A 14 Year Road Trip: Dual Perspectives in Eastern Washington

HAWK MERLIN STUDIOS
JUNE 29 – AUGUST 4
opening weekend june 29 – july 1
FRIDAY, JUNE 29: NOON-7PM (Artist Reception: 4-6PM)
SATURDAY, JUNE 30: NOON-7PM
SUNDAY, JULY 1: NOON-3PM
113 SW Russell Ave
Stevenson, WA
509.427.4747
hawkmerlinstudios.com

This is a nice one for me, it’s a lovely collision of previously separate parts of life. My old friend photographer Jeff Corwin and I have been making road trips around Washington State for a long time. The majority of landscape work I’ve made over the last few decades has been on those trips, many on the east side of the Cascades. Much of this work has not previously been printed.

Another friend of Jeff’s, David Bunker, informed him he’d opened a small gallery in the Columbia River Gorge, in Stevenson, WA. In 2005 I was hired by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad to shoot black and white images of trains in the landscape. One of our images was made in Columbia River Gorge at Cape Horn, this was my first visit to Stevenson, a beautiful small town. The second time was on the same project, we passed through for another photo location at Lyle, and stopped for food. Beverly and I vacationed there shortly after, there is a Steamship dock, the Railroad Museum, some nice shops and food, several walks and hikes close by. Every day we’d walk a few blocks from our lodgings on the river into downtown, cross the railroad tracks and leave a few pennies on them to find flattened later, past a small unique building. We had a second stay a few years later, it’s very appealing. It turns out that small building is now David’s Gallery, Hawk Merlin Studios.

I guess at some point Jeff mentioned our trips, and David expressed interest, it somehow got more serious and here we are with this show. Most of the prints are new, all made in Eastern Washington on these trips we take. It also nicely caps the end of that era, easily loading Jeff’s car and heading out whenever we felt like it. Since Jeff and his wife moved to Montana in November it won’t be quite so effortless to repeat.

So I’m really looking forward to this, visiting Stevenson again in the summer, spending some days with Jeff and Audra, who we have not seen since they moved, seeing our work, most newly printed, together on the walls of a lovely studio, meeting David, and anyone who stops in.

As above, we’ll all be there Friday and Saturday, I think David may not open on Sunday, better check ahead.  Check his website for other visiting information, some visits may require pre-arrangement.

I’m probably not doing the appropriate song and dance, this one is a little personal, I hope people see it.