(Above: Lone Pine, oil painting by Oakridge artist Weldon Oliver)

Edited by Randi Bjornstad

January 2025 at the Emerald Art Center brings a show of work by fine-art photographers who are members of the PhotoZone Gallery, as well as a featured exhibit of oil paintings by center member Weldon Oliver.

Both displays will be on view Jan. 7-31 during the Emerald Art Center’s regular hours, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. They also will be available for viewing during a special reception for the artists during the Second Friday Art Walk on Jan. 10, from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.

About PhotoZone Gallery

The PhotoZone Gallery was formed in 1988 to offer an organized way for fine-art photographers to meet each other and share — and show — their work. Through the years, the group has exhibited in a variety of locations, and featured a wide range of work, including landscape and nature photography, documentary, abstract, pinhole, and portraiture.

PhotoZone members also use a diversity of print methods in presenting their work, such as silver print, digital, collage, platinum/palladium, gum bi-chromate, hand-color, and airbrush.

Emerald Art Center featured member

Also on display are oil paintings by native Oregonian Weldon Oliver, who was born in Roseburg and spent his growing-up years in the Umpqua Valley. Following a stint in the U.S. Navy, he worked for a data communications company in California before discovering his interest — and aptitude — in oil painting. After five years studying with artist Tom Anderson, Oliver started his own painting instruction business.

He returned to Oregon in 2001 and opened a painting studio in the Florence area, teaching both adults and children. A decade later, he moved to Bend, and and from there relocated to his current community of Oakridge, where he has an art studio and gallery — Oliver’s NW Gallery — at 47663 Highway 58 (in the St. Vincent de Paul building) and where he takes artistic inspiration from the area’s mountains, lakes, trees, valleys, and river.

Emerald Art Center

Where: 500 Main St., Springfield

Hours: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday

Special event: 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 10, for exhibits by PhotoZone Gallery members and oil painter Weldon Oliver

Information: 541-726-8595 or emeraldartcenter.org

 

Rocks & Turkey Vulture, Elsinore, CA, photograph by PhotoZone Gallery member Greg Giesy