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Artwork by Kelly Theil

New Perspective

for October

by EILEEN LOCK

Conversations become noticeably better after the 2nd. An increase in cooperation is evident near the 6th and it will be important to let go of old grudges. The Full Moon on the 9th brings new beginnings and changes in relationships.

Let go of second guessing yourself on the 11th and be sure you actually have all the information you need to make a good decision. Agreements on the 13th are helpful in your relationships with both love and money. You will know exactly what steps to take on the 17th and be enthusiastic about the direction you are going. Challenges on the 19th are short lived so let go of whatever it is.

Big decisions on the 22nd will be helpful to establish new guidelines. Everything gets more intense after the 23rd when situations become more emotional. The New Moon on the 25th invites you to make an effort to integrate with those around you. Step up on the 27th and take the high road if you want to have the best outcome. Slow down after the 30th and realize it’s time to back track a little before you move any farther forward. Listen to your intuition on the 31st and make the effort to trust, you will be glad you did.

Love and Light Always, Eileen Lock Clairvoyant Astrologer / Spiritual Medium 1471 NW Newport Ave., Bend, Oregon 97703 541-389-1159 eileenlock.freeservers.com • oneheartministry.freeservers.com

Listen for the song in your heart, find the melody and dance to the music.

Check out Eileen’s radio programs online at blogtalkradio.com. Cosmic Lunch Break on Mondays at 8am, What’s Up Wednesday at 8am and Talking With Spirit on Fridays at 8am.

Can You Resist This Face?

Humane society of central oregon

to volunteer or donate call 541.382.3537 • www.hsco.org

Red Chair Gallery Presents Tricia Biesmann

Tricia Biesmann. Photos courtesy of Red Chair Gallery

by JULIA KENNEDY COCHRAN — Red Chair Gallery

Well into a long career as a fabric artist, Tricia Biesmann strives to keep her work vibrant through “the messiness of creativity.” Employing nuno felting techniques, she combines fabrics like vintage sari silk from India, wool roving, Margilan silk from Uzbekistan and bamboo cloth to create sumptuous scarves and toppers. Her work is showcased at Red Chair Gallery in October.

Nuno felting was developed in the 1990s by an Australian artist. The name is derived from the Japanese word “nuno” meaning cloth. It uses only natural materials, such as silk, cotton, bamboo and wool. Pieces of fabric are layered and joined together using a blend of silk and wool roving. Then they are dampened with water and soap to begin the bonding process. The fabric and the roving are rubbed by hand until they are fused. “I know the process and how to do all the steps, but how do I free my mind and come up with something new?” Biesmann asks. That’s where the messiness comes in.

“I like to shake it up a little to keep the artistry fresh,” she explains. Before beginning a project, Biesmann sometimes just dumps materials on the floor “so I can see what I have.” After picking a few pieces that complement each other, she may dye Margilan silk to blend with them. “I like to combine dyes to get a color that is a surprise,” she says. The surprise may hit the mark or it can clash with other parts of the project and have to be set aside for another garment. She also makes what is called “pre felts,” which are small wool felted pieces that can be cut into shapes such as geometrics or flowers, embellished with silk roving, and then felted again onto the garment. The randomness of affixing “pre felts” usually has spectacular results.

Sometimes, the messiness comes to her in the middle of the night when she wakes with an inspiration. One of these was to embellish the crocheted handbags she makes with pockets fashioned from thrift store sweaters she felts.

Creating beautiful order out of disorder is a skill that Biesmann developed, oddly enough, as a mathematics teacher. Biesmann taught middle school mathematics in Sisters from 1981 to 2007. Although there is always only one correct answer to a math problem, she loved to observe the “messiness” of the students’ problem solving process.

Some of Biesmann’s ideas come from three of her sisters (who live in Colorado and Minnesota), to whom she taught the nuno felting techniques years ago. Now they all have established felting businesses and continually share tips and tricks among each other. She also adapts techniques that she picks up from felters in Europe who share their concepts over the Internet. No matter how long she continues to make beautiful fabric art, Biesmann will always be open to new, sometimes messy, ideas.

thewayweart229@gmail.com thewayweart on Instagram redchairgallerybend.com

Capturing Authenticity

Local photographer captures true emotion above all else.

by NOAH NELSON — A&E Feature Writer

If local photographer, designer and mother Tasha Marie is anything, she is fully authentic. Born and raised in California, Tasha has been interested in design her whole life. After spending some of her younger years in LA and traveling around, she decided to move closer to her parents in Olympia, Washington, where she fell in love with the Pacific Northwest. “Everything there is absolutely stunning, and it’s where I got really into climbing,” Tasha said. “Climbing took me from one beautiful natural area to the next, and it got me exposed to so many cool areas.”

While getting into this new hobby, Tasha made sure to bring along an old one that she had been practicing since she was on her high school yearbook team: photography. “Especially up in Washington, it was so easy to just grab my camera gear, hop in my car and just drive out somewhere beautiful and remote,” she said. “I really enjoyed the spontaneity of it all, and I love looking back at all of the captured memories.”

To Tasha, photography is not her main career; she works full-time on the corporate side of Direct TV, and maintains that photography is her escape from the corporate world. Tasha’s drive for photography highlights an often overlooked way of expressing art in our modern, money-driven world; without the profit incentive affecting her work, she is fully free to be as creative and spontaneous in her art as she wants to be. In other words, her photography is truly an authentic representation of herself and her interests.

“I can appreciate all of the amazing photographers who do wedding photography, family portraits and things like that, but that’s just not something I would really want to do,” she said. “I really like travel and lifestyle photography, things that are a bit more candid and not as staged.”

Tasha and her family love to take road trips all over the place, and take photos at every stop they can, whenever it feels right. Her niche at the current moment? Her two-anda-half-year-old son, who is learning so much about the world around him. Tasha says that she is grateful to be able to capture so many moments with him.

Her house, which lies on a few acres of property, borders the High Desert and provides some dramatic natural scenes. “I love getting out there with my son, because everything feels

like a shot,” she said. “Some people ask me why I’m behind the camera and not capturing this moment with him, but to me it’s the opposite. I am there capturing the memory, the feel, and everything in that moment.”

Tasha added that capturing emotion in her photos makes her feel like she has “made it” as a photographer. “When you can feel the love, the intensity, the innocent excitement on a two-year-old’s face, that’s what it’s about.”

Capturing the real, authentic emotion in any moment is Tasha’s goal as a photographer, and helps explain why she avoids those well-known and rehearsed family portraits that, to her, feel unnatural. However, I’m sure anyone who has gotten sore cheeks from being told to smile for the perfect shot can at least somewhat agree with her view.

“I don’t like when my photos are staged, I prefer a much more natural aesthetic,” she said. “For the family shoots I have done, I always ask them to go on a walk or some activity that they are comfortable doing as a family so I can capture their real, authentic interactions.”

The search for authenticity explains why Tasha loves working with nature, and children: two subjects who will almost always be their authentic selves, whether they are asked to be or not.

The future for Tasha is up in the air, as she is expecting her second child. She is sure that she will keep capturing real moments with her family as they grow, and the potential to go professional is also on her mind. She has goals to monetize her photography one day, but for now, she is focused on capturing as many moments as she can with the people that she loves.

The Flow State of Mind

Barbara Hudler Cella’s Illustrious Painting Career

by NOAH NELSON — A&E Feature Writer

Barbara Hudler Cella, an International Award Winning Landscape Painter, has garnered an exceptional amount of both experience, skill and respect for her art. Art presented itself early in Barb’s life, and she found encouragement from multiple sources, “My mom always encouraged my creativity, and she wanted me to take risks and make mistakes in order to grow,” Barb said. “In grade school I got pulled out to do special art projects for a teacher, and it felt validating to have someone acknowledge my art.”

The 66-year-old painter looks back on her teen years growing up in Northern Minnesota as a time in her life where she thrived in art classes, often inspired by an outdoorsy lifestyle and the nature around her. However, her professional life would take her in another direction. “My first job, I was a Park Ranger/ Naturalist. I wasn’t painting then, but I was always immersed in nature,” she said. “Then I had a career in public relations, and I didn’t get serious about my painting until 2005.”

That year, Barb took a plein air art class. French for “in the open air,” a plein air art class is exactly that; landscape painting that literally takes place in the open air of nature, allowing the artist to immerse themselves in the nature that they are capturing on canvas. “The plein air class changed things,” Barb said. “The focus really came into my life here. I never knew I could feel so passionate for a single thing.” At this point in her international awardwinning career, Barb has reached a level of skill for plein air painting that many artists only dream of achieving; Barb can enter into what can be considered a flow state, where she no longer needs to worry much about the technical skills of painting, and she can “surrender to the painting,” as she puts it. “It really is a meditative process of total immersion,” Barb said. “I stay put in one area, enter an almost Zen state of mind, and observe everything in that present moment; the breeze in my hair, the sun on my skin, the dancing of shadows and light. It can take a long time to get to the point where you can just let go and paint like this, because you have to master the technical skills first.” This level of immersion allows her work to showcase elements of the landscape that the viewer cannot literally see in real life, and that is because the goal of her work is not to create something that is photorealistic,” I paint exactly what I feel, and that’s not just what I see in that moment,” she said. “It’s really a visual representation of exactly how I feel when I immerse myself in nature. Humidity, dryness, warmth, the wind, everything.”

Barb’s work has found a new home in Sisters at Hood Avenue Art (HAA). While she resisted joining a gallery at first, Covid made Barb realize how nice it can be for your artwork to have a home. Now, anyone and everyone can marvel at her incredible work in the peaceful setting of an art gallery.

As a member of Hood Avenue Art, Barb feels grateful for the community that the organization provides, “Being part of HAA has been such a rewarding experience. The inspiration, the camaraderie, the friendships, the opportunities… it all means so much to me,” she said. “The Sisters community has been so incredibly welcoming, and they’ve helped me realize how nice having your work in a gallery can be.”

In retirement, Barb has been able to explore her art, “as much or as little” as she prefers. “There is no limit to where I can go or what I can do,” she said. “No reigns, no boundaries. It feels amazing to be able to truly follow my bliss.”

Barb is also a big proponent of encouraging new artists young and old to follow their dreams, “Kids will come up to me when I’m painting outdoors telling me they are into art, and I always tell them that when you grow up, you don’t have to quit. If you like to color now, you can color as an adult too. I also tell new artists that you really just have to do it a lot. People aren’t just born with talent, they train it.”

Barb will be the featured artist at HAA on October 18 during Sisters’ Fourth Friday celebration. Stop by the gallery to meet Barb, discuss her work and get a glimpse at the new projects she has been working on. barbaracella.com

Barbara Hudler Cella