Who Is Director of Emerald Arts Center in Springfield Oregon

(Above: Paula Goodbar takes a walk through the Emerald Art Middle's well-stocked souvenir store on her final day as the center'due south executive director; photos by Randi Bjornstad)

Past Randi Bjornstad

Paula Goodbar is a woman of her word.

When she took on the job of executive manager at the Emerald Fine art Center in downtown Springfield in 2013, Goodbar told herself she would stay five years. 5 years to the day later, on July 3, she finished her final day on the job.

"Information technology was time," Goodbar said. "I was cramming about 40 hours worth of piece of work into about 28 hours every week, and that left me with no time or energy for my own art. I beloved working with other artists, but I also need to be able to spend more fourth dimension creating and promoting my own work."

The idea came to her forcefully a few months ago when during a doctor visit for a sliced finger, she learned that her blood pressure was "off the charts."

"I idea, this is not good," Goodbar said. "I realized it was time to accept some other look at what I had been doing and what I really want to achieve. I was having to try to cram my own art into 10-minute increments because of all the other things I needed to do. I turned 64 this yr, and I needed to re-evaluate taking care of my own needs and focusing on my own art. I'm non getting any younger."

Paula Goodbar retires from the Emerald Art Center after five years every bit its executive managing director; she is seen here with 1 of her photography pieces now on display at the art center

She'south been interested in art most of her life, discovering photography during her college years in Arizona. She bought a camera, set up her own darkroom, and started her own photographic camera club, catering to other women "because I had encountered so much misogyny in photography," Goodbar said. She chosen the club, Women Exposed.

From there she became vice president of Prescott Fine Arts in Arizona and discovered how much she enjoyed working with artists, too equally how much she wanted to exercise it herself.

"I threw myself into it," Goodbar said. "I was hiring models, doing my own fine art photography, and for income shooting weddings, sometimes two in a day."

She and her husband, Steve Goodbar, became interested in relocating to Eugene in 2004, afterwards her daughter "saw Eugene online and said we need to exist at that place," Goodbar recalled.

"She said it has bicycle paths, water — and lots of vegetarian restaurants," she said, laughing at the recollection. "Nosotros knew nothing virtually Eugene."

All the same, the Goodbars flew into Portland, collection southward to Eugene, and explored the area from there to Cottage Grove and from the McKenzie Valley — "I loved the quirkiness of naming something Nimrod," Goodbar said — westward to the sea.

She also was attracted to the caste of back up that seemed to exist growing in the area for arts, "and I knew then that I would like to alive here — I didn't want to leave," she said.

Information technology took ii more than years to go far happen, but in 2006, everything cruel in place.

"Steve came up here and establish a house for rent on Grant Street, and we lived at that place until concluding twelvemonth, when nosotros moved to Cottage Grove," Goodbar said. "When we started looking for a house to purchase, we looked everywhere, but I felt especially drawn to Cottage Grove for some reason.

"Then this house came on the market, and it really felt right — it was congenital the aforementioned year Steve was born, it was painted yellow — my grandmother loved yellow and had a yellow house, and I always wanted ane — and it had a piece of work space for me and a garage for Steve. Information technology was an easy decision. And nosotros love it here."

At present she hopes to have plenty of fourth dimension to piece of work on her art, which is yet based on photography, merely often embellished now with digital effects and mixed media approaches.

"Information technology seems like such a luxury to imagine having several hours to work on my art instead of several minutes," she said.

Yet, Goodbar is not endmost the door on farther employment opportunities.

"I still want to work with other artists," she said. "I feel I take a talent and the experience to be a 'omnibus,' someone who tin can aid others find their ain vision, their voice, likewise as practical skills for submitting their work, pricing their piece of work, and helping them find advisable places to evidence what they accept washed."

Contact Paula Goodbar: facebook.com/paulagoodbarart/

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Source: https://eugenescene.org/artist-paula-goodbar-ends-a-five-year-stint-as-executive-director-of-the-emerald-art-center-she-will-pursue-her-own-art-and-coach-other-artists/

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