Tripsters

Tripsters, 2024

 
When the McMenamins Passport program was launched in 2013, there was an extra-special reward for being among the first group to finish: Those adventurers would have their likeness painted and displayed at McMenamins. It seemed like a simple project for the handful of early finishers we predicted. Boy, were we wrong.
 
455 people became Cosmic Tripsters in time for the first party! We were thrilled, but our artists were…surprised, to say the least. Painting that many portraits could take years – ten, as it turns out – and where would they all go? Inspired by Joe Cotter’s depiction of the Country Fair, Mike McMenamin liked the idea of celebrating everyone in the same piece, and the project was assigned to a longtime staff artist, the talented Myrna Yoder.
 
Year One Passport finishers submitted photos, printouts were made, and boxes containing more than a hundred files were handed over to Myrna…
 
I began designing a composition that could accommodate over a hundred portraits and still hold together as a good painting. Things started out well, but I soon discovered that a number of the files contained more than one person (many people embark on the Quest with a partner or group of friends), and the number of portraits nearly doubled.
 
I reworked the design to fit 200 Tripsters and dove in. I had painted about 80 portraits when a storm of projects hit: the new Cedar Hills pub, Kalama Harbor Lodge, Gearhart Hotel’s Annex, and Elks Temple. It was all hands on deck for our team of artists; the Tripster panel would have to wait.
 
About the time I was ready to resume work, Covid struck and everything came to a halt. The panel sat in my home studio. When I needed the space for my family, it was wrapped up, the files packed away, and everything was moved into my basement.
 
Fast forward to 2023… With the 10-year anniversary of the first Cosmic Tripsters approaching, we had a goal for completion. Because years had passed, a fresh call for photos from our original Tripsters went out and the response was impressive.
 
In September 2023, fellow McMenamins artists Eona Skelton and Cleo Hehn jumped in to help, painting additional portraits in acrylic paint on watercolor paper, and Eona came up with the great idea of using the Tripster stamp in the piece.
 
I took what they had created and puzzled it together. The portraits on paper were incorporated as clouds, leaves and flowers. The group party scene was laid out, and more people were added to the existing clouds. Everyone had a place.
 
Now it was just a matter of finishing the artwork: I painted portraits, collaged Eona’s and Cleo’s portraits in, glazed, added details to the garden, added the sun and moon, and the million other things one does when painting a painting.
 
While I was working on the painting, I was also keeping spreadsheets, checking and double-checking who had been included and where they were in the painting to help answer future questions from curious Passporters and Tripsters.
 
In May 2024 the last face, Cosmic Tripster #331, was added, and with him the work was complete.
 
My hope is that people will be pleased to find our version of their faces in this painting and feel good about being included, just as we are grateful for their support of McMenamins.