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Leaburg, Oregon and the River Run Art Gallery

| Lifestyle, Music & Film

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While we were house sitting for our kids in Eugene, we drove back and forth to an organic blueberry farm that was located east of Leaburg, Oregon.  At the McKenzie River Blueberry Farm, we harvested, sorted and packed blueberries, eating our share in the process.  We also harvested and ate our fill of raspberries and strawberries, with an occasional snack on various other types of organic fruits and vegetables that happened to be involved with the work we were doing at the time.

When we drove back and forth through Leaburg to the blueberry farm, I noticed, sitting alongside the road, a carriage that looked straight out of an illustrated Cinderella book.  The last day at the blueberry farm, my curiosity got the best of me and we stopped at the River Run Gallery to check it out. 

When we walked into the expansive yard area behind the art gallery, we discovered all kinds of art work.  There were metal sculptures, restored steeples that had been brought from Europe and many other works of art, too many to even remember, that’s why I carry a camera and notebook. 

We walked through the grounds, taking in the sights, while I scribbled notes and put the camera to work.  When we went into the art gallery building, we met and talked with the owner’s daughter-in-law.

She gave me a flier, but somewhere between there and arriving back home three months later, the flier flew.  To the best of my memory, the owner, Ken Scott, has traveled all over the world doing artwork and teaching art.  He also teaches classes at the gallery and for colleges and universities.  The artwork at the gallery is primarily his but, according to the daughter-in-law, other highly trained and talented expert craftsmen have contributed to what can be seen in the yard and gallery.   One of the displays that was of interest to me was the glass art of Jamie Kersey.

The gallery proper is housed in a remodeled 50 year old building, that can’t be missed as you drive through Leaburg, because of all the surrounding artwork.  As is apparent to anyone who stops at the gallery, Ken Scott has spent a lifetime exploring, innovating and producing art in a field that is very labor intensive.  Leaburg is located 30 miles east of Eugene on Highway 126, the main highway to Central or Easter Oregon from that part of the state.  A stop is well worth the time.  Even if the gallery is closed, the artwork in the yard is more than worth the time.  Be sure and take your camera.

For a look at some of the artwork in the yard, go to my slide show River Run Gallery .  The easiest way to find it is, go to our http://www.newliferoadmap website and select Larry’s slide shows from the menu in the sidebar and follow the directions on the landing page.   New article and slide shows are added as time permits.      

 

Filed under: Lifestyle, Music & Film
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About Larry Miller

I was born in Los Angeles in 1940. My father was a fighter pilot instructor during WWll and we moved from coast to coast, maybe that’s where I got the nomad in my blood. After graduating from high school in 1958 I joined the Marines. That lifestyle wasn’t for me and upon my discharge I went on with my life, and have never looked back. I worked briefly for a Caterpillar dealer in Riverside, CA before moving back to N. California where I was a welder and truck driver for a chemical company. Truck driving wasn’t my calling anymore than being in the Marines, and I went back to work for another Caterpillar dealer steam cleaning dirty tractor parts and welding. They sent me to schools, lots and lots of schools. I spent as much time going to trade schools as I did at work. I went from cleaning parts to apprentice field mechanic, to mechanic to the parts department to satellite store manager in less than two years. They wanted me to move to Sacramento and be a salesman: I moved to Oregon to learn to commune with nature. I went to work for another heavy equipment dealer and was later contacted by the World’s largest Lorraine Crane dealer and offered the position of purchasing agent and general parts manager. In 1967 I was offered a line of automotive parts and supplies and went into business for myself. My business revolved around eleven race cars that we maintained for others, driving race cars professionally and maintaining high end sports cars. I was a championship and regional champion driver. My business was the largest import parts and service, non dealer, in the state until I sold it in 1979. We went sailing in 79, first to Mexico and then Hawaii. I was an award winning Trans-Pacific sailor and sailor of the year, Hawaii, Island of Kauai. An opportunity presented itself in Hawaii during 1981 and I was back in business, importing Japanese auto body and hard parts. I also felt the pull to write and began freelancing for magazines and newspapers in 1982. My main focus in my articles is, and always has been, health, wellness and fitness. Most of us have heard the saying, “Time is all we have.” I disagree. Our health is all we have, because without our health, we have no time. I was a US Olympic team hopeful in racewalking and held all the records for the state of Hawaii. As a sponsored athlete in my forties, I finished first in nine marathons in a row in my division, qualified for the Ironman® and was the state USCF cycling champion five times in Hawaii and Oregon. Celinda and I were married in 1988 after a three year engagement. We sold our businesses and organic farm and sailed back to Oregon. After our sailboat boat was sold, we moved to Joseph, Oregon, two miles from the trailhead into the Eagle Cap Wilderness. We were caregivers for my mother the last ten years she was alive. We moved to New Mexico in 1995 because it was too cold for my mom in Oregon during the winters. Celinda designed, and I engineered and built our strawbale house. I began writing the weekly health column for a local newspaper in 1996, and still do. In 2000, I took the summer off to do a four month, 4000 mile, hike, bike and kayak odyssey. I’d been writing health, fitness and sports articles since 1982 and the journey produced a full-length, nonfiction, first person adventure book, Yol Bolsun, May There Be A Road, which can be bought from Amazon.com and others over the Internet. The summer of 2001 was spent hiking. kayaking, fishing and exploring the southwest. In 2002 Celinda and I spent the summer in Canada learning the hospitality business at a resort in preparation for doing promotion for the resort in the US. Most of 2003 was spent reestablishing the trees and landscape that had died during the stay in Canada. We had a house sitter and the house sitter had an ex-husband, and that’s a long story. In July of 2004 I did a solo kayak trip on the Snake River, taking pictures, writing articles and pencil sketching the journey. I hope to do another kayak adventure on the Snake River during the summer of 2008, on the section I missed in 2000 and 2004. In 2005, I returned to Canada to the resort where we’d spent 2002. I was supposed to be there for the month of June. I’d contacted people I’d met in 2002 and they came back to Canada to fish, hike and spend time at the resort, Echo Valley Ranch and Spa, while I was there. My one month became five and then it was off to Spain to do the El Camino de Santiago as a travel companion with one of the guests who’d returned to Canada in June. During the summer of 2006 a friend from Ireland, who I’d met in Spain the year before, came to visit in NM and we fished, hiked and explored the White Mountains of AZ. He’d never slept out in the wild in a tent before, and it was quite an experience, for both of us. My newspaper articles were put on the Internet beginning in 2002. I was asked to give public speaking engagements, photo and video presentations, on various subjects for the library in Deming, NM and continue to do so. In 2006 I videoed and produced a DVD for the Smithsonian Institute’s travel exhibit “Between Fences.” NMFILMS had a conference by invitation only, which I attended. While attending the conference, I realized that film making wasn’t what I wanted to do but I still wanted to use my sixteen years of experience and enjoyment of videoing and photography. During the winter of 2005, I discovered that no one on record had ever run from the Arizona border to the Texas border, a distance of 165 miles. During the spring and summer of 2006 I trained for the run and the run was completed in October, 2006. In late 2005, I began building and maintaining websites incorporating all the things I enjoyed about video, photography, travel and the out of doors. 2007 has been a summer of upgrading the home and property which resulted in a downgrading of my enthusiasm for being located in one place. If we don’t like what’s happening in our life, we need to change what we’re doing. Celinda and I are ready to pull up roots and move on. I guess I’ve come full circle. I’m ready to revert back to my childhood, and a nomadic lifestyle.

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