<p>Jon Rombach</p>

Steve Arments art collection and my art collection are similar in some ways. Weve both gathered paintings and sculpture over the years. Arment recruits art that he likes, either because its easy on the eyes or has a good story. Same here. But Steves collection includes stuff by a whole bunch of people. Mine is mostly by one guy. Steve Arment. Another way our collections are different is that mine got started by pulling things out of a burnpile.

When I first got to know Steve he was moving his studio from the old cheese factory on Hurricane Creek. He had a heap of things to clear out. Mostly wood scraps and lumber ends. But there were also abandoned or not-quite-finished wood carvings. Fragments of carousel animal anatomy. A three-foot-long plywood carrot. Unpainted kingfishers and songbirds. Stencils for a giraffe head and other exotic creatures. Pretty much a Noahs Ark of the animal and vegetable kingdoms rendered in wood. Steve was planning to haul these to the dump. I have a burnpile thats closer and offered its services. He took me up on it, thankfully, and once I saw what he was throwing away I started pulling out the good stuff. So began my art collection.

The plywood carrot got screwed to the side of my storage shed. Why? I dont know. What else do you do with a plywood carrot? It makes a dandy landmark. I once saw someone on my property and went to see why. It was a photographer. He was shooting senior pictures and the student wanted a photo by the carrot with the mountains in the background. Thats why you hang a plywood carrot on your shed. Because its art.

Youve seen Steve Arments artwork if youve been inside Wallowa County. The Blue Banana. Lears. Bookloft. TG. Gypsy Java. Old Town Café. Mutiny. Calderas. ToZion. 1917 Lumber. That list is just getting warmed up. The man carves so much wood that on more than a few occasions Ive entered a place of business, noticed a dusting of wood shavings on the floor and asked, Steve just here? and the answer was always yes. It makes me feel like a tracker when that happens.

So it makes sense that a busy artist has been busy collecting art. Go see the exhibit, if you havent already, of artwork by other folks that Steve likes. Its on display through March 24 at the freshly-squeezed Josephy Center for Arts and Culture in Joseph. Thats the old Community Bank building next to Sports Corral. Good things are happening there. Go in and take a gander. Say hi to Rich upstairs in the spiffy new home of the Alvin Josephy Library. And give Mike Koloski a high-five for doing such nice work with the art exhibits.

Walk around those paintings and sculptures from the Arment collection. The artwork is worth seeing for its own sake, but I also think its interesting to see what Steve thinks is interesting. Nobody does exactly what Steve does. Im not even sure what it is exactly that hes doing, but nobody does it better. If youre not familiar with his work, let me describe real quick one of the things hes made and youll get the idea. He made a childrens toy that I guess would be called a rocking horse, except its a pig, with wings, painted with zebra stripes. Not something you just order out of a catalogue, you know?

Looking around my living room at the art by Arment Ive managed to collect, I see an Egyptian scarab beetle with a four-foot wingspan. Two giant codfish heads holding a stick between their mouths. They used to support pots and pans in Steves kitchen but now reside near my woodstove. I hang my waders there after fishing. Theres a set of butterfly shelves. A painting of a castle. Another of a heron. A little carved dinosaur with a broken leg. And this is just stuff Steve was going to throw away or didnt have room for anymore.

I should really get Koloski over here to curate my collection. Until then, go see the exhibit at the Josephy Center. None of it came out of a burnpile, but its still pretty impressive.

Jon Rombach is a local columnist for the Chieftain.