OREGON TAYLOR FIELDS

  Art can be a powerful influence on our lives. Doing any form of it, takes us away from the chaos around us to a place we can call our own. To a world we create and learn in, a place we can give voice to our own lives. If you're like me, when you are doing art, any art from photography to painting, it absorbs your efforts and thought. While the rest of the world in going from A to B on often someone else’s mission, you feel like you are really accomplishing something. You are creating. It gives you a real sense of power and has almost a medication aspect to it.  What you create is of little importance. It is the doing that gives you found power and resources to take on the rest of life. You see things differently and more completely than others.  Along the way finding new ways to enjoy all of life around you. It’s ironic that in a time when Art might be more important than ever, schools and various art venues are finding their funds cut and programs eliminated. Maybe it’...

  Few people took much note of Ben Beck, as older man who walked the North Lake Union area, always in a beige zip up jacket and jeans. Ben owned a small shipwright business. He had a gift for crafting the just right part for the aging fleet of pleasure craft on the lake and recognizing a good investment. He considered both art more than craft. The area near the lake was full of small frame apartments and homes where the cities workers lived. He concentrated on buying the apartments over time acquiring 15 of them closely located in a 5 block area. The city grew rapidly and new tech business wanted all of the area. They only saw steal and glass buildings where the apartments stood. Ben saw different things, places where a working man or artist could still live in the city, if the rent was reasonable. He kept it that way. Beck lived in Apartment 1 of the original property he bought, called the Brownwood. The building sat on the corner of Blue Street, the lighting wonderful for a p...