>La Grande Observer | Union and Wallowa Counties' News Leader

ORIGINAL PATTERNS: Arnson built a pantograph, which aids in cutting out his original patterns with a plasma cutter. ().

By Jeff Petersen

Observer Staff Writer

he problem for Wayne Arnson is not filling time in retirement. The problem is finding time, period.

After retiring from Eastern Oregon University two years ago as a trades maintenance worker, the

La Grande man intended to do more steelhead fishing. Oh yes, he also wouldn't mind observing wildlife and birds in their natural habitat, and make a few more boat and golf

trailers.

But then real life called for the artist who will be showing in this year's Season's Faire Nov. 1. His mother-in-law, Audrey Moses, wanted a crane for Christmas.

No problem, thought Arnson. After all, the welding specialist is also a bit of an engineer and inventor. Besides, he comes from an artistic family, from his wife Pat, the disabilities coordinator at EOU, to his five children, to his grandchildren, one of whom played a leading role in the EOU production of "Brighton Beach."

The senior Arnson cut a heron out of sheet steel.

The first-generation crane was OK, but he knew he could do better. The second-generation crane featured more dimensions. And the third-generation crane nearly took on a life of its own.

All are made from scratch. Every bird is different.

Next Arnson got into raptors, a real revelation.

"Because of their shape you can't clamshell them together," he said. The eagle, for example, has nine or 10 pieces just in the head and neck.

"The hardest part is visualizing (the finished product) in the mind's eye," Arnson said.

He heats the big birds with an acetelene torch to give them color, causing expansion and contraction of the metal and the work to "come to life."

"The first time a blue heron began coming to life in my shop was kind of spooky," Arnson admits.

At Season's Faire, Arnson will show several steel sculptures. These include a great blue heron adult and juvenile on lookout, a bald eagle, and a quail couple. Like the other artists in the show, he will donate a work, in this case Mr. and Mrs. Quail, for the auction.

Quail are his current passion. He uses ring-shank nails for the legs and toes. Using a vise and propane torch, he heats up the toes and bends the claws.

"They're hard to build. You can blow the toes off really quick."

Arnson has work on display at galleries in Portland, Beaverton, Lake Oswego and Florence and will have a show at the Red Lion Inn in Richland, Wash., the week of Oct. 31.

The artist has been a lifelong Grande Ronde Valley resident except when he served in the Navy and worked at Textronix in Beaverton. But he soon returned to La Grande, moved back to the same north-side neighborhood he grew up in.

He works out of a 24- by 40-foot shop that he built in 1992, heated by a Fisher stove and watched over by a TV that plays satellite feeds of everything from midget-car racing to Beethoven.

Some of his tools are familiar. Others are one of a kind.

Arnson built a pantograph, which aids in cutting out his original patterns with a plasma cutter. He also built a machine that does the preliminary pounding out of the sculptures, very noisily, saving wear and tear on his arms and hands if not his ears.

Family and friends have encouraged Arnson to pursue his creative dreams. Bob Mason, in fact, warned him, "If you keep doing this, you'll have more work than you ever want."

His good fishing buddy, retired art teacher Tom Hoots of Florence, and his son-in-law's brother, Dave Bartholet, a renowned wildlife artist from Seaside, have also given him inspiration.

Occasionally, Arnson still gets requests for original pieces. For example, he made a peregrine falcon for EOU President Phillip Creighton when Creighton left La Grande to take over at Pacific University in Forest Grove.

The peregrine falcon is the favorite bird of Creighton, an ornithologist.

The craziest thing Arnson ever built, however, was a bat for EOU's resident expert, Burr Betts. Betts had spent a year as interim provost and was returning to his original position, and friends wanted to honor him for his service. Arnson worried about making a bat look "right" for one of the nation's leading bat authorities. But when presented with the finished product, Betts seemed to think the bat was a hit.

The future for Arnson could get even crazier. His sister, Sharon Holes of Spray, has pestered him to build a horse. Yes, life size. Now he says no way, the Columbia River steelhead are beckoning. But ... you never know.