The Oregon Coast Council for the Arts welcomes the Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts for an exhibition of prints from their permanent collection from July 7 to September 3 in the Runyan Gallery at the Newport Visual Arts Center. “Hawks on the Highway” will include 24 prints produced by Crow’s Shadow’s roster of award-winning artists. An opening reception will be held on Friday, July 7, 5-7pm, at the VAC. “Having the Crow’s Shadow Institute here at the VAC during July and August should be a big attraction for locals and visitors alike,” says OCCA VAC Director Tom Webb. “Their reputation precedes them and we are thrilled to be a part of their 25th anniversary programming.” The “Hawks on the Highway” exhibition will include work by Newport native Rick Bartow, an active member and supporter of Crow’s Shadow before his passing in 2016, as well as work by other printmakers such as James Lavadour, Lillian Pitt, Wendy Red Star and Joe Cantrell. ‘“Hawks on the Highway” is a wonderful companion exhibit to last summer’s exhibition, “Rick Bartow: A Community Collection,”’ says Webb. The Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts (CSIA) is located on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in the foothills of Oregon’s Blue Mountains. The nonprofit was formed in 1992 by local artists James Lavadour (Walla Walla) and Phillip Cash Cash (Cayuse and Nez Perce). CSIA’s mission is to provide a creative conduit for educational, social and economic opportunities for Native Americans through artistic development. Over the last 25 years, Crow’s Shadow has evolved into a world-class studio focused on contemporary fine art printmaking. The studio employs a full-time Master Printer and publishes fine-art, limited-edition lithographic prints by leading Native and Indigenous contemporary artists from across North America though an invitational artist-in-residence program. ‘“Hawks on the Highway’ is a good mix of Native artists, regional non-native, and some big names in the contemporary Native art world,” says Karl Davis, executive director of CSIA and the exhibit’s curator. “I was thinking about ‘place’ a lot when selecting the artwork for this show. Artists respond to their surroundings, the environment, and the history of the place when making art work. Some of these themes are evident in the imagery of the prints, and some might be a bit more esoteric in that theme, but it’s evident when seeing all of the work together.” The exhibition’s title, “Hawks on the Highway,” is drawn from a poem that Rick Bartow wrote during his last residency at Crow’s Shadow. One of the Rick Bartow (Wiyot), works, CS Spegi -- a collaboration with printer Eileen Foti -- has never before been seen in public. Some of the works in “Hawks on the Highway” will be unique monoprints/monotypes, or sold out editions, and will not be for sale. Other works, when editions are available, will be for sale, either framed or unframed. The Crow’s Shadow Institute has grown in art world stature and programmatic vision, expanding its locally based, service-oriented mission to its current iteration, national in scope. The print studio hosts three to six artists annually for two-week residencies. CSIA now boasts over two hundred prints by more than forty-five artist-residents in its permanent collection. Further, since 2006, Willamette University’s Hallie Ford Museum of Art at in Salem, Oregon has presented biennial exhibitions of prints from Crow’s Shadow, and since 2010 maintains a comprehensive, permanent archive of Crow’s Shadow publications. This partnership with the Hallie Ford facilitates scholarly access to the collection both through their collections database online, as well as to museum visitors who can view CSIA prints in person in the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Gallery. With an emphasis on contemporary, fine-art printmaking, CSIA also functions as a venue to practice traditional Native American art practices — weaving, bead working and regalia making — of the Plateau region. With a spacious gallery and world-class printmaking studio, CSIA brings in emerging and established artists to produce monotypes, monoprints and editions — including lithographs, etchings, linocuts, woodcuts and more. As 2017 marks Crow’s Shadow’s 25th anniversary, the institute is traveling select art works throughout the state. Besides “Hawks on the Highway” at the VAC, an exhibition of CSIA work was held at the Froelick Gallery in Portland earlier this year and another exhibition of CSIA’s work will be held at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art this coming fall. The Runyan Gallery is open Tuesday-Sunday, 11am to 6pm.
