![]() For some artists, such as Brian Kazlov and Clifford Gleason, Eyerly served as a steward of materials relating to them after their deaths. ![]() He allowed close friends to look through the collection and take what they wanted if they promised to use it creatively. He collected material through a network of advocates and his near omnipresence in the art scene. He was so inspired that he founded the Portland chapter.Įarly in his career, Eyerly became fascinated with creating an archive of Northwest art, a project that he would work on throughout his life. Eyerly attended the founding meeting for the EAT Seattle chapter, which boasted a roster of experts who ranged from Boeing engineers to light designers for rock stars. Those efforts led to interesting shows, including one at the Pepsi Pavilion Expo in Osaka, Japan, in 1970, where EAT members created an immersive hologram experience. He also helped create festivals, including the Northwest Filmmakers’ Festival and the Young Filmmakers’ Festival (now Fresh Film Northwest).Įyerly was the founding member and executive coordinator of the Portland chapter of Experiments in Art and Technology (EAT), a group started in New York City to expand the interactions between art and technology by creating a space for artisans such as airplane and machine designers with artists. He supported the development of films and short videos as modern art forms, helped establish Portland as a haven for independent film and video art, and provided technical resources for filmmakers. In the early 1970s, Eyerly was a founding board member of the Northwest Film Study Center. After Genevieve Wilson established the Art Department at Mount Angel College in 1960, Eyerly and Jon Masterson built a gallery in one of the classrooms, laying the groundwork for an avant-garde hotbed in the valley. He worked as the director of the Bush House Museum in Salem, curating exhibits focused on Pacific Northwest artists, including Exhibition Syndrome in 1961 that featured Portland Dadaists. ![]() He created a traveling show of artwork in his van, selling them on the side of the road, exchanging them with other artists, and in the process exposing people to Oregon artists and ideas.Įyerly spent a semester at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center in 1954 but left after deciding that it was a “fake operation.” His reaction may have been a result of his fascination with the Dada movement and its anti-institutional ideas. Those connections allowed him to expand his Salem-centric circle of artists to include artists such as Rick Bartow and Lee Kelly. Through him, Eyerly came into contact with Hall’s contemporaries in Oregon, including Clifford Gleason, Louis Bunce, and Nelson Sandgren. That award brought him to the attention of artist Carl Hall, a professor at Willamette University. He organized gallery shows in an empty tack room at Salem High School for his fellow students, and he was one of three Salem High School students to win a national scholastic award in art in 1952. In 1971, he helped create the Northwest Film Studies Center (now the Northwest Film Center) in Portland.īorn in Portland in 1935, Eyerly spent his youth in Salem. Through his efforts, he made progress toward allowing craft artists, dancers, and filmmakers into the realm of critically accepted fine art. A uniting force for the arts in Oregon, he broke geographic barriers among artists by physically taking their work to each other, thus expanding the scope of art in the Northwest through direct interactions. From an early age, Jack Kenneth Eyerly was active in the Oregon arts community as an adviser, curator, artist, director, and facilitator.
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