"The Spartesian"

A strange figure appears in the earliest myths from cultures as far apart as China, Africa and the Middle East, where he was known as Dagon. He emerged from the sea and instructed the first humans on the basic skills of civilization -- mainly beer making. Some stories have him coming down in a metal ship from the constellation Sirius. He had arms and legs and stood upright. He had a man's face, but the rest of his head was that of a huge fish, and his body was also that of a fish. In this painting, the Fish-God has landed in his brew-kettle spacecraft upon the town of Olympia, a place famous for its artesian wells and symbolized here by the many pipes and faucets coming out of the ground. The stars in the sky are arranged into the constellation of Sirius. The Spartesian fish-god is introducing the Hydrometer to humankind, so that brewers can more scientifically produce their product.

Lyle painting the "Newlyweds" piece on a door at Edgefield.

"The Wind Goddess"

The corridors leading to the Edgefield Winery open out into a large square room furnished with couches and old books. The walls have a handpainted fake "wallpaper" pattern all the way around, along with an upper frieze pattern of equally fake "Tibetan" wind clouds that emanate from the central female Wind Goddess figure over the entryway. She guards the long hallway of the Winery Wing, which is widely reputed to be a strange place -- for example, behind locked doors are stairways leading to the wing's third floor, which was never built...yet it occasionally appears at certain auspicious times of the year.

"Children of the Mack"

This soothing pastoral scene features the beautiful backside of the Hotel Oregon building, a structure that should have been built on its own imposing hilltop. The art deco edifice from McMinnville's Mack Theater has been detached from its Third Street location and placed as an oddly imposing monolith that draws a crowd of unexpectedly intelligent local children to the storm-threatened hillside. They've come to discuss the appropriateness of movie references in artwork.

"Orphans Sweep Up the Paint Flakes"

Tiny inmates from the Masonic Orphanage next door sweep up the flakes of old paint that have fallen from the walls of the Grand Lodge. An ancient Egyptian mural of the god Thoth weighing the souls of the dead is revealed behind the newer layers of paint that just happened to have fallen off in a mirror-image map of Scotland -- an honored place in the history of Freemasonry.

"The Tower"

A 4' x 8' panel, intended for the Compass Room at the Grand Lodge (Forest Grove, Ore.). This explains all the imagery associated with the Masons.  The painting is also meant to be a portrait of McMenamins as a Tower of Babel, always growing and changing. Fifteen or sixteen of the more visually interesting McMenamins locations are shown. The little Hammerhead construction workers are taking a break and playing music. Since the completion of this painting in 2000, the company has continued to restore more historic buildings, and so a new digital version of the Tower, with some of the more recent additions added to the bottom, appears on this site's home page.

"Walker Brothers"

During the renovation of the Grand Lodge in Forest Grove in 2000, I spent quite a number of nights alone in the building, painting on the walls and then using the elevator to put away my supplies and equipment in the early morning hours. More than once the elevator would mysteriously decide to take me to the scary third floor attic, instead of the basement. Each time the door slowly opened, I expected to find someone --or some thing, waiting for me. Nothing was there, of course. It is well known that ghosts avoid artists.
Around the time I painted this panel I watched the Vincent Price movie, "The Abominable Dr. Phibes". This was the inspiration for my painting. The Grand Lodge was a retirement home. The building must have  witnessed the passing of many elderly Lodge members over the years.  The Freemasons claim their heritage dates back to ancient Egypt. The vast, unused third floor attic of the Grand Lodge then becomes a kind of River Styx and Ruby the Witch is the Ferrywoman who transports the souls of departed Freemasons to the Other Shore. Music from the Walker  Brothers, who were popular in the area in the 1920's, and some roses strewn on the water indicate that all is well.

"Ruby Wades Into the Swamp"

Ruby the Witch takes a stroll through the sad, mucky remnants of the pond that once covered part of the land in front of the Grand Lodge. Twin columns are important symbols in Freemasonry, and a set of them stood by the road on either side of a path that used to lead to the front steps of the main building. The columns are gone now, but in this picture, Ruby's presence in the water has stimulated the spontaneous growth of raspberry vines in fruity spirals up the stone shafts.

"Saxophones Flood the Lodge"

Painted for the Alice Inkley Room in the basement of the Grand Lodge. Some kind of musical theme was required for this painting. A member of the local Native American population, a pioneer couple and jazz saxophonist John Coltrane conjure a torrent from between the columns of the main lodge building in the background.

"Ralph Farrier the Bandleader"

This 10 ft.-diameter painting is on the east wall of the Crystal Ballroom, and there used to be a set of windows in this part of the wall. If you stand in the ballroom and look at this painting, you are in the very scene that it depicts. The ghostly bandleader is Ralph E. Farrier, who ran the Crystal Ballroom for 30 years. He also owned and operated the American Casket Company. He's standing on a coffin-like miniature replica of the Ballroom building. The cord from the microphone leads inside the casket/building, hinting that perhaps Ralph's voice is really coming from inside the box, and not from the smiling apparition above. The fire-belching harlequin puppets on either side provide the stage lighting. In the winter of 1995, when only the artists were working in the abandoned, unheated ballroom, several odds and ends were still left lying around from previous occupants of the building. An old coffin, perhaps a theatrical prop, was among the debris. Placed on the stage with some dropcloths stuffed inside, it became a fairly warm place to take a snooze during the long hours of mural production.

"Hot Tub at the Kennedy School"

While the students are away on summer vacation, a custodian has made modifications to the boiler machinery and invited his girlfriends to a clandestine hot tub party.

"Louie the Cop"

Louie the Cop captured notorious outlaw Roy Gardner at the Hotel Oxford, in the same building where this painting now hangs. Gardner had tried to avoid arrest by disguising himself as a burn victim and wrapping his head in bandages -- he had gained his criminal reputation by holding up trains. Louie eventually went into the movie business and later befriended Gardner, who spent long years in the penitentiary at Alcatraz. Gardner was a charismatic and personable bandit, even during the commission of his robberies.

"Olympic Club"

The graphical elements in the corners and center of this painting come from the Olympic Club's original stencil work on the walls. The distortions of the logos and the playing cards were done with a photocopier by sliding the originals carefully across the glass during the copying process. The resulting copies were then projected onto the plywood panel and painted.

"Meet Me at the Owl"

This panel is based on a newspaper advertisement from the early twentieth century for a local business in Centralia. The stairway walls leading up to the Olympic Club Hotel are decorated with many other graphics inspired by similar advertisements from that era.

"Welcome Visitors"

This painting shows the Hotel Oregon lobby as it appeared in its first few decades. The clock says it's fifteen minutes before midnight and three children are up past their bedtimes, waiting with their pet cat and their suitcases. The night clerk seems to have gone missing and the phone is out of order. An eerie bluish light in the back of the lobby announces the arrival of alien visitors who have come disguised as past employees and residents of the hotel. But they have made a miscalculation, and they are much too small to fool anyone. The scene is crowded with objects and personages particular to the history of the hotel, the town of McMinnville, and even nearby Linfield College. Each detail requires a long-winded explanation, so you might as well have a seat in the rocking chair. Welcome to the Hotel Oregon. You can check out any time you like.

"Beach Golfing"

This painting is mainly a childish visual pun.

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

"The Yo-Yo Goddess"

The Yo-Yo Goddess presides over all things that go up and down. Naturally, she dwells in a stairwell at Edgefield.

"Nellie Latourette"

Nellie Latourette spent part of her youth in McMinnville, Ore., and lived out her last years at Edgefield. She died at the age of 103. She taught piano, never married and worked for years on an extremely long poem about Oregon's 19th-century pioneers, a few of whom were her ancestors. In this painting, she's sitting in the 2nd-floor balcony of the Hotel Oregon, but the scene beyond the cast-iron railings is of Edgefield, her other place of residence. Opposites are depicted all over the picture -- warm vs. cool colors; chastity vs. license; freedom vs. immobility. Virginal white flowers are pinned under the piano lid, while lush pink flowers try to encroach from the outside. Nellie's dress seems made out of inescapably thick cloth, with an absurdly imposing belt keeping it all together --yet her feet are bare. She's either just drained her wine glass, or it never held any wine to begin with.

Despite all the confusion, she's beckoning you to join her in a duet. Incidentally, the piano in this painting is based on one that was found in the auditorium of the St. Francis School in Bend when McMenamins first began converting the building into a soaking pool in 2004.

"Five Women and the Soaking Pool"

Five women in stylish modern swimwear wait patiently for the moon to rise before dipping into the warm soaking pool behind Ruby's Spa at Edgefield. These are the same women who appear in heavy winter coats on a mural in the Winery Wing of the Edgefield hotel.

"Galleon Runs Aground at Gearhart"

Parallels between the arrival of McMenamins to the resort town of Gearhart, Ore., and the arrival of Spanish galleons to the shores of 16th-century Oregon are the subject of this painting. It's not clear whose music is luring whom to the dice-rocks on the beach. Coyote has transformed into a young Clatsop flutist and she might want to cause a shipwreck in order to delay the onslaught of the Europeans. The bowsprit witch's haunting harp melody may be part of a plan to deliberately maroon the architectural patchwork ship on the Oregon coast. In any case, the crew is already distracted by a pointless round of miniature golf on the ship's deck.

"The Fixture of the Hole in One"

At a dim time of the month, the moon needs help illuminating the Edgefield Pub Course. The unnaturally close moonlight inspires irrational behavior in two golfers. The light fixture is based on one that hangs in the 2nd-floor north balcony of the Edgefield hotel. According to McMenamin family legend, its presence has been known to help golfers shoot a hole-in-one.

"The Power Station"

The panel is 5 feet tall by eight feet long. It's a dreamscape. Some children from the early 20th century have arrived at the Loading Dock/Courtyard of Edgefield. Most of them are carrying buckets, so I would guess they are fetching water. But wait. Mr. Hammerhead has just used a cutting torch to convert the water tower into a giant light fixture. He is using a wagon and team of horses to haul away the star-shaped scrap metal. One of the boys has just plugged in the water tower light to an electrical outlet on the Power Station (where else) and the other children are admiring the light show and seem to have forgotten the original reason for their visit.
The painting is about Edgefield's conversion from a place of agriculture to a place of leisure. The representatives of farm culture--the tractor, the wagon and the animals --are all leaving the scene. The children, representing playtime and leisure, are just arriving. The parallel metaphor is that water is being converted to light. The water tower is now a sparkly ornament and the water wheel is now being turned by colorful light bulbs instead of water. Functional machinery has been re-fitted for entertainment.

"The Christening of the Battleship Oregon"

During the time that Edgefield was a poor farm and then a retirement home, a couple of the residents used the basement woodshop to build a wooden replica of the Battleship Oregon. Here they've taken advantage of one of the many times the basement was flooded to "christen" their model ship. Lacking any cooperation from the temperence-minded women of Edgefield Manor, they've fashioned a larger-than-life mechanical matron (suspiciously resembling Ruby the Witch) to do the honors and smash a bottle of Edgefield sparkling wine onto the toy ship's bow.

"Familiar Cat"

The cat is wearing a single sparkling earring. One of the women in the mural down the Edgefield hallway from the cat is also wearing a similar earring. The cat could be the woman's pet, or maybe even an animal incarnation of the woman herself.

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn

By Lyle Hehn