Culture

C CULTURE

20-Dollar Art Show brings thousands of works from 120+ area artists

By Nicole Vulcan

Darris Hurst

Hanging some 2,100 pieces of art was no small feat for Stuart Breidenstein and his team of art lovers.

Back in 2013, local artist and owner of Bright Place Gallery Stuart Breidenstein came up with an idea: Make art accessible and affordable… and help artists sell it. A lot of it. That idea became the 20-Dollar Art Show, where locals could pick up art—and a lot of it. Artists who didn’t always have the opportunity to grace the walls of local galleries could get into the groove of selling their art, giving them the confidence to go out and sell more of it. Formerly taking place at Bright Place Gallery on Bend’s east side before the gallery’s eventual closure, the show, back this year after a COVID-induced hiatus, has expanded to the walls of the High Desert Museum, where there’s more space for all the works of art—many of them small in size—to be on display. And unlike some other shows, this one allows artists to keep all of the profits from the sale of their works.

“When we closed our doors in December 2019 we vowed that the 20-Dollar Art Show would return to Bend,” Breidenstein wrote on the Bright Place Gallery website. “Covid pulled 2020’s plug. But now in 2021, we’re

teaming up with The High Desert Museum to bring the show back bigger and better than ever!”

Breidenstein and company held the 20-Dollar Art Show’s opening reception Sat., Oct. 30, with attendees and art-buyers snaking around the grounds of the museum for a chance to score some of the artwork. MC’ing the event was local artist and musician Mosely WOtta, with special guest Killy Holiday.

Days—if not weeks—beforehand, Breidenstein and his partner labored over the hanging of each individual

“When we closed our doors in December 2019 we vowed that the 20-Dollar Art Show would return to Bend.”

—Stuart Breidenstein

Darris Hurst piece of art. In total, some 2,100 pieces had to be hung, representing the work of over 120 local and regional artists.

Popular local artists selling works at the show included Monica Helms, Abby Dubief, Amanda Toms and Evan Namkung. (The Source Weekly’s own designer Erica Durtschi also had works in the show.)

“We are thrilled to move this event to the Museum,” Breidenstein said. “The 20-Dollar Art Show had grown beyond the walls of the Bright Place Gallery, and the Museum allows us the opportunity to make it bigger and better.”

This week’s Source Weekly cover shows some of the art that went up for sale. In order to allow visitors to see the complete show, art-buyers had to wait a few days to get their purchased items. Those who bought pieces on opening night could begin collecting their new works starting Nov. 1 through the show’s closing on Nov. 10.

20-Dollar Art Show

Through Nov. 10,Daily10am-4pm HighDesertMuseum 59800US-97,Bend brightplacegallery.com highdesertmuseum.org

KPOV Gifted with Historic Donation

Music lover leaves a legacy at community radio station

By Richard Sitts

Christmas has come early for Central Oregon’s community radio station, KPOV 88.9 FM, in the form of a monetary donation that far exceeds many folks’ most optimistic dreams. KPOV staff, DJs, volunteers and board members gathered Oct. 27 in the station’s cozy downtown studio to accept the gift from the estate of the late Marjo Hannele Mynttinen-Goodwin.

The amount of the gift (drumroll, please) is a whopping $626,587.

During the ceremony, Toni and Sam Brown, the executors of Marjo’s estate and her longtime friends, presented the check to KPOV Board President Kurt Kempcke.

“This event marks a turning point in the history of the station and our ability to positively affect the people of Central Oregon,” Kempcke said, according to a press release by KPOV Development Director Sam Corti.

Station Manager Bruce Morris added, “This incredibly generous gift demonstrates the strength of Marjo’s passion for music during a critical time in our history and reflects a firm belief in the value of community radio and KPOV’s eclectic shows and programming.”

Concerning how the donation will be used, Morris added, “KPOV is looking at shoring up our capital and human infrastructure, upgrading equipment, building a reserve fund, sustaining existing projects and beginning some new ones, and wisely stewarding and growing this new funding. The KPOV Board and staff will be working on developing a more detailed plan in the near future.”

Marjo was born in 1959 in Tikkurila, just outside of Helsinki, Finland. She died of cancer on Oct. 9, 2020. She grew up listening to radio in Luxemburg, honing her taste for good music and lively talk. She settled in Mariposa, California, with her husband, John Goodwin, and became a U.S. citizen in 2014. After John died in 1997, she met her life partner, Donald Corn, from Bend. After he died in a plane crash in 2014, Marjo lived in Bend with a parrot named Clyde for the remainder of her life. Clyde is now happily residing at the Second Chance Bird Sanctuary in Bend.

KPOV 88.9 FM is a listener-supported, volunteer-powered, nonprofit community radio station that can be streamed at kpov.org.