(Artwork above: Eagle over the Cascades by Bill Logan)
Sunriver Resort Lodge Betty Gray Gallery presents William (Bill) Logan, lower level gallery, featuring oil paintings of birds of the Northwest and elsewhere. The exhibit continues through May 20.
William (Bill) Logan returns to the Betty Gray Gallery with this avian exhibition. An admirer of this winged beauty since childhood, this is his first show of such images.
Logan also recalls his 9-year-old memories of neighborhood boys flying u control model airplanes near his Dearborn Heights, Michigan home. Enamored of these model planes but lacking purchase funds, he created his own models from 2×4 lumber and rope which he spun in circles around his head.
His affection for airborne craft followed him into a US Army career where he studied to fly helicopters needed for the Vietnam War. Luckily escaping such duty, he also flew general aviation aircraft desiring to become a commercial pilot. Later he and other friends formed an ultralight aircraft club, following eagles in their soaring, circling flights on thermals.
On such occasions, the artist observed the eagles’ uplifted wingtips facilitating their lofty flight. He also notes that the US Airforce and Army studied and copied these upturned wingtips, learning their function in preventing downward drag. Such scrutiny served him well for, as a devoted patriot, he began to paint the American Eagle. This painting, his first bird image offered for sale, also became his first avian image sold!
Logan painted additional raptors including an osprey, clasping prey in talons, from a photo provided by friends who had viewed his eagle. As seen in the Sunriver show, the artist painted other birds as well, admiring both their beauty and abundant color.
One of artist’s previous Sunriver art exhibits, Deep Space, also reflected his love of flight and his observations as an amateur astronomer. The exhibition featured his paintings Sunspot and The Pillars of Hercules taken from composite images of deep space photos by the Hubble Telescope and Logan’s own composite photos. The Night Sky Observing Guide also published 12 of Logan’s’ composite space images.
Logan joins David Wachs whose images appear in the current exhibition in the Sunriver Resort Lodge Betty Gray Gallery, upper level. Wach’s acrylic paintings reveal his affection for and commitment to the wild alpine landscape that inspires his art. His paintings, both expressionistic and expressive, feature a “loose, gestural approach to surface quality and texture…” which invites both close and distant observation.
Sunriver Resort invites the public to the exhibition open all hours. Billye Turner, art consultant, organizes the Sunriver Resort Lodge art series, with info at 503-780-2828 or billyeturner@bendnet.com.