“Strawberry Lake”, Oil on Linen, 48” x72”,© 1996 by Chas Wyatt
After graduating college with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree given at Marylhurst College, in the State of Oregon, on the twenty-second day of june in the year of our Lord, nineteen hundred ninety-six, I went to work for a small construction company owned by two brothers to pay for my debt to society.
Marylhurst would change their moniker to University a couple of years later before closing their doors completely at the end of the summer in 2018. It was one of the oldest collegiate degree granting institutions in Oregon, having granted its first degree in 1897. But, as Mr. Harrison would say, “All things must pass”.
“Marylhurst University” {B.P. John Admin. Bldg., E.L. Wiegand Hall, The Art Gym} ` Illustration by Chas Wyatt, © 2021, 81/2” H x 11” W, colored pencil on paper.
It was a private applied liberal arts and business university that was originally founded by ‘The Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary’ who arrived in Oregon in 1859 from Montreal. Marylhurst means ‘Mary’s Woods’ and became an independent institution in 1959. Having been a women’s college, it transitioned into a co-educational institution in 1974.
While I was working construction to pay the bills, I also took my painting, “Strawberry Lake” (opening picture) to a new ‘artist’s co-op’ trying to gain admission into the co-op. Their committee was highly critical of the painting and wanted to know why individual blades of grass in the field weren’t visible and while I tried to defend my imagery pointing out that the human eye doesn’t focus microscopically on large, distant images, it was to no avail. I wondered if Manet, Renoir, or Degas had been subjected to the same sort of criticism.
Later I would enter my painting into a group exhibition that was to be held at the Paris-Gibson Square Museum of Art in Great Falls, Montana, without any great expectations.
“Paris-Gibson Square Museum of Art”, Illustration by Chas Wyatt, © 2021, colored pencil on paper, 8 1/2” H x 11” W.
“You’ve got to create a dream. You’ve got to uphold the dream. If you can’t go back to the factory or go back to the desk.” ~ Eric Burdon.
Lo and behold, to my surprise, the painting was accepted into the 1997 ‘Art Equinox’ exhibition held at the museum. Sometimes the Universe has bigger possibilities in the works, than that which we can conceive of in our often limited way of thinking. I had been to Montana before and the experience was good, being in the mountains around Choteau, hanging out in Missoula, and picking cherries above Flathead Lake. Also taking the ‘Going-to-the-Sun Road’ to the Canadian border in Glacier National Park. I even experienced the honor of being a ‘fire carrier’ for a traditional Native American sweat lodge ceremony hosted by Adolf Hungry Wolf of the Blackfoot tribe and author of the series of ‘Good Medicine’ books. But, I had never been to Great Falls.
“Great Falls”, Illustration by Chas Wyatt, © 2021, colored pencil on paper, 8 1/2” H x 11” W.
I decided to hand deliver the painting, as I had received a settlement from the construction company courtesy of the state labor department. The brothers had not paid us the prevailing wages they were supposed to on a particular job site. I had procured a canopy for the truck I owned at the time and wrapped the painting. It barely fit in the back of my truck. So, off I embarked on a new adventure to ‘Big Sky Country’.
After delivering the painting to the museum curator, Jessica Hunter, I explored the hamlet of Great Falls. I didn’t realize it, but, the Charles M. Russell museum is there, as well. The western artist’s log cabin is still standing. I spent the night in a campground above the falls, with the thunder of the Missouri rolling below. Breathing in the crisp, clean, evanescent air of the plains of eastern Montana, I slept like a baby.