The Shortcut - Events in Oregon

Join Durant, home to the Durant Vineyards Winery & Tasting Room and Oregon’s only commercial olive mill, for the 17th annual Olio Nuovo Festival, a monthlong series of events celebrating the season’s first olive oil pressing! This beloved tradition returns with seasonal tastings, tours, live music, holiday shopping, and more throughout the month of November.

This year’s festivities include:

Feast Olio: This immersive culinary experience begins with an exclusive tour of the Durant Olive Mill while sipping Durant Vineyards sparkling wine. Following the tour, guests will enjoy an elevated 7-course olive oil-centric Italian supper with wine pairings, prepared by Durant’s resident chefs, Eric Bartle and Sara Kundelius. This event takes place the first three Saturdays in November (November 7, 14, 21) from 12 pm - 2:30 pm, and seating is limited. $175 per person.

Oeno & Olio Tasting: Oeno (Latin for “wine”), is paired with Olio (“oil” in Italian) for special tastings that will be the first three weekends in November at 11 am. Guests will enjoy a fun communal tasting while they partake of fresh bruschetta and explore Durant’s estate grown and crafted wines alongside Durant extra virgin olive oils. Seatings are limited. $75 per person.

Olio Food & Wine Pavilion: Visitors will enjoy live music, Durant Vineyards wine, and a variety of Northwest-inspired cuisine from local restaurants in the heated Food & Wine Pavilion at the Durant Tasting Room. The pavilion is open each full November weekend, beginning November 7, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with fresh oysters available during the final weekend of the festival.

Olio Nuovo Mill Tours: Guided tours of Oregon’s only olioteca (olive oil mill and tasting room) are offered daily in November, this behind-the-scenes look offers an exploration into growing olives in the Northwest, and a chance to see the mill in action! For visitors’ safety, the mill will be blocked off while the mill and large equipment is running, but guests will be able to see the operation in action and taste the fresh Olio Nuovo (new oil). Note: olive harvest is dictated by nature, so the mill may not be running during all tours. However, there’s still a lot to learn, taste and enjoy! Hours: Mon - Fri at 11 am; Saturday and Sundays at 11 am, 12:30 pm and 2 pm.

Community Mill Day: Inspired by traditional community milling days in the Mediterranean, this event is designed for small-scale growers who don’t meet the 1,000-pound minimum for Custom Milling — all you need is just 2 gallons of olives! Join for this special, hands-on experience celebrating Olio, as we combine everyone's harvest to create a fresh, seasonally unique Extra Virgin Olive Oil. This event will take place on Sunday, November 15, at 10 am.

Self-Guided Olive Oil Tasting: Visitors to the Durant Farm Shop can enjoy a self-guided exploration of the distinct flavors of freshly milled extra virgin olive oil. Sample each olive variety, side-by-side, exploring the unique flavor characteristics found in the various olive cultivars. Participants can also get cooking and pairing advice from Durant’s educated staff members while shopping the selection of Durant extra virgin olive oil – from small gift bottles to full gallon sizes.

Holiday Decor at the Nursery: Daily 10 am – 4 pm throughout November. Durant’s nursery and greenhouses will be transformed into a whimsical winter plant and flower market filled with fresh greenery, an expanded selection of seasonal plants for the home, gifts for gardeners and so much more. Visitors will find fresh cut olive branches from the Durant orchard, festive olive crowns and Durant-crafted holiday wreaths featuring olive foliage. Complimentary greenery/holiday decor demonstrations are also available.

Olio Grand Finale: Saturday and Sunday, November 28 & 29, 10 am – 4 pm. Join for a festive weekend at the Farm as we celebrate the grand finale of the Olio Nuovo Festival and kick off the holiday season—Durant-style! Enjoy Oysters & Olio—freshly shucked oysters drizzled with olio—alongside the debut of two new Durant Vineyards sparkling wines, the 2021 Blanc de Blanc and 2023 Brut, available by the glass or bottle. The weekend also features a special progressive holiday marketplace throughout the olive mill and farm shop, with local vendors offering unique gifts, artisan culinary goods, holiday décor and more. Plus, bring the whole family for pictures with Santa Claus in the olive mill.

For more information and a full lineup of events, visit: https://durantoregon.com/pages/olio-nuovo-festival.

Photography at Oregon presents

Melanie and Todd Walker

Good Grief
The Photograph Reimagined

Emerald Art Center
500 Main St. Springfield, OR 97477
The exhibit runs November 3rd through 25th
Opening Reception: Second Friday, November 13th, 5 – 7:30 pm during the Springfield Art Walk
Artist Talk: Sunday, November 15th at 2:30 pm at the Emerald Art Center (use side entrance on 5th St,)

“Good Grief brings together the innovative work of my father, photographic artist, Todd Walker, and my posthumous collaboration shaped by the imperfect negatives he left behind.
The work presented in this exhibition is a sampling of some of his vast body of experimental digital work which he started in 1981, teaching himself machine language, way before Photoshop. Drawing on his painterly background where he taught himself color theory cleaning paint buckets at RKO Studios during his teens, he worked with his black and while negatives to create his own unique approach to color.
The works on silk are a part of a posthumous collaboration after finding damaged negatives from his early commercial work. Made around the time I was born, these compromised negatives carry traces of both photographic experimentation and personal history. Working with them now, I treat their damage and irregularities not as flaws to correct, but as openings—places where my father’s images meet my own hand and perspective. The resulting work holds two moments in relation: his act of making the photographs and my return to them decades later. I am interested in the physicality and material qualities of the disrupted surfaces and how they interact with the images recorded so long ago.

“The title Good Grief speaks to the tenderness and complexity of that return: the joy of discovering new possibilities in his work, alongside the ache of making something together after his death. The exhibition is a celebration of his inventive spirit and of the unexpected forms collaboration can take across time.”

Melanie Walker is a third-generation photographic artist whose expertise is in the area of alternative photographic processes, immersive photographic installations and public art. She has received a number of awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Colorado Council on the Arts Fellowship, Polaroid Materials Grants and the Aaron Siskind Award and is a third time PhotoLucida Critical Mass top 50 finalist. Her work is housed in numerous collections including the CCP Tucson, LACMA, and the Musee National d’art in Luxembourg. She recently stepped away from teaching at the University of Colorado at Boulder where she taught historic photographic process and alternative ideas for presenting photographs throughout her teaching career of 48 years. She uses her work as a vehicle to understand the world.

Todd Walker (1917–1998) was a self-taught pioneer in photography. Born in Salt Lake City and raised in Los Angeles, he built a successful career as a commercial photographer in the 1940s before leaving it to pursue his artistic interests. Beginning in the 1960s, Walker explored alternative photographic processes—techniques that do not rely on silver gelatin—to develop a distinctive visual language. Dissatisfied with the formal possibilities of conventional photography, he gravitated toward processes such as the Sabatier effect, sometimes called solarization, which emphasizes the edges and lines of forms. He described this quality as “the line drawn by light.” Color also became a defining element of his work. In 1981, Walker began using digital processing to extend his photographic practice. He taught himself computer programming to create the tools he needed, carrying his experimentation into the final decades of his career.

Long-time friend Chris Smither makes his 7th stop at Jaqua Concert Hall since 2007. Why? As Mojo put it “Eighty this year with five-and-a-half decades of LPs behind him, Smither sounds as good, maybe better than ever. The deft guitar-picking and floorboard-stomping are still there. So are his fine songs with their wry, wise, trenchant words, timeless melodies and languid ash-and-gravel voice.” Awesome to have him back.

Noises Off
By Michael Frayn
Directed by Elizabeth Helman
Robinson Theatre
Nov. 6, 7, 13, 14, 15*, 20, 21, 22*
Called “the funniest farce ever written,” Noises Off presents a manic menagerie of itinerant actors rehearsing a flop called Nothing’s On. Slamming doors, on and offstage intrigue, and an errant herring all figure in the plot of this hilarious, high-energy comedy. Mixing mockery and homage, Frayn heaps a hilarious melée of stock characters and situations into his side-splitting play-within-a-play.

NOISES OFF is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com

Join Mayor Sean VanGordon, the City of Springfield, and American Legion Post 40 for the annual Mayor's Veterans Day Breakfast on Wednesday, November 11, from 9 to 10 a.m. at the Springfield Justice Center, 230 4th Street.

Veterans, their families, and community members are invited to enjoy a complimentary breakfast and come together to recognize and thank those who have served our country.

The event is free and open to the public. RSVPs are encouraged but not required. To RSVP, visit https://forms.cloud.microsoft/g/rnCbDz8TKX.

The breakfast will be held in the second-floor Emergency Operations Center, with elevator access available.

Join Durant, home to the Durant Vineyards Winery & Tasting Room and Oregon’s only commercial olive mill, for the 17th annual Olio Nuovo Festival, a monthlong series of events celebrating the season’s first olive oil pressing! This beloved tradition returns with seasonal tastings, tours, live music, holiday shopping, and more throughout the month of November.

This year’s festivities include:

Feast Olio: This immersive culinary experience begins with an exclusive tour of the Durant Olive Mill while sipping Durant Vineyards sparkling wine. Following the tour, guests will enjoy an elevated 7-course olive oil-centric Italian supper with wine pairings, prepared by Durant’s resident chefs, Eric Bartle and Sara Kundelius. This event takes place the first three Saturdays in November (November 7, 14, 21) from 12 pm - 2:30 pm, and seating is limited. $175 per person.

Oeno & Olio Tasting: Oeno (Latin for “wine”), is paired with Olio (“oil” in Italian) for special tastings that will be the first three weekends in November at 11 am. Guests will enjoy a fun communal tasting while they partake of fresh bruschetta and explore Durant’s estate grown and crafted wines alongside Durant extra virgin olive oils. Seatings are limited. $75 per person.

Olio Food & Wine Pavilion: Visitors will enjoy live music, Durant Vineyards wine, and a variety of Northwest-inspired cuisine from local restaurants in the heated Food & Wine Pavilion at the Durant Tasting Room. The pavilion is open each full November weekend, beginning November 7, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with fresh oysters available during the final weekend of the festival.

Olio Nuovo Mill Tours: Guided tours of Oregon’s only olioteca (olive oil mill and tasting room) are offered daily in November, this behind-the-scenes look offers an exploration into growing olives in the Northwest, and a chance to see the mill in action! For visitors’ safety, the mill will be blocked off while the mill and large equipment is running, but guests will be able to see the operation in action and taste the fresh Olio Nuovo (new oil). Note: olive harvest is dictated by nature, so the mill may not be running during all tours. However, there’s still a lot to learn, taste and enjoy! Hours: Mon - Fri at 11 am; Saturday and Sundays at 11 am, 12:30 pm and 2 pm.

Community Mill Day: Inspired by traditional community milling days in the Mediterranean, this event is designed for small-scale growers who don’t meet the 1,000-pound minimum for Custom Milling — all you need is just 2 gallons of olives! Join for this special, hands-on experience celebrating Olio, as we combine everyone's harvest to create a fresh, seasonally unique Extra Virgin Olive Oil. This event will take place on Sunday, November 15, at 10 am.

Self-Guided Olive Oil Tasting: Visitors to the Durant Farm Shop can enjoy a self-guided exploration of the distinct flavors of freshly milled extra virgin olive oil. Sample each olive variety, side-by-side, exploring the unique flavor characteristics found in the various olive cultivars. Participants can also get cooking and pairing advice from Durant’s educated staff members while shopping the selection of Durant extra virgin olive oil – from small gift bottles to full gallon sizes.

Holiday Decor at the Nursery: Daily 10 am – 4 pm throughout November. Durant’s nursery and greenhouses will be transformed into a whimsical winter plant and flower market filled with fresh greenery, an expanded selection of seasonal plants for the home, gifts for gardeners and so much more. Visitors will find fresh cut olive branches from the Durant orchard, festive olive crowns and Durant-crafted holiday wreaths featuring olive foliage. Complimentary greenery/holiday decor demonstrations are also available.

Olio Grand Finale: Saturday and Sunday, November 28 & 29, 10 am – 4 pm. Join for a festive weekend at the Farm as we celebrate the grand finale of the Olio Nuovo Festival and kick off the holiday season—Durant-style! Enjoy Oysters & Olio—freshly shucked oysters drizzled with olio—alongside the debut of two new Durant Vineyards sparkling wines, the 2021 Blanc de Blanc and 2023 Brut, available by the glass or bottle. The weekend also features a special progressive holiday marketplace throughout the olive mill and farm shop, with local vendors offering unique gifts, artisan culinary goods, holiday décor and more. Plus, bring the whole family for pictures with Santa Claus in the olive mill.

For more information and a full lineup of events, visit: https://durantoregon.com/pages/olio-nuovo-festival.

Photography at Oregon presents

Melanie and Todd Walker

Good Grief
The Photograph Reimagined

Emerald Art Center
500 Main St. Springfield, OR 97477
The exhibit runs November 3rd through 25th
Opening Reception: Second Friday, November 13th, 5 – 7:30 pm during the Springfield Art Walk
Artist Talk: Sunday, November 15th at 2:30 pm at the Emerald Art Center (use side entrance on 5th St,)

“Good Grief brings together the innovative work of my father, photographic artist, Todd Walker, and my posthumous collaboration shaped by the imperfect negatives he left behind.
The work presented in this exhibition is a sampling of some of his vast body of experimental digital work which he started in 1981, teaching himself machine language, way before Photoshop. Drawing on his painterly background where he taught himself color theory cleaning paint buckets at RKO Studios during his teens, he worked with his black and while negatives to create his own unique approach to color.
The works on silk are a part of a posthumous collaboration after finding damaged negatives from his early commercial work. Made around the time I was born, these compromised negatives carry traces of both photographic experimentation and personal history. Working with them now, I treat their damage and irregularities not as flaws to correct, but as openings—places where my father’s images meet my own hand and perspective. The resulting work holds two moments in relation: his act of making the photographs and my return to them decades later. I am interested in the physicality and material qualities of the disrupted surfaces and how they interact with the images recorded so long ago.

“The title Good Grief speaks to the tenderness and complexity of that return: the joy of discovering new possibilities in his work, alongside the ache of making something together after his death. The exhibition is a celebration of his inventive spirit and of the unexpected forms collaboration can take across time.”

Melanie Walker is a third-generation photographic artist whose expertise is in the area of alternative photographic processes, immersive photographic installations and public art. She has received a number of awards including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Colorado Council on the Arts Fellowship, Polaroid Materials Grants and the Aaron Siskind Award and is a third time PhotoLucida Critical Mass top 50 finalist. Her work is housed in numerous collections including the CCP Tucson, LACMA, and the Musee National d’art in Luxembourg. She recently stepped away from teaching at the University of Colorado at Boulder where she taught historic photographic process and alternative ideas for presenting photographs throughout her teaching career of 48 years. She uses her work as a vehicle to understand the world.

Todd Walker (1917–1998) was a self-taught pioneer in photography. Born in Salt Lake City and raised in Los Angeles, he built a successful career as a commercial photographer in the 1940s before leaving it to pursue his artistic interests. Beginning in the 1960s, Walker explored alternative photographic processes—techniques that do not rely on silver gelatin—to develop a distinctive visual language. Dissatisfied with the formal possibilities of conventional photography, he gravitated toward processes such as the Sabatier effect, sometimes called solarization, which emphasizes the edges and lines of forms. He described this quality as “the line drawn by light.” Color also became a defining element of his work. In 1981, Walker began using digital processing to extend his photographic practice. He taught himself computer programming to create the tools he needed, carrying his experimentation into the final decades of his career.

Trivia night at The Garden on Friendly hosted by quality trivia, every Wednesday starting at 6:00PM. Free to play, great prizes, bring a team or play solo!

Join the UO Department of History for the Eugene History Pub Lecture by Professor Ryan Jones on "Whale Lovers: The 1970s Scientists and Activists Who Saved the Whales and Hated Each Other."

Note: This presentation involves adult subject matter that may not be appropriate for children under 18.

The Eugene History Pub Lecture Series features talks by history scholars and experts on historical events, concepts, and research in a casual setting with local beer, wine, and food. Unless otherwise noted, talks take place the second Wednesday of the month from October through May at The Annex (1236 Kincaid St, Eugene, OR 97401). Free parking is available after 6pm in all UO parking lots (e.g., Kincaid St. at 11th Ave. and 14th Ave.)

Join the UO Department of History for the Eugene History Pub Lecture by Professor Ryan Jones on "Whale Lovers: The 1970s Scientists and Activists Who Saved the Whales and Hated Each Other."

Note: This presentation involves adult subject matter that may not be appropriate for children under 18.

The Eugene History Pub Lecture Series features talks by history scholars and experts on historical events, concepts, and research in a casual setting with local beer, wine, and food. Unless otherwise noted, talks take place the second Wednesday of the month from October through May at The Annex (1236 Kincaid St, Eugene, OR 97401). Free parking is available after 6pm in all UO parking lots (e.g., Kincaid St. at 11th Ave. and 14th Ave.)