yeah. I would like that. It's okay. It's very dry air out here. I find myself coughing a lot here. So you are a rancher's wife? Is this a working ranch, a pleasure ranch? It's working for my husband. I even wrote a song about, you know, being a rancher's wife. It's like, I don't do much. I mostly paint. Yeah, my husband Frank does all the work around here. This is a historic ranch. It's the oldest homestead

in Dichutes County. We actually have the old homestead house down on the creek. And we heat farms all summer long. And we raise a type of roping cow called a Mexican coriante. And we have some horses. And we raise a little bit of hay. And this year we took a little pass because our daughter's getting married here. And she's getting married right in the middle of the hay field. And so we left the stand of grass up. So you'll be buying your hay this year. Yes. Now, some of your art has been used with connection with him clothing for Columbia Sportswear. How did you get that, Dick? They just must have discovered me somehow. Do I reveal that? Yes. Actually, Columbia Sportswear is my family's business. My mom, Gert Boyle, and my brother Tim, do a terrific job of running this company that my

grandparents started in 1937. And I actually, you know, I send my mom a greeting card. You know, I just paint up a little thing. And she's my best promoter. So she, one day, ran down to the art department and said, check this out. This would be so cute. We just did these. So they actually invited me to come in. And I go in sometimes twice a year and show my work. I used to body event. All I need to do is bring, you know, a few sketches or things like that. And they do wonders with the stuff. It's fun. So it's really great to see it reproduced. And of course, the family connection is really neat. And it's nice that I get to have some part in that business that we kind of grew up in. Kind of redeems the fact that you can't sew. That's right. They would not, it would be the demise of that business if they asked me to sew. So, let me go back a few steps about when you started, you know, working and doing more than just doodling on the margins of whatever.

Did you just say, hmm, water color seems the right thing for me? Or how did you stumble into that? I think I'm basically cheap. Water color is a fairly inexpensive medium to get started in. And once you find the value of buying a really terrific paintbrush and decent quality paints, you have, you know, all you really need to do anything with. And it's very portable. You like to travel. You know, we've spent quite a bit of time going to Europe. That's where I met my husband going to school in Europe. And so, you know, it's portable, easy. You don't have to worry about toxic fumes like you do from oil paint. And I'm way too messy to ever do oil pastel. That's a disaster. You have tried some other things. Oh, I have tried them. I think I have just one of everything. And do you want to make a blatant appeal for anybody who's got some of this special water color in the bottle? I do absolutely. My friend Carol Riley, who is one of my terrific mentors, introduced me to this terrific paint that's made, was made

in England called Luma. It's a liquid watercolor. You use it directly out of the bottle. Yeah. Anybody out there who has any, please, put me in your will. Because I think there's just me and a guy named Bill Bailey and a couple of other people who are still painting with it. It's terrific. I think it's so vibrant and it's just, I just, I love the way it works. And so I don't know what I'm going to do when I run out of that. I think she's, she's tried to find a few other things. But everything I tried just doesn't have the same quality. Is it completely stopped production now? Apparently. Yeah. I mean, so when one of us finds it anywhere at any, you know, like, strange outlet on eBay or whatever, we're all obligated to call the other people and say, I found some definitely yellow. And we all make a mad dash for it and have it shipped out here. Oh, my God. That's amazing. What inspires your most nature, obviously? I think nature. I like doing sketches of people and animals. But I think nature, you know, we

get up in the morning and walk down to feed my horse. And, you know, it's just like it's hard not to, like, just sort of soak all that in. And so, yeah, probably that. Anything else you want to tell us about your art that we haven't touched on? Let's see. Oh. Well, a Christmas ornament. Oh, that's right. That's right. We took pictures of it. We have to talk about it. We did, I know. I wouldn't get that gig. Well, you know, I always donate to the court of point as special advocates. The Casa Auction in Portland once a year. Because I think it's a really valuable organization. And one of the staff members from Gordon Smith's office bought a piece. I'm not sure if he's got it in his office, but I know Gordon had seen it from that. And so, and I have a tendency, like, pick up the phone, call the senator's office occasionally. If I think I see something that doesn't look quite right or I need some assistance with some not -for -profit here. Because I do a lot of work with not -for -profits. And so, he had seen the work. And when

he got, they asked, apparently, the White House sent out a call to every state to pick an artist. They were so kind to choose me. And so, yeah, so it arrived the other day in the mail. And it was just this huge silver plastic ball, which, you know, weren't working on flat surface all the time with watercolor. It was like, hmm, whole new medium. So, I'm gonna try and tie it with the whole Oregon specialty farming thing. So, I'm thinking it might be a very, very, very Merry -Berry Christmas this year at the White House. And I'm gonna try, and it's, because it's such a big piece, I'm gonna try and do the sort of west side of the mountains. And then maybe give a little shout out for the folks here on the east side as well. It must be kind of cool to think it'll be hanging on the tree. Yeah, I think so. I think it'll be pretty cool. It's quite an honor. I was very nice of them to choose me, and I'm hope I can do them proud, so. Good. All right. Anything else? Well, let's see. You have a great life. No,

I do, don't I? No, I just, you know, just support for anybody who wants to come to Sister's Folk Festival. It's a great thing, and I love the community of Sisters. It's a great artist community. A lot of support. A lot of support for the artist. There's a lot, and there's just so many wonderful people out there who have sort of, you know, they are artists in a whole different way. And I love meeting people who come here to kind of do their second part or their third part of their life, and they say, oh, yeah, well, I just happen to be a sculptor as well, as, you know, as being a nuclear physicist. So, yeah, it's a great community of events. Small enough so you really can make an effect here. So, yeah, I would say it's just some support for Sisters and what a great community is. And our Regional Arts Council is really terrific, too. So, art is central. And I've got the galleries you're in. Yep, some of the freedom. You mentioned you said that that all was silver. It's actually white. You covered with jessos? I did, because it was shiny silver,

plastic. So, I had to sand it down, take all the silver off, and then coat it with, I think it probably has about 15 coats of jessos on it right now. So, I just lost your battery. That's okay. Let's find that. Here? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, okay. Do you want me to be looking out in here?

Yeah. Yeah, you just gotta look at the flowers. Oh, there's a sound. Don't get sprinkled. Almost being sprinkled. Okay. Okay. Yeah, good thing. Okay. Okay. That's a really pretty poppy, right there.

That's a really pretty color. Yeah, occasionally I just look up at the mountains for me or something. Yeah. Over to your left just a little bit. Yeah, that's good, that's good. Now I'll come back to you right a bit. Yeah. Look up there and say, oh, look at the forest fires. I'll tell you what, and just look around. Okay. And then you'll fire.

A little to your left. Yeah. I just look out of the mountains there. Okay. Then walk out of frame. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Getting soaked. Yeah. I know you're coming this way, right? Let me come back.

Ready? Yep. Let's go. Can you never go ahead and just walk out to your right? Are we right? Yeah. Okay, I'm going to get free from this guy. Okay. Are you going to fly out? Are you going to get a fire?

No. Okay, now you can just head back the other way at the way you came. Okay. Can we go back out? Sure.

Here we go. And just looking around. Okay, here. Head about 15 seconds. Here comes Greg. And then lift your left. I got you right. And then walk out of frame.

No, because it was done in large format. And they have it. I have some images, but. Okay, that's fine. I hope the shadows are long, so I'm going to follow you. Okay. Bye.

And then look this direction. And then back. And then out of frame. And then back. And then back. And then back.

And then back. And then back.