sue clancy – artist

We drove a bit over an hour to Hood River Oregon to see the sights.

Our first stop was the bakery and fruit stand at Packer Orchards.

We got coffee and apple hand pies also called empanadas. We also got a homemade jar of dill pickles among other food stuffs.

We sipped our coffee and ate our yummy pies while looking at this view.

Then we drove a few more miles to The Gorge White House where we spent the afternoon looking at the views and the flowers.

There were a lot of flowers and I did some drawings of them in my sketchbook. (I’ll share my sketchbook in my Tuesday morning email newsletter) My wife took this photo 👇

Besides drawing I took lots of photos of flowers. Don’t worry I won’t share them all with you here. 🤣 But here’s two more flowers that have particularly spectacular colors I think.

Then we drove on for a while….

… until we came to the Edgefield McMenamins! Once upon a time the place had been a poor house and then a nursing home and then an empty rundown vandalized building. “Delapidated beyond repair” said the county in 1985. The McMenamin brothers, through herculean efforts, convinced the county to let them turn it into a pub. Through still more efforts they convinced a bank to lend money for renovations. “The banks ran for cover” McMenamin said. The bankers felt Mike and Brian’s proposal was a somewhat vague and decidedly different direction for the brothers who at that point (1990) had opened a handful of corner pubs. Totally frustrated at one meeting Mike blurted out “Its only a pub for crying out loud! It’s just a pub…”

There is art everywhere you look inside this “just a pub”. Including paintings on the plumbing pipes, in corners and on doors in addition to what is framed on the walls. The McMenamin brothers worked with 2 dozen artists who were given only two rules: paint scenes of Edgefield’s history, the West and the Columbia River Gorge and, the McMenamin’s insisted, “it has to be fun”. So the artists did what they called “historical surrealism”. Here is a link to more details about the artwork and the main artist Lyle Hehn. And there’s this link too about Lyle Hehn.

Even the stained glass lights are hand created!

The hand crafted beers and food in the Black Rabbit Restaurant and Bar are all simply amazing too!!! We’re definitely going to visit this inspiring place again!!

Of course I bought a history book at the gift shop as well as some postcards to mail to friends!

I hope your week contains some fun too – “it has to be fun” even if “it’s only a pub for crying out loud…”

See you next Monday!