art day in the Ham

 

By appointment only, in the oldest brick building in Washington state, built during the gold rush , used for court house, jail, taxidermy- now a renovated museum to house the art of Helen Loggie. 

The little building has long been a favorite little gem, in the "sketchy " part of town, I am amazed that is still remains upright.

Most of the window glass is also original , all wavy and irregular. The floors are stunning old growth cedar. Hefty beams.

 

Because Washington is a relatively new state it is unusual to have buildings from mid 1800's  hanging around. This one was built initially to sort out gold rush business but , because gold rushers were supposed to register in Victoria, they had to up root their houses and cart them to B.C. No grand houses left behind, just this little brick building.
 

Helen was born in 1898 to a wealthy timber baron family, in Bellingham.

They owned property here and on Orcas Is.After she came back from studying art in Europe , she decided to settle here and focus on her true loves, Trees/art/etching/. 

She is-has been- the star artist of the San Juans. I walked past her house every day on my way to work, she was still living then and shouting at children who would ride their bikes over the very large roots of her trees.

She never married, her wealth never ran out, she lived to be nearly one hundred. a blessed life of privilege and passion.

Her technique is most curious. She never used "shading", rather,  used varied thickness of pen or pencil to achieve depth and texture. some drawings took well over a year to complete. having finally completed a perfect drawing would then etch - wax on copper- every line redrawn precisely.  magnifying glass and stylus used by Helen.

She had done a fair amount of oil painting as well. Below is one  of Mud Bay in Chuckanut village where I lived in a cabin after having moved off of the boat in the harbor. This view is so familiar to me I nearly passed right by the painting.

There is more art in the basement, bars still on windows from when the jailed hooligans of the day lost their freedom. There is a small kitchen as well, but primarily it is an archive of all of the Bellingham news papers , some got flooded and were rescued by diligent historians. It took a few years to dry them out, flatten them and put them in large file holders. The collection is massive and fragile.

A large printer from the very old Herald days , in a corner for inspection and wonder.

So, that was Thursday in the town. On Friday Stella and I went to lunch , sorted out the world. She has a new hobby. In the evening ,with nothing better to do, she will follow  threads of "discussion" online. You know how that goes- people get stupid in a hurry. Stella leaves one comment - "shut up" - and then leaves the thread. Still laughing  days later, hilarious Stella!

She is on her way this summer to Finland, her mother land , for three weeks, never long enough but she has a little dog and not enough cash to stay longer. I think she should move there, she could as she is all the way back into the beginning of time- Finnish.  It is where she belongs.

Leaving the museum. My car parked behind the Light House Mission, which was for years the only roof and soup that bums could take advantage of. The rules were strict serving up  a lot of GOD talk along with the soup, the facility shoddy, it finally closed a couple of years ago. No longer an option. 

And here is a posy at the entrance of the place where Stella and I enjoyed a three hour lunch.  Snow is coming next week, surprising buds again.

Seeing art in the ham....and before you get mad at me for being insensitive:

"

A hobo is a migrant worker in the United States. Hoboes, tramps and bums are generally regarded as related, but distinct: a hobo travels and is willing to work; a tramp travels, but avoids work if possible; and a bum neither travels nor works."