Underpassage: She Who Sees

Original Deer Feb 2014

 A community project guided by artist Kari Johnson.
Below:  New Deer 2017

 Artwork by Kari Johnson, after over-painting Original Deer

This artwork of a place I call Underpassage: the six-block city park zone in Eugene under a prominent north-south freeway overpass which as a bridge crosses the Willamette River leading into and away from downtown.

Deer through various visitations, occupations, degradations, 2020-2022. Below, early-March 2022.

In March 2022 City closed the park-zone. The public, including campers, excluded, the area fenced, the concrete painted, ground reseeded.

Mid-2023 re-opened as a public park. Below, with anti-graffiti coating on the original artwork, artist Kari Johnson scraped off ODOTs latex paint-over -- revealing and resurrecting -- Deer of the Underpassage.

Fall 2023. Kari renovated and extended the mural-artwork. Below, December 2023.

NOTE The mask-like image on the left of the Deer mural-artwork is adapted from the Tsagiglalal (or Tsagaglalal) motif.

 

This bear-mask-motif appears in various styles in rock art and artifacts of the indigenous peoples of Lower Columbia River and the Chinook areas of the Northwest coast.  A prominent — and iconic — petroglyph of Tsagiglalal on the Washington side of the river across from The Dalles was photographed in the early 20th century and later became famous - and commercialized - in popular culture as She Who Watches.  There have been and are many ways to experience the petroglyph-as-image and its intent.  “She Who Watches” may be a passive observer, a protector, a guardian, a fearsome warning, an omen of death, a witch, a witness, a supplication. She-Who-Sees-All-the-Comings-and-Goings holds closest to this evocative presence. I believe this image — as mask, as persona, as apparition, as resurrection — may open us to ever greater patience in the face of the unknown.