SLO Arts | Art Every Day

SLO ARTS

Art Every Day

BY DARA ROSENWASSER SLO COUNTY ARTS COUNCIL BOARD MEMBER

Whether you’re new to the arts, a long-time enthusiast, advocate, or an artist yourself, Art Every Day is how the SLO County Arts Council likes to celebrate the month of August. What is Art Every Day? The concept stems from the idea of engaging with art on some level every day (learning about it, interacting with it, creating it, sharing it). You may be thinking, “this sounds hard,” or “how will I find time to commit to this?” Well, you’re not alone. The truth is, it’s like deciding to try anything new, and the old adage “practice makes perfect” need not apply here. Anything goes with how, when, and where you Art Every Day. The why is easy.

Art helps your brain, and as many people who create would agree, it can help you cope on the not so good days, too. NPR put out a piece last year by Malaka Gharib extolling the benefits of art on the brain. Visit n.pr/3NOrbd8 to read the story.

Still, wondering how you can commit to Art Every Day? If you’re reading and engaging with this article, that counts toward learning about art!

Art continues to be a source of reflection and a way for audience and spectator to engage with ideas and the world around us. Art is in your face, distant, low drama, intense, calm, horrific, imperfect, timely, impermanent, infinite, incomprehensible, calculated, quirky, haunting, beautiful…okay, you get the point. Art is anything the creator or observer needs it to be.

The City of San Luis Obispo has committed to supporting public art for several years. In every public park, you will find at least one piece of art that helps enhance the beauty of the city and promotes the arts. Sculpture, murals, kinetic art; you can find art in all iterations all over SLO!

While many working artists show in galleries, in museums, or in virtual spaces, there’s this other wonderful contingent of artists whose work is not created for these traditional and socially constructed spaces. You can display your art in your home or garden or keep it to yourself in a notebook. The point is to let your creativity flow! In the words of the late Maya Angelou, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

Ways to engage with art in August (and beyond!)

Visit SLOMA (San Luis Obispo Museum of Modern Art) Camille Hoffman: See and Missed through August 22. sloma.org

Artist Camille Hoffman uses materials collected from childhood and her everyday life to craft imaginary landscapes that are grounded in accumulation, rehabilitation, personal narrative, and historical critique.

Grab a friend and enjoy Art After Dark (SLO) / Art and About (Paso Robles, Los Osos, Morro Bay)

• San Luis Obispo “Art After Dark” First Friday of Each Month 5 to 8 p.m.

• Paso Robles First Saturday of Each Month 5 to 9 p.m.

• Los Osos Second Saturday of Each Month 1 to 4 p.m.

• Morro Bay Fourth Saturday of Each Month 1 to 4 p.m.

These self-guided art walks are free and are a wonderful way to engage with local art in the community. slocountyarts.org/art-and-about

Another fun way to learn more about local artists is to visit SLO County Arts Council’s Membership Directory to read artist bios and learn about an artist’s technique, process, and aesthetic. members. slocountyarts.org

And don’t forget the Open Studios Art Tour is coming up in October! slocountyarts.org/OSAT

Now go out and engage with some Art and get your creativity going! 

Point San Luis

The S.S. Roanoke

BY KATHY MASTAKO

VOLUNTEER DOCENT, RESEARCHER, AND WRITER POINT SAN LUIS LIGHT STATION

In 1916, for three days in May, newspapers across the nation ran front-page stories with the dateline San Luis Obispo. The keepers at Point San Luis had spotted a lifeboat drifting near the breakwater. They assisted in preventing the boat from breaking apart on the rocks and rescuing three men, still clinging to life inside.

The lifeboat they spotted came from the steamer Roanoke. What happened to the Roanoke is unsettled to this day.

On May 8, 1916, the Roanoke set sail from San Francisco, bound for Valparaiso with 600 tons of dynamite for the Chilean mines, 1,300 tons of wheat, and several hundred drums of gasoline and oil.

On May 10, 1916, Keeper Smith reported:

At 4 p.m. today, a boat was seen drifting south of the station with two men visible and making a feeble attempt at signaling. The Union Oil Company launch crew was notified at once and with the second assistant went out and brought the boat in, which in the meantime had drifted to within about 100 yards of the breakwater. The boat was from the Roanoke with eight men, five dead, and the other three nearly unconscious from exposure. Nothing has been heard so far at this place from the other three boats leaving the wrecked ship at 3:30 p.m. on the 9th.

Rescued were the ship’s 23-year-old quartermaster, Joseph Elb, and crewmen Manuel Lopez and Carlos Robino.

The local paper noted that assistant keepers Silva and Greene were “entitled to much credit for the part they took” to rescue the three survivors and recover the five bodies. So was John Neilson, a Union Oil Company foreman.

The S.S. Roanoke docks in Seattle in 1898 with four tons of gold from Alaska aboard. She foundered in heavy seas off Point Buchon around 3 p.m. May 9, 1916, with a crew of 47 and a cargo of explosives, wheat, oil, and gasoline. Antonio J. Silva, longest serving assistant keeper at Point San Luis (19061933). Silva and 2nd assistant Wheeler Greene helped rescue the only three S. S. Roanoke survivors.

Silva and Greene sighted the lifeboat adrift in the breakers near the breakwater and, in a small skiff, went to the port and notified John Neilson, who went out with Mr. Greene and…brought in the dead and living.

The paper went on to report that Dr. McGovern happened to be at Port San Luis at the time. The three men still living were taken to the Marre Hotel at the land end of Harford Pier, where the doctor set to work reviving them.

A special Pacific Coast train was run from San Luis Obispo to the port to get the bodies and assist Dr. McGovern in his efforts. The three survivors were taken to the city’s Pacific Hospital.

The Survivors Speak

While in the hospital, the survivors spoke about their ordeal.

Robino said he was asleep and rushed on deck, clad only in his underclothing. The men in his lifeboat picked up Elb, whose boat had capsized. They rowed around trying to find others, but neither saw nor heard anyone.

Lopez said the Roanoke’s crew was made up almost entirely of new men and that the work of lowering the lifeboats was bungled.

Three boats, as I remember it got away…I pulled Elb into our boat and saved his life. But then he more than squared accounts, for had it not been for him none of us would have reached the shore alive…

Elb spoke about trying to get the attention of other ships. A red shirt belonging to one of the men was tied to an oar as a distress signal. All hands took to the remaining oars, but one by one, the men became exhausted. Elb was still trying to row when his lifeboat was rescued.

The ship was thought to have gone down near Point Buchon. The Roanoke was seaworthy, they believed, but was overloaded, cargo being stowed in staterooms and even in the officer quarters.

A Second Lifeboat

Among the 47 persons on board the Roanoke was second officer John Dennis. Captain McKinnon, master of the Pacific Mail liner, City of Para, radioed on May 11:

At 2 p.m., picked up boat 5, “Roanoke.” One body, probably John Dennis; height five feet ten inches, weight about 170 pounds; baldheaded and clean shaven; full set of teeth; monogrammed ring engraved, “J.G.D.,” and inside, “From Susie.”

A federal investigation began May 13 in San Francisco.

Dennis’s widow made charges that the Roanoke was overloaded.

The “Roanoke’s” interior was sawed away to make room for an unprecedented cargo. All day Monday, a gang of carpenters was busy aboard. My husband told me they were removing everything to get more room. He said he did not believe the “Roanoke” would get further than San Pedro, and he promised to quit her there.

Elb, too, testified the steamer was overloaded and said the crew entertained fears for its safety. Part of the cabin had been cut away to make room for the cargo.

The Findings

In the end, investigators concluded the freighter was, indeed, overloaded and her cargo improperly stowed.

Alternate Theories

On May 17, the L.A. Times reported Umberto Dardi, manager of the Italian Bank in Santa Barbara, had returned there from San Luis Obispo, where he had been directing patrols watching for Roanoke wreckage. Dardi, the paper reported, “states there are so many mystifying circumstances about the affair that he has almost concluded the vessel did not founder” after all.

Our patrols found only an oar, life preserver, and a hat. No other wreckage came ashore. The only survivors are three men who tell a strange story. The only dead are five found in the boat that brought the three survivors ashore and one found at sea.

A rather bizarre article appeared in an August 12, 1917 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. It reported the Roanoke was the victim of a German plot and of German raiders, and not the victim of a mysterious wreck off Port San Luis. The assertion was made by “unnamed wireless operators.”

They are emphatic…that the vessel was seized and towed to a foreign port with its rich cargo of dynamite powder and wheat. The fact of the “Roanoke’s” known seaworthiness and the weak story of Elb…and the Mexican sailors who claimed to be the sole survivors of the disaster, that the ship foundered in heavy seas…do not jibe.

Even after his close brush with death, Elb was anxious to be back sailing again.

I know the sea, and I don’t think I’d care to learn a new line now. I don’t know what I could do ashore. I’d croak if I had to work in an office. Besides, a fellow takes his chances on land as well as on water.

Indeed, Elb did return to the sea. He became a master mariner. 