La Conner Weekly News - Your independent hometown award-winning newspaper

Clayton James, he was an enigma, an artist extraordinaire. He blurred the lines. Paintings were there, but he was mostly known for his outstanding sculptures. Smooth curves with sharp contrasts. His work was an offshoot byproduct of his contrarian nature. From a conscientious objector camp, he bounced into this bucolic bastion of boats and beatniks, and found his family. He’d been sent by Uncle Sam to the coast of Oregon, where he was inspired by the shuddering storms and sandy seashore…

…La Conner has good reason to honor this man, so there’s a move afoot to cast in bronze, one of his older pieces of sculpture called “The Bridge.” It was dismantled for moving after his death and subsequent sale of his place at the south edge of town. This project has been working its way through the town’s Art Commission and has reached that ever-popular fundraising stage. The bronze case of his original will live into the future at Gilkey Square. Homeworkers on the commission have a figure of $30,000 to get the job done.

I couldn’t help myself, I had to come up with a creative fundraising project, so here it is.

It’s quite simple really, now you tell me what you think, Now I don’t know everybody or their financial situations, but I suspect that at least 20 of us can write checks for a grand without going to our graves grumbling about it.

So I also believe that 20 of us can write checks for half a grand.

Booyah! There it is, plan A. Plan B, is equally simple.

Three hundred of us writing $100 checks.

Bing bong boom, cut all this in half and we’ve got it.

Otherwise, this total is upwards of $60,000.

So to get this ball rolling, I’ll commit to being one of the grand guys that smiles at the memory of the grand gruff master flash, Clayton James.

Of course this gift comes with a catch.

The writeup about Clayton has to include an honoring of his wife, Barbara.

She smoothed him nicely, mellowed him so lovingly that he outlived her.

Who knows what moves us to invest in our community? I hope that enough of us feel good about taking this action that we actually do.

Please join me in this joint effort.

Glen S. Johnson

La Conner