Willow-Witt Ranch
658 Shale City Rd, Ashland, OR 97520
Willow-Witt Ranch is a 445-acre gem in Southern Oregon’s Cascade Siskiyou National Monument. Willow-Witt Ranch is dedicated to the conservation and restoration of a unique ecosystem in the Southern Cascades, and the headwaters, wetlands, and forests that arise there. The Crest is the non-profit at the ranch, cultivating connection to the natural world and education on the values of ecology and of the complex web of food and environment by operating a small certified organic farm and Farm Stay accommodations. Willow-Witt Ranch is also home to Oregon’s first dedicated natural burial ground The Forest Conservation Burial Ground.
Learn more at willowwittranch.com
Directions
From Interstate 5, take exit #14, Hwy 66. Drive east 1 mile, turn left on Dead Indian Memorial Road and continue 6.6 miles. Turn left on Shale City Road, a paved Bureau of Land Management road, just after a large powerline crosses Dead Indian Memorial Road. Shale City Rd is a loop … take this end, marked by: “Grizzly Peak Trail,” a sign for our Farm Store, and nine mailboxes. Follow Shale City Road (you are now on public forest land) 3.2 miles. You will cross two cattle guards and a well-graveled road on your left with a “Grizzly Peak Trailhead” sign. Continue on Shale City Rd 50 yards further, and turn right at our driveway, which has a sign. Follow it 3/4 mile to the Farm. Watch for the “Family Forest” and “Watershed Friendly Steward” signs at our entry gate. If the electric gate is closed, the keypad will have instructions for opening.
Click here for the map to Willow-Witt Ranch
Featured Artist
Anna Kruse
Reaching to Reap
Medium: Ceramic, glaze, gold leaf
Date: 2023
Reaching to Reap, is an interactive piece that presents viewers the opportunity to remove and strip bare the blossoms from each of the sculpture’s main branches. An act of collection, of intimacy, and transformation. The structure is taken from the gesture of embracing and by turning this motion upwards it quickly connotes forms found in nature. The scale of the work creates a presence while the color allows it to melt into the landscape. The gold petals catch the sunlight, adding a glimmer or spark. Viewers are invited to use the wire cutters presented in the smaller adjacent piece to trim the structure of its golden petals.
About the Artist
Anna Kruse received her Master of Fine Arts at the State University of New York at New Paltz. She completed a Post Baccalaureate at the Oregon College of Art and Craft before moving to Maine to work at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts. She obtained her B.A. with honors in Psychology and Studio Art from the College of Wooster. Anna is the Visiting Artist Scholar and Teacher in ceramics at Southern Oregon University. In 2021 she was nominated and awarded the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding Student Achievement Award in Contemporary Sculpture. She was invited to be a resident artist at Township 10 during the summer of 2020 and recently completed a residency at Peninsula College. Anna has shown her work in Ohio, New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, Montana, Oregon, and Washington.
