R.E. Bartow (Yurok) b. 1946
"The Cedar Mill Pole," 1997
Carved cedar, 26' x 19.5" base diameter
Washington County, Oregon and
Oregon College of Arts, Portland, Oregon Funding from the Regional Art and
Culture Council, Portland, Oregon and private contributors
R.E. Bartow is emerging as one of the outstanding Native artists of
this century. He is very well known for his paintings, works on paper and
carved contemporary masks. Bartow has exhibited extensively in his home state
of Oregon, as well as, nationally and internationally. He has worked with
international indigenous artists, attending artists gatherings in Japan and New
Zealand. It was in New Zealand that Bartow developed a friendship with Maori
artist, John Bevan Ford and learned about the Maori carving tradition. The two
artists exchanged traditional tools and ideas. The untitled pole of carved
cedar shows the results of that friendship and their sharing of traditions.
The pole is a gift to the Portland metropolitan community from
Washington county and the Oregon College of Art and Craft, as a means to heal
the controversy that surrounded a urban development project. The pole
ingeniously preserves one of the giant cedars from the groove that was removed
for the road project. The pole will be a sentinel on the greenway, ever
watchful of the urban development. It will be a reminder of reverence for
Nature, a respect for native traditions and a marker of local history. The
hopes are that this pole will become a "healing" pole for the communities to
which it is dedicated.
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