Eugene Bennett

Hello, this is Dalsar-Omstead. Today let's visit a 20th century artist who chooses to work in a 19th century town. My story in a moment after a word from Clint Gruber and Pacific Power. Welcome once again to Stories of Pacific Powerland, a presentation of Pacific Power and Light, the company that has been serving the electric needs of the region's homes, farms and industries

through more than half a century of progress and growth. Now here's Nelson with a Portrait of the Artist. Most people in the southern Oregon communities of Medford, Jacksonville and Central Point know of Eugene Bennett by reputation and will tell you he is an artist.

But looking at it in another way, it might also be more accurate to say that Eugene Bennett is a builder. For this southern Oregon man designs works of art in a fashion similar to the way an architect designs a building.

Sometimes he works with paint, sometimes with most any material which catches his fancy. If you visit a studio in Jacksonville, Oregon, he might tell you, well, one reason I came back to my home country from Illinois in 1958 was because I wanted a chance to work with wood and there's lots of wood in southern Oregon.

And then, too, there was more opportunity here, opportunity to expand and that's what an artist needs. One thing I needed was room, plenty of room to move around and to enjoy the freedom of working in large areas.

There were loads of room in Southern Oregon, and I was finally attracted to Jacksonville, where I found a good piece of property available at the right price. The property Eugene Bennett found in History Conscious Jacksonville included an ancient frame building which appeared to have weathered just about as much time as it could bear.