Oaks Park Pentimento: Portland’s Lost and Found Carousel Art

The Accidental Historian

2010-11-01T11:28:00.000-07:00

Time present and time past

Are both perhaps present in time future,

And time future contained in time past.

T.S. Eliot, (passage from the poem Burnt Norton).

Please see "The Accidental Historian" review (located to the right in the REVIEWS section.

AMPERSAND: Reading and Signing

2009-12-07T18:34:00.000-08:00

7:30 on Saturday, December 19!

Portland photographer Jim Lommasson will be speaking at Ampersand about his recently published book, Oaks Park Pentimento, photographs from which are currently on view at NAAU through December 20th. More info. on their website here.

AMPERSAND: Contemporary Art & Culture
2916 Northeast Alberta Street
Portland, OR 97211
(503) 805-5458
ampersandvintage.com
Open Wed-Sat 12pm-6pm; Sun 12pm-5pm

“This lovely book focuses on the ornamental panels of an antique carousel as portals for meditation on the flickering meld of past and present. Jim Lommasson’s exquisite photographs of the twice-painted, much-damaged panels capture the surreal beauty of the original images emerging from and blending with the dissolving landscapes that covered them. The images are rich, intriguing, and poignant. They picture decay as its own vibrant form of life. The three essays that surround and contemplate the images add layer after layer of beautifully voiced history and meaning. The origins of carousels, the identity of the eccentric brothers who painted the second layer, and the shifts in culture that this particular carousel has survived, all add dimension to the images themselves. Oaks Park Pentimento is a timeless treasure about time.”

—Katherine Dunn

Jim Lommasson is the recipient of the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize from The Center of Documentary Studies at Duke University and author of the critically acclaimed book Shadow Boxers: Sweat, Sacrifice, and the Will to Survive in American Boxing Gyms. An exhibit of his Oaks Park photographs was held at the Portland Art Museum in 2007. A recipient of regional and national awards with work in numerous collections, he lives in Portland, Oregon.

Inara Verzemnieks has been a staff writer at The Oregonian since 1997. In 2007, she was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing.

Prudence Roberts is an art historian and curator specializing in Pacific Northwest art. She is the former curator of American art at the Portland Art Museum and now teaches at Portland Community College. She lives just a few miles from Oaks Park.

Oregon Historical Society Holiday Cheer Book signing

2009-12-03T21:25:00.000-08:00

Book signing: Jim Lommasson, Oaks Park Pentimento
Oregon Historical Society
1200 SW Park Avenue, Portland
Sunday, December 6, noon to 4 p.m.

http://www.ohs.org/visit-ohs/holiday-cheer.cfm

2009-11-08T21:41:00.000-08:00

Reading: Powell's City of Books

Monday, November 16, 2009 7:30 PM
Powell's City of Books, Portland, OR

Jim Lommasson and Inara Verzemnieks's Oaks Park Pentimento (OSU Press) records the blurring of past and present, a moment when two generations of paintings collided to create remarkable new images on the historic carousel at Portland's Oaks Amusement Park.

http://oregonstate.edu/dept/press/o-p/OaksPark.html

Powell's City of Books on Burnside

OAKS PARK PENTIMENTO

2009-10-28T22:16:00.000-07:00

Photographs by Jim Lommasson
New American Art Union

November 6 - December 20, 2009
Reception: Friday November 6, 6 - 9pm

New American Art Union
922 SE Ankeny St. PDX 97214
Thursday - Sunday: Noon - 6pm
503.231.8294/naau@earthlink.net
www.newamericanartunion.com

Over two days in 1982, Jim Lommasson photographed the strange and beautiful paintings that decorated the center column of the historic carousel at Oaks Amusement Park in Portland, Oregon. The original carousel images were a collection of Edwardian-era scenes—a little blond girl clutching a rag doll, a corseted woman beneath a parasol, “exotic” renderings of Arabs and Native Americans—painted by German and Italian immigrants around 1912. In 1944, two itinerant artists were hired to paint over the eighteen panels with depictions of such local landmarks as the Columbia River Highway, Mount Hood, and the Oregon Coast.
Eventually, the surfaces of these new paintings began to flake and fade, revealing parts of the original images in unusual and unexpected ways. Each new image created a completely accidental, even surreal, story about the juxtaposition of two generations of paintings.

This exhibit coincides with the release of Lommasson's new book, Oaks Park Pentimento: Portland's Lost and Found Carousel Art with Introduction by Inara Verzemnieks and Afterword by Prudence Roberts.

More information can be found at:
http://oaksparkpentimento.blogspot.com/

. . . about Oaks Park Pentimento

2009-10-15T20:46:00.000-07:00

“This lovely book focuses on the ornamental panels of an antique carousel as portals for meditation on the flickering meld of past and present. Jim Lommasson’s exquisite photographs of the twice-painted, much-damaged panels capture the surreal beauty of the original images emerging from and blending with the dissolving landscapes that covered them. The images are rich, intriguing, and poignant. They picture decay as its own vibrant form of life.
The three essays that surround and contemplate the images add layer after layer of beautifully voiced history and meaning. The origins of carousels, the identity of the eccentric brothers who painted the second layer, and the shifts in culture that this particular carousel has survived, all add dimension to the images themselves. Oaks Park Pentimento is a timeless treasure about time.”
Katherine Dunn

“I too have Oaks Park stories from my childhood. To me it is a very good thing that these images will be there in our collective fossil record. From my perspective the images embrace the notion that life does not get easier with time.”
Terry Toedtemeier

Oaks Park Pentimento

2009-10-15T20:44:00.000-07:00

Portland’s Lost and Found Carousel Art
Oaks Park Pentimento captures the blurring of past and present, a moment when two generations of paintings collided to create remarkable new images.
Over two days in 1982, Jim Lommasson photographed the strange and beautiful paintings that decorated the center column of the historic carousel at Oaks Amusement Park in Portland, Oregon. The original carousel images—painted by German and Italian immigrants around 1912—were an exotic assortment of Edwardian pastoral scenes featuring western explorers, Native Americans, an Arab riding a camel, and idealized women. When these paintings began to show signs of wear in the 1940s, two itinerant artists—brothers from Vashon Island, Washington—were hired to paint over the eighteen panels with depictions of such local landmarks as the Columbia River Highway, Mount Hood, Multnomah Falls, and scenes from the Oregon coast. Eventually, the surfaces of these new paintings also began to flake and fade, revealing parts of the original images in unusual and unexpected ways. The resulting double exposures or “pentimentos” included a ghostly sailboat gliding through a forest, an Indian chief looming over the Columbia River Gorge, and a parasoled woman with the road to Crown Point emerging from her loins. Each new image created a completely accidental, even surreal, story about the juxtaposition of two generations of paintings. Just three years after Jim Lommasson captured these images on film, the original paintings were restored and the mysterious doubleexposures disappeared under yet another layer of paint. Oaks Park Pentimento preserves these haunting photographs and also includes an appreciation by art historian Prudence Roberts and a look at Oaks Park, past and present, by journalist Inara Verzemnieks.

Updates coming soon

2009-10-08T15:14:00.000-07:00

There will be a number of events in November and December celebrating the release of Oak Park Pentimento. There will be an exhibition at New American Art Union, readings at Powell's Books, The Oregon Historical Society, Oaks Park, Ampersand Books, and more.

Wordstock Festival of Books: Saturday and Sunday, October 10 and 11.

2009-10-08T15:01:00.000-07:00

Oaks Park Pentimento will be out next month.

Here is a link about Oaks Park Pentimento:
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/press/o-p/OaksPark.html

We have a few advanced copies to view and purchase at the Oregon State University Press booth at The Wordstock Festival of Books this weekend at the Convention Center. I'll be there Saturday 2-3, and Sunday 2-3.

Here is a link about The Wordstock Festival:
http://www.wordstockfestival.com/