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Along the Street: Prominent California impressionist setting up shop in McMinnville

Submitted photo##Artist Erin Hanson s paintings often feature subjects she s seen in the outdoors. She said she is looking forward to moving her studio to McMinnville, where she will be closer to nature.
Submitted photo##Artist Erin Hanson's paintings often feature subjects she's seen in the outdoors. She said she is looking forward to moving her studio to McMinnville, where she will be closer to nature.
Submitted photo##Hanson used her open impressionistic style to capture the light and mood in her painting of the  Oregon Cascades.
Submitted photo##Hanson used her open impressionistic style to capture the light and mood in her painting of the "Oregon Cascades."

Artist Erin Hanson, considered one of the leading contemporary impressionists in the country, is relocating her flagship gallery and studio to McMinnville .

Hanson paints in a style described as “open impressionism,” which, like the traditional French impressionism of Monet and Renoir, captures light and movement.

Open impressionism resembles the feeling of being outdoor, she said, by using “vibrant, un-muddied” colors applied with thick brush strokes that create texture. The color and texture “pulls the eye along in an every-moving dance within the landscape,” she said. 

A graduate of the Otis College of Art and the University of Califorinia-Berkeley, from which she received a degree in bioengineering, Hanson has been selling her paintings since she was 10; at 12, she worked as a muralist after school. She is proficient in oils, acrylics, watercolor, pen and ink and pastels.  

Hanson now has two galleries in California, in Carmel-by-the-Sea and in San Diego. She and her team plan to open a studio, gallery, office and production space in the industrial condos now under construction off ColvinCourt at the east end of the Industrial Park.  

The facility will produce books, calendars, and 2-D and 3-D prints, and will do canvas stretching and framing. Hanson said it will employ about nine people.  

A grand opening reception for the gallery is planned for April.  

Scott Cooper, executive director of McMinnville Economic Development Partnership, said he is excited to have Hanson choose McMinnville as her new home base. The artist will be “an amazing asset for our community,” he said.  

Hanson, in turn, said she is pleased to “escape into the beautiful nature of the Willamette Valley.”

“As an impressionist landscape painter, I have been used to driving for many hours to find scenery that I want to paint,” said Hanson, who frequently travels to Colorado for rock climbing and hiking that inspire her art.  

“Now the aesthetics of nature will be just outside my front door,” she said.  

Hanson’s work can be seen on her website, www.erinhanson.com.

 

Stimulus money

Financial benefits are flowing from the $2.3 trillion spending bill approved by Congress in late December, including a $920 billion stimulus package responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Americans nationwide have begun receiving direct stimulus payments of $600 per person — adults and children — reduced for those earning more than $75,000 per individual or $150,000 per married couple, and nothing for individuals earning more than $95,000.

Federal funding that expired in December now extends state unemployment benefits to mid-March, including an additional $300-per-week to people eligible for state benefits.

The bill includes $285 billion for Round 2 of the Paycheck Protection Program, which provides forgivable loans to small businesses and other entities. New PPP loans are available to recipients with 25-or-higher percent revenue reductions for a quarter in 2020. Loan forgiveness is reduced for recipients not meeting pre-pandemic employment levels.

Other major spending components of the federal bill include funds for COVID testing, vaccine development and distribution, and COVID protection for schools. The bill provided emergency rental assistance and adds one month to the eviction moratorium set to expire Dec. 31.

The bill reportedly includes grants to independent venues in the entertainment industry such as live music stages and movie theaters, and funds for state transportation programs, schools and food stamps. It also provides relief for patients billed at high out-of-network rates for treatments at an in-network facility.

Many observers believe there will be additional COVID stimulus legislation early in President-elect Joe Biden’s administration.

 

Wine photos

The Chehalem Cultural Center will host an artist’s reception tonight, Jan. 8, for its latest exhibit, Adrian Chitty’s photographs documenting a year of growing and producing wine.

“Transformations: A to Z Wineworks’ Artist in Residence — A Year in Review” will be on display through February.

CCC is closed because of the coronavirus pandemic. However, private viewings of the exhibits are available by appointment.

The virtual reception and question-and-answer session will start at 6 p.m. over Zoom. A link is available on the CCC website, www.chehalemculturalcenter.org.

Chitty said he started the project by creating a series of environmental portraits of winemakers. He wanted to celebrate their craftsmanship and “capture the grittiness and the physical work involved.”

A stay-at-home father who lives in McMinnville, Chitty is a former software engineer. This is his first public exhibit of photography, so it also represents a “transformation” for himself, as well as for the grapes and winemakers.

He is the first artist in residence at A to Z Wineworks. He spent 15 months chronicling the winemaking process through two harvests.

Newberg-based A to Z started in 2002 by two couples who were veterans of the Oregon wine industry, Deb and Bill Hatcher and Sam Tannahill and Cheryl Francis. In 2006, they were joined by winemaker Michael Davis and partner, and NBA coach, Gregg Popovich, and bought the former Rex Hill Vineyards facility.

Winery representatives said it started the artist-in-residence program because “it seems especially important now to support the liberal arts that help us find ways to expand vision and engage with diverse, thoughtful perspectives that help us grow as human beings.”

 

Wolf retrospective

Currents Gallery will feature “Riva Wolf, a Solo Retrospective Show and Sale,” Jan. 11 to Feb. 14. 

Wolf was born in Poland in 1933 and lived with her family in Paris until 1939. She was 6 when she last saw her mother, father and two brothers, who died at Auschwitz during the Holocaust; she and her three sisters escaped. 

Wolf, who died in November in Salem, said making art helped her express her feelings about her past. 

She started painting in the classic European tradition and produced a body of work reminiscent of the French “Fauvist” painters of the 1920s, but was also influenced by artists of the American Southwest. 

Between 1978 and 2002, her work was exhibited in 28 solo or group shows in New York, Mexico, California, New Mexico and Israel. Four of her pieces are now permanently displayed in YadVashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. 

For more information, go to currentsgallery.com, send email to currents.gallery@gmail.com, or call 503-435-1316. 

The gallery at 535 N.E. Third St., McMinnville, is open by appointment and from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.

 

Business tax rules

McMinnville Area Chamber of Commerce’s Business Support Series will feature an “Income Tax Law Update for Small Business & Individuals” on Jan. 26.

CPA Kathleen Bernards will speak at the webinar, which will run from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. Cost is $10 per person. To register, go to the Chamber website, mcminnville.org.

Bernards will discuss new federal and state tax laws and their impact on individuals and small businesses. A question-and-answer session will follow.

 

Speech clinic opening

Sensible Speech and Rehab is opening a speech and language pathology clinic in McMinnville.

Daniel Rhoads of McMinnville said the clinic will provide high-quality, evidence-based therapy to people of all ages with moderate to severe disabilities. 

Rhoads is a former speech-language pathologist with the McMinnville School District and Willamette Education Service District.

The clinic accepts the Oregon Health Plan, Medicare and private insurance such as Providence, Kaiser Permanente, Pacific Source and MODA.

The Sensible Speech and Rehab office is located at 220 N.E. Norton Lane in McMinnville. Hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. 

Appointments are required, along with coronavirus precautions such as masks. For an appointment, go to the website, sensiblerehab.com, or call 503-883-8250.    

 

OnPoint admiration

OnPoint Community Credit Union has been named one of Oregon’s “Most Admired Companies” by the Portland Business Journal for the 13th year in a row.

OnPoint, which has a bank in McMinnville, is the largest credit union headquartered in Oregon. It has outlets in 28 of Oregon’s 36 counties and two more in Southwest Washington.

The company ranked number five in PBJ’s financial services category. It was the only credit union named in this year’s financial services top 10, which also included banks and wealth management firms. 

 

Greeters meet online

Both the Greater McMinnville and the Chehalem Valley Chambers of Commerce resume Greeters programs this morning.

McMinnville Greeters will feature a Noble Pursuit and McMinnville Praise Church today. The event will run from 8 to 9 a.m. online. Check the Chamber website, mcminnville.org, for a link to the Zoom session.

McMinnville’s Jan. 15 Chamber Greeters will feature Sears. It also will run from 8 to 9 a.m.; go to the Chamber website to register, or ca ll 503-472-9771.

Newberg’s Chehalem Valley Greeters’ program today will be a “Friday Morning Forge” session. Business representatives will have a chance to speak briefly about their products and processes. 

The Jan. 29 Greeters program will feature Krohn’s Appliances. Programs for Jan. 15 and 22 have not yet been set.

Newberg Greeters events start at 8 a.m. via Zoom. To register and obtain the Zoom link, go to the Newberg Chamber website, at business.chehalemvalley.org, or call 503-538-2014.

To submit items for consideration in Along the Street, email news@newsregister.com, “Along the Street” in the subject line.

Comments

David S. Wall

Ms. Hanson's arrival to McMinnville serves to dispel the myth, "Californians are destroying Oregon."

Will 2021 be the year artisans of all genres experience a much overdue popular renascence with accompanying economic prosperity?

I sincerely hope so.

David S. Wall

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