Elkton Community Education Center

Installed Jan 26, 2025

14 of 100

Notes on how I made this.

ECEC Library and Restaurant

I first visited the Elkton Community Education Center with Andrea January 11, 2025. It was kind of a rare chance opportunity because in the State Library Directory they’re just a “volunteer” Library and not connected to any other system. Elkton is in the middle of nowhere, and when we finally arrived I didn’t find a library but this nationally unique “educational center” on 40 acres with gardens, replica fur trading “fort,” cafe, commercial kitchen, art gallery, meeting and event space, research area, Monarch Butterfly Haven, commercial garden, etc.

Peter and Deb Gritton, Co-director of ECEC

Deb Gritton is the Co-Director and a beautiful, deep hearted person. She walked us into the building and I was struck its towering four sided clerestory with windows in each of the cardinal directions.

Architecturally, I rated Elkton a five or six on a scale of 10 for a Solar Spectrum Art installation. The only Solar architectural drawback is the large eve that overhangs the clerestory windows will shadow the prisms when the sun higher than 45° in elevation – about noon on the equinox. So no midday rainbow beams from March to September!

To counter vale this downside, I designed prisms for the east, south and west. Now, whenever the sun is above the horizon and below 45° in elevation, rainbow beams will flood the library, art gallery and meeting space.

Chet and I returned to Elkton again in June 2025, climbed their fancy platform ladder and carefully measured the windows – so when it came to making the prisms back in the studio this December, I was able to cut them to the right length and height.

Chet and I are peeling off the protective covering in the Event/Gallery area. Then he applied the care labels and I signed them. I think we got the whole thing done in maybe four hours.

From my exterior photos, I was able to solar calculate the seasonal eve shadow. Combining that calculation with window casing dimensions, I determined to place the prisms hovering just above the interior lip of the windowsill so they’ll get the maximum amount of exposure when the sun is high.

Installation video

After installing in Sutherland the day before, where we had to drill through the wall corner bead to anchor the hangers, I developed a pretty good technique for installing on the ladder in Elkton. After a few false starts, I used a 5/32 twist drill, and then clamping the eye screw in a vice grip, managed to screw/thread the steel corner molding so that we could get the minimum of 15 pounds of load resistance safety factor on the Newton scale.

Chet bought some five minute epoxy, and after all the prisms were leveled up, I went around with the ladders one last time to put a drop of epoxy where the screw met the drywall – so they’re locked in. I’m really happy with this hanging procedure. Probably use it in a lot of other places.

Half way through we were beautifully interrupted by all the wonderful staff who brought us lunch and told us about the center. Toward the end of lunch three new people appeared.

One person looked really familiar in the way you I can’t place them, but feel deep connection. I said, “Are you from Corvallis? She said, “No Eugene,” and we went through a few other six degree questions and I said, “Are you connected to Andrea?” and she said, “Oh yes, I’m her front yard neighbor!” It turned it to be Dorna. She had no idea that I made this kind of art, and she’s on her first visit as their new bookkeeper. Dorna loves to bookkeep for nonprofits and she has done a lot in Eugene with groups like Our Children’s Trust, who sued the federal government about climate change.

After Elkton, my dear doctor friend Chet has convinced me that at 84, I shouldn’t go up on high ladders anymore (We’ll see – because it is so much fun). So, In the ladder video you can see my (final?) simple installation process. I’ve already installed the eye hooks based on the studio-made mounting template I taped to the window opening. It brought a jolt of joy to hang them up and watch from above for 15 minutes as the Earth flowed rainbows around the room.

Here’s the spectrum beaming directly from the south-southwest windows, right down toward the entrance. and beside it a photo I took visiting exactly a year before of white sunlight in the same place.

Since finding ECEC 12 months ago, I’ve been looking at those photos of long shafts of Winter light in Elkton and just dying to turn them into spectrum.

Dream come true!

Typical Oregon winter clouds were predicted for installation day. We didn’t have a single moment of sun the day before when we were working on the Oakland installation, so I didn’t have my hopes up at Elkton. It is a huge bummer to design a space, see it in my mind’s eye, at least vaguely, and have no reward of “first light” spectrum a year later installing… So it was such a thrill to have dear Sun burn through the clouds five or six times in Elkton over a couple of hours installing ECEC!

Bobcat in the shadow

Installation video

The corner display case contains exquisite clothes and tools made by local indigenous people. The open pages of the fascinating Kalapuia-to-English dictionary lay on a table beside it.

Double Rainbow

Chet Johnson and the ECEC staff. I’m wearing a gifted shell necklace made for me by a revered member of the Cow Creek band of the Umqua. The ECEC land is on a ancient meeting ground of regional tribes and ECEC has a close and fertile connection with these Native Peoples. I wear the honor around my neck every day.

As the Earth rotates into afternoon and six rainbow beam drift through the building, a major highlight for me was meeting Carol (91 years old) who is the very modest founder of Elkton Community Education Center back in 1990! At 91 years, an overflowing heart and powerhouse. Like old friends, we jumped into a far ranging conversation about everything from her sheep raising, teaching teens in Elkton High and continuing to work with them at ECEC, to our overlapping experiences with cancer. Turns out it has been a gift for both of us – turning our lives for the better! It is a very profound experience to meet Carol and it gave me the second opportunity that day to tell the 2023 origin story of 100 Libraries and how my spirit guides have led me ever since.

My deep honor to offer the Rainbow Bridge where tribes gather.