To learn woodworking, furniture designer Richard Massey apprenticed to both his father and his grandfather. “I’m a fourth-generation woodworker,” he says. “It’s in my blood. I learned a tremendous amount from my grandfather, and not just about woodworking, but also about life. He was a wonderful person.”
Mixed-media artist Bonnie Meltzer likes to joke that she was born to create works of art from disparate materials. “I like to say that I came out of the womb with a purple crayon in one hand and a crochet hook in the other,” she says.
For metal artist Jeff Whitaker, his profession is a perfect match for his personality. “I’m an adrenaline junkie, who thrives on intense experiences,” he says. “Metalworking fascinates me because I’m actually melting metal using extreme temperatures. I’m able to coax around a liquid using intense heat, and there’s a lot going on when that happens, so I never get bored. I love to weld.”
Painter Kevin Noonan’s interest in art began in childhood. “My grandfather is a gifted folk-art painter, so I grew up around painting,” says the Connecticut native, who has a degree in Buddhist Studies from Antioch College in Ohio. “I got the chance to study in India and Burma, where I did meditation, but when I was there I also studied Buddhist iconography and modern Burmese painting. I even visited the state art school in Rangoon and talked to artists there.”
To look at artist Heidi Marie Balmaceda’s paintings, you’d never guess she once avoided working with color. “I was actually terrified of working with color,” she says. “I thought it was scary and complicated. Then about a year and a half ago, I got a 4-foot by 4-foot canvas and painted it metallic gold. I went to a crafts store and found some gold leaf and began to play with it.”
When silversmith Ruth Von Büren enrolled in her first metalwork classes at the Rochester Institute of Technology after coming to the U.S., she hardly spoke any English. It turned out not to matter because neither did the teacher. “A famous silversmith from Denmark was the teacher,” she says. “Since he couldn’t speak much English, he’d show us how to do something, and then we’d try to do the same.”
For woodworker Michael Hampel, his wave sculptures are a way to bring the ocean to him. “About 10 years ago, I got back into surfing,” he says. “When you’re going over a wave, there’s a second where you can see right through it, and that’s what I’m recreating.”
Growing up, fiber artist Nanette Davis was always looking for something to make. “I was really good at using whatever I could find,” she says. “Once, I was bored at my grandmother’s, and I found some old matchbook covers and crayons and made my own scratchboards.”
From recycled flip-flops to wine tasting nirvana, spend an afternoon (or longer) enjoying the wares found in McMinnville—a shopper’s mecca!
Do you speed through McMinnville every time you drive to Yamhill County’s wine country or head for the coast on 99W? Next time, stop the car and explore downtown McMinnville. You’ll discover you’ve been missing a lot when you ignored that HISTORIC TOWN CENTER sign with the arrow pointing in the direction you weren’t going, but should’ve been! When you peruse the shops on pedestrian-friendly N.E. Third St., you’ll start empty-handed, but you’ll soon want several extra hands to carry all your goodies from wine and chocolate to artwork and, of course, that perfect piece of jewelry for your hard-to-shop-for sister!
