Wednesday, February 22, 2017 • Whidbey News-Times
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Pen to Paper : Ann Gaylia O’Barr-Breedlove has penned a dozen novels since 1984 and currently updates her personal blog, Scribblings from Exile, twice a week. The blog has followers from Whidbey Island and elsewhere, with some readers based as far as Europe. Her writing covers a multitude of topics and themes, ranging from her thoughts on current events in the United States and elsewhere, to sharing her perspective from her personal experiences. ... Page 14
FOR WHIDBEY ISLAND’S OVER-50 CROWD
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Passing on an artform
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A supplement to the Whidbey News-Times and South Whidbey Record
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Wednesday, February 22, 2017 • Whidbey News-Times
Local glass master passes on his knowledge, skill By DAN WARN
dwarn@whidbeynewsgroup.com
After more than 40 years honing his skills, Whidbey Island resident Robert Adamson is a master of glass art, but he doesn’t let that distinction keep him from collaborating with others in the pursuit of his craft. In fact, he prefers it. Adamson currently has work on display at the Rob Schouten and Museo art galleries on Whidbey, but not all of his work can be done alone. “My basic approach is to work in teams,” Adamson said. “For example, I can have one glass blower at one bench and another glass blower at another bench making two bubbles at one time.” Adamson said this process, called incalmo, is difficult; it requires at least two artists working in perfect harmony — heating, fusing, cooling and baking raw glass into pieces of art. “I have four assistants,” Adamson said, adding that he’s glad he’s past the days
when people in the glassart community thought they had to do everything solo. “Sometimes I’m using one guy a day, sometimes three, sometimes two.” Harmony between artists is built over time, and Adamson said he is proud to work with some great craftsmen. Skill, paired with compatibility, is to be prized. To that end, Adamson brought assistant Eric Lieberman with him to Whidbey, following the sale of his first business, the nationally-known Glass Eye Studio in Seattle. On Whidbey, Adamson established Island Art Glass, a studio and gallery, in 1995. He runs the business with his four aids, including Lieberman; his brother-inlaw Steve Swallell, who has worked with the glass master on and off since he was 15-years-old; Virginian glass artist Don Singleton, who has worked with Adamson for more that 15 years; and Seth Blackwell, a new apprentice from Texas. Adamson is perhaps as
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Eric Lieberman heats glass in Island Art Glass’ studio. Lieberman has worked with Robert Adamson for over 30 years. passionate about passing on his art as he is about glass itself. While he has taught basic classes to interested individuals on the Island in the past, this is the first year that he has established an apprenticeship program. “If you want to call it a program, it’s a new program this year,” Adamson said, referring to Blackwell’s apprenticeship. “I hope he stays around for several years. It would be good for him, and I think he likes what he is doing.” Beyond the apprenticeship, Island Art Glass is open every weekend of the year. People can come to watch Adamson and company at work and possibly schedule a basic class, he said. “I do teach here, and every now and then I will have a student that will say: ‘Can I make something on the first day?’” Adamson said. “The answer is yes, they can learn how to make a paperweight, a float, an ornament, something simple in the first day. The question is how good it will be.” Adamson recalled his own progression as an artist
Deliveri
— from beginner to master — looking back to when he was just getting started. “I can remember I talked to a glass blower when I was younger and I said, ‘Well, how many years does it take to really know what you’re doing?’” Adamson said, noting that the older glass blower said it took a minimum of 10 to 15 years. “Those years go by pretty fast, and, yeah, it does take a while to learn how to blow glass well.” Recently, Adamson said he and his crew have been too busy to offer classes. Their main focus is on keeping Island Art Glass afloat so they can continue their art. “And glass is expensive,” he said. “Even clear glass is expensive. For example, the clear glass that we use is made in the Northwest right now, and it just went up by $400 a ton, so that’s $2,200 a ton, and we go through a ton a month.” Another chief expense is the cost of propane. Adamson says he goes through two 1,000-gallon tanks per month. To offset these costs, the artists spend the bulk of their time doing commercial
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Robert Adamson shows off his garden art at his gallery. glass projects, he said. “Ninety percent of the time we are doing what we call production work, like the garden stuff, ...what I call ‘rice and tea,’” Adamson said. “It pays for everything. It pays for the artwork we want to do. “Small galleries like this, Do they make sense economically? Probably not, but we can make them break even and we have a lot of fun. Each of us has our own art form, so the other guys that work with me can make their pieces as well.” Running a small gallery and studio can sometimes be a labor of love, but Adamson says he lives and
breathes the work. He even dreams about glass, saying he designs new art in his sleep. But he says he couldn’t change his calling, even if he wanted to. “Certain people are sick with glass,” Adamson said. “It’s in our blood. We can’t help it. You either fall in love with it, or perhaps you’re just a worker, but I fell in love with glass and what it could do. “There’s no limit to what you can design and what you can do in glass. You could push the limits. So that’s the joy — being able to design something that’s new.” South Whidbey Senior Center 14594 SR 525 Langley, WA 360-321-1600
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Wednesday, February 22, 2017 • Whidbey News-Times
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South Whidbey woman taking volunteerism to Guatemala ethompson@whidbeynewsgroup.com
When Dianne Shiner left Guatemala in 1998, she made a promise to herself that she would return one day. The sight of so many children on the streets had lit a fire inside the longtime social worker. “The first thought that came to my mind is that I wanted to do something,” Shiner said. Shiner stayed true to her promise. Following her retirement as director of the Whidbey Institute in 2009, Shiner traveled to Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, to volunteer as a classroom assistant at Escuela de la Calle. The school, K-6, helps prevent poor children from living and working on the street. For those already living on the streets, Escuela de la Calle provides a chance for them to reintegrate into society. “Education is the only way they’re going to get out of this destitute of poverty,” Shiner said. In the years since she first came to lend a hand, Shiner has helped build a library, supply books and computers and start a scholarship program to help students move beyond the sixth-grade level. She will once again travel to Quetzaltenango on Feb. 26. Paul Morris and his wife, who are Coupeville residents, pay tuition for one of the students, German. German is around 13 years old. The couple has never met him, but correspond with him when Shiner travels to Guatemala. “They really try to educate with not only math, science and grammar, but give them stable life skills,” Morris said. “It’s a really great school. Diane has been working with them for several years.”
In every year she goes to the school, new needs arise. This time around, Shiner aims to build a scholarship program for high school students as well as help the women in the neighborhoods. Shiner said it becomes difficult for children to receive education at the middle school and high school levels because public schools can be relatively expensive. She said between $200-$250 provided each year for three years by a sponsor can help a student afford uniforms, purchase learning supplies and continue their education. To describe the harshness of some of the children’s situations, Shiner said that out of a class of 30 kids, maybe only three have a complete family with a mother and a father. Most students live with only a mother, while another portion live with relatives. In many cases, the men are working either in the country or in the United States to provide their families with money. She said one-fifth of Guatemala’s economy is dependent on remittance from the United States. One of the major results of Guatemala being a developing country is a serious lack of access to education, Shiner said. She said she was thankful that she can at least make an impact at the local level. “For me, this is a place that I feel my part can make a difference,” Shiner said. An annual fundraiser by the Langley United Methodist Church also contributes to the school. Half the money raised from a salmon dinner in November each year goes to support the library, as well as a librarian named Norma, who was a former student at Escuela de la
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Above: Dianne Shiner stands next to Escuela de la Calle’s school librarian, Norma. Right: Shiner poses for a photo alongside students during her first year Escuela de la Calle. Calle. challenges in life. Her work “Her salary is completely in Guatemala is no differpaid by that dinner,” Shiner ent. “She’s not the kind of said. The school was found- person that sits around,” ed in 1995 by Director Morris said. “She’s one of Guadalupe Pos, a man those kinds of people that indigenous to the area, and if something was wrong in is part of an independent, my life, I would go to her. non-profit organization She is a steady force and EDELAC (Escuela de la deeply caring person.” Calle, School of the Street). Shiner’s husband, David Working at the school Sellers, echoed Morris’s wasn’t easy for Shiner in sentiments. the beginning; she was “This is totally her charboth discouraged and acter,” Sellers said. “She’s encouraged by what she always been doing somewas seeing in the second- thing like this as long as grade classroom she was I’ve known her.” Shiner said that the assisting. “That first year, I cried library has become embedevery day,” Shiner said. “I ded in the community and hopes it can expand its just felt so helpless.” “I also laughed every purposes to educating the day. These kids are so women and other memresilient and enthusiastic. bers of the community. Shiner said the school is What they wanted more than anything was respect also in need of volunteers. and companionship,” she For those interested in added. Morris said it is Shiner’s volunteering, contact Shiner nature to take on difficult at shine.dianne@gmail.com
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By KYLE JENSEN
kjensen@whidbeynewsgroup.com
For most, retirement brings a chance for a new hobby and more time to dedicate to volunteerism. For Langley resident Ann Gaylia O’Barr-Breedlove, retirement gave her more time to focus on what she always had done: put pen to paper. “I’ve written all my life, it’s like breathing to me,” said O’Barr-Breedlove. “Before I could write, I imagined stories. I don’t think I became a writer when I retired, it was just there to take up the slack.” O’Barr-Breedlove has penned a dozen novels since 1984 and currently updates her personal blog, Scribblings from Exile, twice a week. The blog has followers from Whidbey Island and elsewhere, with some readers based as far as Europe. O’Barr-Breedlove’s writing covers a multitude of topics and themes, ranging from her thoughts on current events in the United States and elsewhere, to sharing her perspective from her personal experiences. “As a Southerner with a thick accent, I’ve lived in places around the world many would never consider even visiting,” said O’Barr-Breedlove. “I’ve lived through culture shock, but
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I loved many of the places I lived. I think that gives me a different perspective.” O’Barr-Breedlove worked as a foreign service officer for the United States State Department from 1990 to 2004. Her life as a diplomat took her from her southern home base of Nashville, Tenn., to various corners of the world, chiefly the Middle East and Northern Africa. She’s lived a nomadic life of sorts, spending time as a computer programmer and historic preservation planner in the states before abruptly taking off for Saudi Arabia when the state department came calling in 1990. Since then, she’s lived in Tunisia, Algeria and Canada, where she looked after Americans abroad and interviewed those looking to immigrate to the United States. She retired in 2004 and relocated to South Whidbey, where her husband’s family has roots. “We met at a square dance at an American combine in Saudi Arabia, where I was a flight training manager for Saudi Arabian Airlines,” Ben Breedlove, her husband and editor, said with a chuckle, noting the strange nature of the story. “We married and I retired shortly after, and I decided to follow her around on her assignments for the next 10 years while she worked her fingers to the bone.” When reading one of O’Barr-Breedlove’s books, it’s clear she’s lived a life abroad. Her books and blog posts reflect her perspective of the world and the challenges she faced when her perceptions were shifted or shattered by her experiences abroad. She often writes of how being raised a Southern Baptist initially shaped her world view, before living
Photo by Kyle Jensen/Whidbey News Group
Gaylia O’Barr-Breedlove shares photos from her many adventures living around the world. abroad challenged that view when she had a glimpse of “the other side.” She remains a Christian today, but the topic of how religious people face a rapidly changing world is often reflected in the fictitious characters of her books. “I tend to write about people who would call themselves Christian but face challenges and learn which parts of their perception are keepers and which parts need to be tossed,” O’BarrBreedlove said. “I’m interested in how they’re meeting a world that’s changing rapidly, much like I did.” O’Barr-Breedlove hopes her writing gives readers a chance to think about the other side of the coin. She thinks many Americans aren’t particularly interested in the perception of those in, say, the Middle East. She strives to provide readers with insight, rather than aiming to convert readers’ views. “Our living that long overseas dramatically changed our perception of the United States, not necessarily the rest of the world,” Ben Breedlove said. “We knew pretty well from reading what the rest of the world
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was like, but we didn’t understand how little Americans knew about and understand the rest of the world. It’s not ignorance, it’s just a lack of knowledge.” As with many, if not most authors, writing is cathartic for O’Barr-Breedlove. Her pen gives her an outlet to express internal struggles and external life circumstances impacted by her experiences abroad. She loved the excitement of her life as a diplomat, but it often challenged the values with which she was raised and made personal relationships tricky because of the distance. Breedlove believes it’s important to not only educate readers but to show them these difficulties can be faced head-on. It’s part of the reason why he’s dedicated his time to editing his wife’s writing. “Anytime you go outside your comfort zone, it’ll make you think more and give you a different perspective,” O’Barr-Breedlove said. “Maybe my writing can help people do this by living vicariously. Maybe they can get a different perspective without leaving the comforts of home.”
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