I have been a participant artist in all of the “Art Contemplates Industry: Power House Art Jams” originally organized with by the Willamette Falls Foundation and later by the Estacada Arts Commission. Visiting at least six power houses, Sullivan Power Plant, the Hawley Power House, the Bull Run, Faraday, North Fork, and River Mill, I was thrilled, because this was an experience of personal significance to me, a turning point perhaps, as it put me in an industrial environment in close contact with the workers there, and enabling me to document buildings and structures that are often unrecognized and forgotten. Charles Sheeler, Edward Hopper, and Charles Demuth were painting just these kinds of subjects during the Works Projects Administration (WPA) years in the 1930s, but many artists today do not have the opportunity or permission to work at industrial sites. The plein-air events gave me the opportunity to paint at these industrial sites, creating representational work on a subject out of the American past.
