Sisters students say 'Hello Neighbor'

Students in Kit Stafford's middle school arts class got to know their neighbors recently through a statewide initiative sponsored by the Sisters-based arts education program Caldera.

The Hello Neighbor project is the labor of photographer Julie Keefe, who launched the project in a North Portland neighborhood.

"When interviewed about his rapidly changing North Portland community, my neighbor, Charles, said he didn't mind the streets being safer, the businesses returning, or the houses being fixed up," Keefe wrote in an introduction to the project. "What he did mind was that people didn't say hello anymore."

Keefe thought art could change that.

"My idea was to work with children to seek out neighbors of all ages," she said. "I wanted to begin a dialogue about community from their point of view. The resulting artwork would be displayed throughout the children's neighborhoods. Mural-sized, black-and-white photographs with text would introduce the neighborhood to its children and neighbors to each other."

The project was expanded to Central Oregon. Students in the region interviewed neighbors; Keefe photographed them and huge banners were printed of some of those photographs. Banners and photographs from that project are currently on display at Sisters Art Works, 204 W. Adams Ave. in Sisters.

Now it is the turn of Sisters Middle School students to participate.

They interviewed Sharon Head, Jim Evered, Shorty Hurtley, Luke Ortega, Harold and Louise Jacobs and Jack Nagel among their neighbors.

"My neighbor is Shorty," Lindsay Soliz said. "When I went to interview her it was her birthday. On her birthday, she likes to eat shortcake."

Keefe shot photos of Hurtley with her horse.

Banners made from the photographs will be displayed on businesses around Sisters.

"We hope it will be within a month," Stafford said. (To participate, contact Stafford at 549-2099).

Each banner features a telling quote from the subject.

"We take the pictures in black-and-white, then you take your favorite sentence of what they said and put it under the picture," said Michael Routh.

"The sentences were also something we didn't know about them," said Cierra Tigard.

Students also viewed the pictures made by students from other schools. Stafford said it was striking how pervasive cultural stereotypes impacted the Sisters students' perceptions. Assumptions based on looks ("he's a gangbanger") were overturned when the stories of the subjects were told. (The "gangbanger" turned out to be a hardworking single dad).

For Stafford, that eye-opener alone makes the project significant.

"There's a lot of things you don't know just by looking at a person," she said.

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

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