Backstreet Gallery is proud to celebrate the accomplishments of founding member Pat Romanov who will soon be moving to Eugene. Join Backstreet in honoring Pat, at a gala event during Backstreet’s After Hours, 1421 Bay Street. January 25th, 5-7PM.

            Retiring at age 71, Pat had always wanted to live on the Oregon Coast. She has become Florence’s iconic champion of arts.

             Pat’s first love was the theater. She started producing plays at the age of 10. She’d go to the library and select a play. Then after rewriting it, she and a friend would cast and produce the play in a local barn. As time went on these plays were performed in junior and senior high school assemblies. She carried on through her own student years, as well.

            As a high school teacher, Pat taught speech and drama. She then completed her education at the U of O.

            When offered a professorship at the University of Arkansas, she swore she would never go to Arkansas. The lure of the finest theater art complex that combined art, music and dance in one venue, was too much to resist. Though she was a professor for a short time at the U of O and Montana State, she spent 27 years as a professor of theater arts at the University of Arkansas.

            When songs were needed in the plays she produced or directed, she would join with a songwriter and write the lyrics. She created over 50 songs in her career. She wrote her own version of Christmas Carol which has been used by a number of other directors.   

            When Pat came to the Oregon coast, she joined with John Flaherty in producing and directing plays that toured around Oregon.

            Settling down, she lent her skills, producing and directing, to a number of plays performed here in the last few years­­­­. After selecting the plays, she would rewrite them until they worked in our local theaters. You may recall the outstanding performances of Song of Survival, Steel Magnolias, Shirley Valentine, Social Security, Vagina Monologues and Dancing at Lughansa. Through Emerald Coast players and the Last Resort players, she gave numerous local actors a fabulous opportunity to entertain us.

            Joining with Sally Wantz, Jennifer French, Kathryn Damon- Dawson, Jane Rincon, and Susan Weathers, Pat helped create Backstreet Gallery, which has steadily grown from its cozy cottage on Laurel Street to the fine art gallery on Bay Street. With Ken Rystrom as photographer, she wrote many articles about the gallery and its members.

            Painting for years in oils, she was smitten with watercolors while taking a class from Backstreet member, Susan Weathers. Until fall of 2011, her colorful watercolors graced the walls of the gallery. Wildlife, found in her various travels or from her cabin in Montana, provided inspiration for her work. Her last show created a travelog from her cruise where she toured through Patagonia. (parts of Argentina and Peru)

            In Pat’s honor, one of her wonderful paintings will be hung in Backstreet in perpetuity.

            There was a desire to share art with the community and to bring recognition to Florence’s local artists. Along with David Kapen, Pat organized the G.AL.A. Art Walk, a free bus tour, continuing now with 11 local galleries. Each second Saturday, the bus tour leaves at 3PM from the FEC visiting five local galleries.

            Come bid farewell to a popular and talented pillar of our community, Wednesday evening, January 25th, 5-7PM. There will be live entertainment by Dave Craddock and a table replete with Backstreet’s delicious appetizers to give Pat and Ken a grand send-off.