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the art ofManuel V Lopez |
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Whenever the great
winter storms come marching onto southern
Oregon coasts, you will find a grave, determined man walking the shoreline.
Even though the gales drive rain in stinging horizontal sheets and the breakers
beat upon the headlands, Manuel Lopez will be there hunting for his treasures,
the huge, hardwood stumps and spars that river torrents have carried to
the sea. Manuel did not always walk the shores; he started commercial fishing when he was 14. A hard worker, by eighteen, Manuel had saved enough, borrowed enough, and scrounged enough , that he was able to captain his own boat and fish for the next 25 years. Then the economic disasters that plagued the Pacific Coast fishing industry drove Manuel, as well as many others, ashore. But, this man brought with him his perpetual love of the sea and the magnificent creatures that abide in it.
A wood-burning set was all he could afford at first to let the talent in his hands and his heart depict what he knew so well. As his impressions of ships and sea began to sell, he bought a few chisels and rubber hammer and, working in an upstairs apartment in a vain attempt to make noisy work quiet, he carved his first of many whales.
When the weather is fair, hammer against chisel rings out a sailor's tattoo and it is only when the storms arrive that Manuel walks the beaches. A gentle yet powerful man, Manuel captures not only the immense size of his sea creatures but also their fluidity, the delicacy of a glance, the nuance of a motion. His life-size octopus floats with tentacles folded as if it will continue to drift upwards out of the confines of the hardwood that created it. On the other hand his great whale that won best of show in the 1990 Lighthouse Art Gallery National Sculpture Exhibition leaps upward out of its base of crashing splash with such force that viewers sometimes step backwards to get out of its way. His walrus, whom he quietly calls "Mr. Majestic" sits placidly unaware of the many admirers who pass by and feel compelled to touch, or in some cases, even hug him. A busy man, a generous man, Manuel has given back to his friends and his community the gift of wonder that is too seldom recognized or remembered these days. Manuel Lopez-Sculpture |
Now
Manuel and his wife, Judy, have their own home perched on a hillslope
in Brookings, Oregon, commanding an eyewink of sea, of course, but only
through the ranks of those huge pieces of driftwood that surround their
property like a modern day Stonehenge.