'Oregon Art Beat' focuses on Baker City

Brian Vegter works on a painting at the Short Term Gallery in downtown Baker City.

By LISA BRITTON
Baker City Herald

Baker City’s art scene will have a good showing in the next few months on Oregon Art Beat, a program on Oregon Public Broadcasting.

A team from Art Beat came to Baker City in September to film footage for features on Corrine and Brian Vegter, and Short Term Gallery.

Brian is a painter, and all of his work features dogs.

Corrine is a ceramic artist, and Art Beat focused on her unique small-scale travel trailers modeled after vintage Airstreams.

Brian’s segment was originally scheduled for a “That’s My Art” piece, but has since expanded into a regular show segment.

It will air at 8 p.m. Jan. 12 on OPB, cable channel 13 (channel 10 on DirecTV). The 90-second segment about Short Term will also air that night, as a separate story.

To celebrate, the Vegters will have a screening party at Paizano’s Pizza, 2940 10th St., starting at 7:15 p.m.

Also, Paizano’s is donating 20 percent of proceeds from that day’s sales to Mollie Atwater and Friends in Baker City, which is a fund for spaying and neutering dogs and cats.

Corrine’s feature date has not been set, but should air in the next few months.

The Art Beat team spent nearly three hours with Brian Vegter at Short Term, filming the gallery and him at work on a painting.

“Then I sent them a disk of images they hadn’t been able to see in person,” he said.

How’s it feel to be chosen for this program?

“It’s really flattering,” he said.

The advantage to television, he said, is that the artist can explain his or her art and show it at the same time.

“They get to hear you talk about the process, and see the process,” he said.

About Short Term

The name of this gallery is a bit misleading — it will celebrate its third year on Main Street in June.

Brian Vegter and Tom Novak worked to open the gallery in June 2008 to fill a downtown space during the month when tourists arrive for the Hells Canyon Motorcycle Rally and Elkhorn Classic Bicycle Stage Race.

And it stayed.

The gallery is a co-op of about 30 regional artists who pay $15 a month. When a piece sells, the artist receives 100 percent of the price.

Dick and Marge Haynes own the building, and the gallery rent is only the amount needed to pay utilities and taxes.

The gallery features an artist for each month’s First Friday art walk, and keeps the walls full of works by local talent.

“People don’t expect galleries like this in a town this size,” Vegter said.

Vegter, Novak and the other artists take turns staffing the gallery.

(It’s now on winter hours — 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.)

For more about Art Beat programs, visit the website, www.opb/artbeat.