Mackinaw River Project

May 13 - July 16, 2005

Sponsored by Jeannie & Bruce Breitweiser. The MCAC is supporter in part by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

Opening Reception: Friday, May 13, 5:00-7:00pm
Jazz Nite: Friday June 3, Limited Seating, Suggested Donation $15.00
Panel Discussion with the Artists: Tuesday, June 21, 7:00pm

On view in the Arts Center’s Brandt Gallery, Mackinaw River Project features paintings by Herb Eaton and photographs by Ken Kashian. The exhibition opens with reception for the artists on Friday, May 13, 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. This event is free and open to the public. The exhibition continues through July 16, 2005

The exhibition celebrates nature and art-making. Each of these local artists responds to the landscape that surrounds them by making art about it. Sharing that art with the viewer is their way of bringing to our community an awareness of the natural resources we have and our responsibility to care for and protect those areas.

In spring of 2002, Herb Eaton undertook a project to paint the landscapes along the Mackinaw River Valley. Using the plein aire method, he feels, sees, and listens to the river and its surrounding landscape while making drafts to be later manipulated into finished paintings in his studio. He chooses to paint scenes from areas with public access so that the art viewer can in fact go and see the scene depicted and experience the tremendous natural variety and beauty of the Mackinaw River Valley. Simultaneously, photographer Ken Kashian was pursuing his interest in the towns and farms situated along the Mackinaw River. His inquisitive and sensitive eye captures the roads, fields, and communities that border the river, and reflects on a pace of life which, like that of the river, is meandering yet punctuated by seasonal changes and celebrations.

Celebrating the Mackinaw
Sunday, May 8, 2005
The hustle and bustle of our daily schedules sometimes prevents us from taking a moment to open our eyes to the natural beauty of our central Illinois landscapes. They're everywhere - on riverbanks, over farmland and in communities.

Local and regional artists have been documenting such milieus for decades, realizing the grandeur of where we live.

And for the past two years, two Bloomington artists have been working on what they call the "Mackinaw River Project," which features a mixture of landscape paintings and photographs that celebrate the Mackinaw River and surrounding communities, including Pekin, Delavan, Anchor and Colfax.

"It's about the feeling you get from the river, and it's kind of like honoring it," said artist Herb Eaton, who will display about a dozen paintings in the exhibit that opens with a Friday night reception at the McLean County Arts Center at 601 N. East St., Bloomington

With Eaton, photographer Ken Kashian will showcase about a dozen panoramic landscape shots that move from the river through the surrounding farmland and into the neighboring communities. All of the art displayed will be for sale after the exhibit.

Friday's event from 5 to 7 p.m. is free to the public and will include refreshments and wine tasting.

"I am really impressed with the work they're producing on this project," art center curator Allison Hatcher said.

The project originally was Eaton's idea 30 years ago when he realized that his love for art and the river's magnificence go hand-in-hand.

"What started as living out teenage dreams of being Monet has become something I just love to do," said Eaton, who said his mother's family lives in South Pekin near the river and also has family in Peoria.

Eaton and Kashian, who have been friends for about 10 years, discuss the project daily but rarely meet at the same spot along the river to work because they have different perspectives.

"I start at the river in my thought, and I move over the farmland over the roads and then into the communities around the Mackinaw,"

Kashian said, noting his work displayed in the show will represent photos that are both natural and community-oriented. Kashian said his work relates to the flow of the river, the environment near it, the roads along it and the activities in the nearby communities.

"I see the whole project as moving from the river to the communities and back to the river again through the farms," he said. "I've always liked the notion of small-town activities and the kind of real energy that exists in small communities."

Some of his pieces in the exhibit are from the Delavan Fall Festival and Mack-A-Fest parade.

"The Mackinaw is such a subtle, very gentle, for the most part low-key or home-grown kind of river that is not real glamorous. I think I found my interest in its commonality both in its visual appearance and again the people that are around it," Kashian said. Eaton agreed.

He said he sticks to the riverbanks and bluffs, sometimes literally working in the water. He enjoys painting landscapes with public access so that people can see his work and visit it.

He typically first uses the plein- air method of sketching the landscape before finishing off the oil painting in his studio.

"I want to remind people there is beauty out there. You've got to stop; get off the expressway. You've got to stop, not that long, and look at it. We've got to take care of it," Eaton said.

Heart of the a River Artists combine talents for varied views of the Mackinaw By Dan Craft BLOOMINGTON -- A river runs through it. The new exhibit in the McLean County Arts Center, that is -- where painter's brush meets camera's eye in a celebration, and revelation, of one of nature's regional wonders. "The Mackinaw River Project," a collaboration between two longtime Bloomington friends and artists, takes the gallery visitor on a dual journey, both inward and outward. Herb Eaton's landscape paintings never stray far from the liquid life force of the valley: the serpentine Mackinaw itself. The journey begins at the river's source near Sibley in Ford County, then progresses on a southwestward trajectory through assorted valley communities -- Anchor, Colfax, Lexington, Delavan, El Paso. Eaton's inward-directed eye for the play of light, shadow and color -- from the river's edge to the water's translucent depths -- is on view in a series of eight strikingly large-scale paintings (abetted by three on a smaller scale). Meanwhile, hanging on the gallery walls in concert with Eaton's paintings are around 20 of Ken Kashian's color photographs. Where his friend's paint brush flows with the river, Kashian's camera eye drifts outward. It strays from the pulsing artery and becomes galvanized by the farms, the fields and the communities the Mackinaw nourishes. Kashian's eye -- frequently cast in a "wide-screen" panoramic mode -- captures the landscape in all its compositional glory. One look at his "Anchor Trees," a celebration of the town's famous stand of black walnut trees, will tell you that. But it wants to become part of a different kind of life force, one with a pulsing energy of its own: a Sunday afternoon picnic, a fall festival, a small-town parade, a Sunday worship service and beyond. There is, he says, an almost cinematic sensation to these kinetic glimpses of community and family -- the feeling that a story is unfolding before our eyes, never mind the allegedly frozen frame. All of which has come as a bit of a surprise to each artist. Eaton says he expected the journey to take him away from the river banks and into the surrounding landscape. But the magnetic Mackinaw wouldn't let go. So at -- and occasionally, in -- the river he remained, worshipping at a place he locates "on the edge of the Smile of God." Kashian, on the other hand, expected to be held captive by the artery. Yet, in the end, the current wasn't strong enough and outward he ventured from God's smile into what one supposes is God's country. At the very least. "At first, I was painting more landscapes," Eaton says. "But I got past that really quickly and knew I wanted to do water." Kashian says, "I wanted to shoot some areas that had the river in it. But then I saw my direction moving from the river, over the farmland, over the roads and into the communities." As each man headed off in the opposite directions of their original intentions, they figuratively crossed paths. Better yet, they literally reached differing destinations that work in sublime synchronization while sharing wall space in the McLean County Arts Center's Brandt Gallery. Playing the river? For Eaton, the idea of wrangling the Mackinaw River onto canvas has been a long time coming -- beginning with his childhood west of Peoria, in a landscape he calls "very similar to the Mackinaw." Meanwhile, his summers were spent playing the Mackinaw River itself. And, when he moved to Bloomington-Normal in 1971, he was a music instrument salesman for Miller Music, with a route that crisscrossed the river. Moreover, "my mom's side of the family have been in the Mackinaw River valley since the 1860s, with bits and pieces going back to 1820 in the Mackinaw watershed." Hence, "Its my river." He also remembers a pivotal day during his music instrument-selling phase. "One day, out near Colfax, I said to myself, 'You know, it's time to quit and go to art school.' I'd always wanted to do that, so I could make paintings of that river." So the Mackinaw also gets credit for that. Meanwhile, Eaton and Kashian wound up next-door neighbors and sharing an array of life experiences together over the years. But it wasn't until several years ago that the two embarked on their first collaboration: jointly embracing the Mackinaw River Valley through their respective painter's and photographer's eye. "It was January of 2003 when we took our first trip," recalls Kashian. "And, really, it was the only time we took one together -- going to Sibley to look at the source of the Mackinaw, east of town." As the two-year project evolved, "We shared locations and impressions of the Mackinaw, and what we saw," Kashian says. "And Herb would say, 'This would be better for you to photograph than for me to paint. And I'd do the same with him -- tell him of interesting areas in terms of paintings." Though the men worked separately thereafter, their synchronicity never waned. As Eaton caught the kinetic play of light and color at Mackinaw ground zero, Kashian captured the human community flowing beyond the river's banks. Viewing the results in the McLean County Arts Center show, the visitor senses that a direct connection with both the land and its people has been made. Never mind that both artists wound up journeying in different directions from what they originally imagined.

The Pantagraph STEVE SMEDLEY Ken Kashian, left, held the panoramic camera he used to create ''Anchor Trees,'' while Herb Eaton held his paint brushes in front of the oil on canvas ''Common Dawn.'' The two artists posed in the McLean County Art Center in Bloomington earlier this month. At a glance What: "Mackinaw River Project," featuring paintings by Herb Eaton and photographs by Ken Kashian Where: McLean County Arts Center Brandt Gallery, 601 N. East St., Bloomington When: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays; through July 16 Cost: Free Information number: (309) 829-0011 Web sites: www.eatonstudiogallery.com www.homepage.mac.com/kkashian1 Artist Statements Following are excerpts from each artist's statements for their collaboration on "The Mackinaw River Project," currently on view in the McLean County Arts Center through July 16. Herb Eaton It's the river ... It's the colors ... It's a dance of light and caress of shadows ... It's wandering and water-gazing ... It's the bugs and thorns and winds and the unexpected brilliance of moss in a later winter snow ... It's family and years of work and picnics in cold drizzle and sweetest breeze ... It's the challenge of rendering living forms in changing light ... It's the galaxy in the gravel as mollusks and tiny frogs leave trails under ancient ripples of docile water ... It's our river, a bit of the Sacred that flows for us ... It's a place on the edge of the Smile of God ... It's the Mackinaw. Ken Kashian My photographs along the Mackinaw River begin at the river, then move over farmland and roads to nearby communities ... For many years I have been interested in creating panoramic photographs, but not always traditional landscapes ... When I am photographing people, I try to be aware of the moment of exposure and how the image is made up of individual experiences which come together to create a whole. The image can be read as a sentence, from left to right, but also right to left ... The images are both still and moving, a photograph and a movie.