City of Sisters Receives Ford Family Foundation Art Acquisition Grant

The City of Sisters was awarded a $10,000 grant from the Ford Family Foundation’s Art Acquisition Funding to acquire the collaborative quilt work Two Rivers, Three Sisters. Whychus Creek Becomes Catalyst for Community Building, Connecting the Arts and Environment in Sisters.

The ongoing restoration of Whychus Creek, a once-eroded, polluted tributary of the Deschutes River near Sisters, has sparked several creative projects that attracted funding from the Oregon Arts Commission. The Creek has been lovingly restored over the last decade, as citizens, nonprofits, private companies, landowners and government agencies came together to reclaim the creek as a home for birds and migratory fish.

This month, the Oregon Arts Commission, in partnership with The Ford Family Foundation, awarded the City of Sisters a $10,000 Art Acquisition grant for the purchase of the 40-panel quilt, Two Rivers, Three Sisters, depicting the run of the Whychus Creek. The quilt was created, panel by panel, by 40 Central Oregon artists, and has been shown at the Oregon Historical Society in Portland and Chehalem Cultural Center in Newberg. After a stint at the Yokohama Quilt Show in Japan, it will reside permanently in the City Council Chambers of Sisters City Hall.

“We’re thrilled, the quilters are thrilled, everybody is thrilled,” said Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show Executive Director Ann Richardson, whose group originally conceived the idea for the quilt and created it in close collaboration with the National Forest Foundation and U.S. Forest Service.

Two Rivers, Three Sisters, a forty foot long quilt, made up of 17 quilt panels made by Central Oregon quilt artists, celebrates the City of Sisters natural surroundings and unique quilting culture. It is a groundbreaking collaboration between arts and environmental organizations, telling a story unique to Sisters. Two Rivers, Three Sisters celebrates Whychus Creek and the many organizations working together for its restoration.

This is not the first time in the past year that the Oregon Arts Commission has made a grant recognizing the Whychus Creek project. A recent Commission report highlighted the 2012 Whychus Creek Field Study project that was created and organized by Arts Central in Bend, in partnership with Sisters Middle School, the Upper Deschutes Watershed Council, Deschutes Public Library and teaching artist Kyla Schoessler. With an Arts Build Communities grant from the Arts Commission, the group used interdisciplinary approaches to integrate field-based science with art, as the students observed, annotated and drew, painted or photographed hundreds of plants on the newly restored creek.

The students then produced a 28-page field guide that documents their artwork and will be an ongoing educational resource.  Said one student, “It was a neat experience going out in the wild to draw from real life… To be part of the field guide was also exciting, since my drawings would be published and used for future reference.”

Martin Winch, author and longtime Deschutes Basin resident, explains that the Whychus Creek restoration, and the critical mass that has grown behind it, “started with tiny steps. There were all these pieces that had to come together. But suddenly, we woke up and there were all these people thinking ‘watersheds.'” The restoration effort taking place at Whychus Creek is still a work in progress, involving dozens of groups and organizations, all motivated by the hope that the upper watershed can reopen, where fish have not been seen in over 40 years.

“The arts are a powerful tool for bringing people together and bridging differences, transforming the ways children learn, energizing communities and celebrating the things that matter to us,” said Christine D’Arcy, executive director of the Arts Commission. “These projects reflect creative responses to a particular community need and opportunity. ”

The U.S. Forest Service and National Forest Foundation (NFF) are partnering to revitalize the creek in a Treasured Landscapes conservation campaign known locally as the Tale of Two Rivers. The Deschutes Land Trust protects and restores private lands to further benefit the creek. The Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show commissioned the piece to tell the story of Whychus Creek through the lens of fiber art.

The project is a unique showcase of rich artistic talent, stunning landscapes and partnerships that truly make a difference. The Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show has raised an additional $12,100 to complete the acquisition and installation costs.  Of the $20,000 purchase price, half will be divided among the quilters and the other half will be donated to the NFF, which they will match.  The project, which included four other pieces, will ultimately generate $24,500 for the NFF which will be invested in projects on the Whychus Creek drainage in the Sisters area.

Quilting is a recognized cultural symbol of Sisters and this piece will build and enhances the City’s quilt collection. The piece was reviewed and endorsed by the Sisters Public Art (SPA) Committee, a nonprofit organization working with the City to identify and acquire works of art. The piece has a traveling schedule through October 2013 including exhibit in Bend, Sisters, Portland and Yokohama, Japan before returning for permanent installation in the Council Chambers at Sisters City Hall in November 2013. For further information about Two Rivers, Three Sisters, contact Ann Richardson, ann@soqs.org , 541-549-0989.