When Ashland, Oregon, businessman Lloyd Matthew Haines stared at the dead oak in his yard, he realized he could chop it up or turn it into something beautiful. Opting for beauty, he commissioned Native American woodworker Russell Beebe to carve a sculpture. That decision led to My Relations and launched Haines into “the most joyous three months of my life.” So it made sense that a year later, when he had an alder blocking construction of a building at the entrance to Ashland Plaza, he commissioned Beebe to create We Are Here!, a memorial to the First Nations. Next, he commissioned artists to create paintings for the underside of the adjacent viaduct, transforming a space used by drug dealers into the Path to Joy & Unity. Now, with painter Denise Baxter, he is helping to launch Ashland Artisan Gallery & Art Center, to create spaces for the town’s 2,400 artists to exhibit and to infuse the town with art, everywhere.

We Are Here! / 2006

Until Matthew Haines commissioned Russell Beebe to carve this alder tree that stood in the way of a new building, the Rogue Valley had  no official memorial to the Native Peoples who have lived here for thousands of years. The alder was cut down and taken to Beebe’s house, where he spent nine months carving the  people and their companions: salmon, eagle, bear, cougar, goose, and raven. On September 30, 2006, the alder was resurrected at the entrance to the town plaza and more than 1,000 people celebrated First Nations Day.

My Relations / 2005

This dead oak in Haines’s yard could have been harvested for timber or firewood. Instead, he put out a call to local woodworkers and met Russell Beebe, a furniture builder in Talent, Oregon, and descendent of the Ojibwe tribe. Beebe, who hadn’t thought of himself as a sculptor, suggested carving the ecosystem of the Rogue Valley out of the tree. He called Grandma Agnes Baker Pilgrim, elder of the Takelma, to bless the tree, and the project took on a new dimension (for more on “Grandma Aggie,” see here). Haines and Beebe built a scaffolding around the tree, and then a red-tailed hawk moved in as if to supervise. For the next three months, says Haines, “Beebe worked from sunup to sundown as if possessed. It was magic!”

The Path to Joy & Unity / 2007

To bring art into the publicly owned space under a viaduct, Matthew Haines built this path and commissioned four Ashland painters to do two paintings each on the theme of joy and unity. What Haines didn’t do was get permission from the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) or the City of Ashland to bolt the paintings into the concrete. Facing fines and criminal charges, Haines soon took the paintings down. However, his gesture revealed that the local sign ordinance makes public art virtually impossible in this city that prides itself on being an arts community. ODOT has now agreed to let the paintings return, and Ashland is struggling to find a new way to control commercial signs without stifling art.