Hoffman Center for the Arts is a non-profit gallery and community arts center on Oregon’s beautiful North Coast.
We offer workshops, exhibitions, events, and creative experiences so all ages can explore, create, and connect.
Come make something with us!
Come make something with us!
Featured events
Manzanita Writers Series presents: a reading and conversation with Justin Hocking
Saturday, July 25, 2026
5:30-7:00pm
Free to attend!
Sponsored by the Oregon Community Foundation. Please register in advance; walk-ins welcome as space allows. Optional donations are appreciated.
With themes of transformation, healing, and tipping points, the Manzanita Writers Series welcomes award-winning author Justin Hocking to read from his latest work, A Field Guide to the Subterranean, and open to a conversation with Q&A from the audience.
Books will be available for sale and author signing at the event through Cloud & Leaf Bookstore.
How might we transform our traumas into deeper care for each other and the landscapes that sustain us? How do we transcend the mythos of the rugged American male so rooted in extraction and exploitation? And how far can we move beyond the self in a memoir? Hocking explores these and other vital questions by combining personal narrative with expansions into geology, ecology, gender theory, mining history, labor rights, and even skateboarding.
Abundant with historical research and teeming with birdlife—and ranging in location from remote caves and mountains to secluded surf breaks in Costa Rica—A Field Guide to the Subterranean heralds a boldly original and kaleidoscopic approach to the genre of nature writing.
Praise for A Field Guide:
"A Field Guide to the Subterranean digs deeply down into the earth with powerful questions about who we are and what we've made with our time on the planet. Justin Hocking has created a profound geological journey of the soul, unearthing wisdom about masculinity, the colonization of land and people, and the possibility that we might recover our own hearts if we are willing to be in intimate relationship to the non-human world. A geo love song."
—Lidia Yuknavitch, bestselling author of The Chronology of Water: A Memoir and Reading The Waves: A Memoir
"This book is a marvel of excavation into the stories we tell about land and self. I devoured it in a day, and emerged seeing the world with both more glitter and more shadow, Hocking’s luminous, lyrical voice echoing in my ear. Reading A Field Guide to the Subterranean somehow feels both like going on a round-the-world adventure and curling up on the couch to converse with an old friend."
—Erica Berry, author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear
“Justin Hocking is a wizard who crafts his stories with equal measures of passion, poetry, and erudition. His writing voice makes you want to follow him to the end of the Earth, or into its deepest caverns, so that he can show you all the beautiful and amazing things to be found there.”
—Hector Tobar, author of Deep Down Dark: The Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free
About the Author:
Justin Hocking is the author of The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld: A Memoir, which won the Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction and was a finalist for the PEN USA Award. He also received the Willamette Writers' Humanitarian Award for his work in publishing, writing, and teaching, and was named as one of "Ten Writers Who Made Portland" by Willamette Week. Along with an MFA in Creative Writing, he holds a BA in Psychology and a Foundations Training Certificate from the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy. He currently teaches in the MFA and BFA Program in Creative Writing at Portland State University, and his most recent memoir, A Field Guide to the Subterranean, was a finalist for the 2026 Oregon Book Award.
For more information about Justin, please visit his website.
Hoffman Center classes and events are often photographed or filmed, and we love sharing those moments on our social media, website, and newsletter so people can get a feel for what it's like to create and connect here. By registering, you agree to be included in images of the event you have registered for. If you would prefer not to appear in images, please tell a staff member when you arrive.
Saturday, July 18, 2026
11:00am–5:00pm
On Saturday, July 18, artists across Manzanita, Nehalem, and Wheeler open their studios for the day. It's a self-guided tour, so you set your own pace and route, stopping wherever the work pulls you in. You'll meet artists where they actually make their work, see pieces in progress, and have the chance to take something home. This is our third tour, and every ticket directly supports the Hoffman Center's nonprofit arts programs.
Start at the Hoffman Center on the morning of July 18 to pick up your wristband and tour booklet (pickup is 10:00am–12:00pm). The booklet has studio addresses, directions, and a short introduction to each artist, so you can map out your day. From there, the day is yours. Visit as many studios as you like, in any order. The Hoffman Gallery will be open too, so it's an easy place to start.
ARTISTS
Pam Greene, Christopher Belluschi, Nancy Bond, M.J. Anderson, Sherrie Wolf, Justin Bailie, Lloyd Lindley, Judy Lindley, Cathi Howell, Deborah DeWit, Mary Roberts, Shirl Ireland, Laura Ross-Paul, and Mathew Goodrich.
SPECIAL EXHIBITION: JOHN R. STAHL (1937–2017)
This year's tour includes a special exhibition and sale of work by the late John R. Stahl. John's family has donated a wide range of his work to the Hoffman Center, spanning oil painting, watercolor, printmaking, collage, carving, and sculpture. The sale runs July 18–19 in the workshop room behind the gallery, and all proceeds benefit the Hoffman Center.
Tickets are $30. One hundred percent of ticket sales support the Hoffman Center for the Arts, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. We never want cost to be the reason someone misses the tour, so if the price is a barrier, reach out to us at info@hoffmanarts.org and we'll make arrangements.
Kids over the age of 10 are welcome.
No pets, please.
Day-of tickets are usually available, but the tour can sell out, so we recommend buying ahead.
Art shown here is by Adele Younkin.
Hoffman Center classes and events are often photographed or filmed, and we love sharing those moments on our social media, website, and newsletter so people can get a feel for what it's like to create and connect here. By registering, you agree to be included in images of the event you have registered for. If you would prefer not to appear in images, please tell a staff member when you arrive.
Friday, August 28, 2026
1:00 to 4:00 p.m.
Hoffman Center for the Arts and Manzanita Beach
Slow down, look closely, and spend an afternoon sketching the coast with artist, educator, and naturalist Dorota Haber-Lehigh. In this workshop, participants will walk together from the Hoffman Center to Manzanita Beach, where Dorota will guide the group through close observation of the shoreline. You will practice outdoor sketching techniques while paying attention to movement, weather, light, water, and the changing shapes of the coastal landscape.
After sketching outdoors, the group will return to the Hoffman Center to develop field sketches into finished or substantially developed artworks using watercolor and sepia ink. Dorota will offer instruction and support throughout the process, with an emphasis on curiosity, observation, and expressive mark-making. No experience is necessary. This workshop is a good fit for beginners, returning artists, nature lovers, and anyone who wants to practice ways of seeing!
All materials are provided. If you have your own sketching or watercolor supplies, you're welcome to bring those.
Please dress for changing coastal weather. A weatherproof jacket or windbreaker, comfortable walking shoes, sun protection, and a water bottle are recommended. You may also want to bring snacks or lunch.
A small folding stool, beach towel, or portable seat is optional, especially if you prefer not to sit or kneel on the sand.
This workshop includes a walk of several blocks between the Hoffman Center and Manzanita Beach, plus time working on sand or near the beach entrance.
If weather makes the beach walk less feasible, Dorota will lead an indoor version of the workshop.
Teens aged 15 to 19 attend free with coupon code YOUTH.
About the artist
Dorota Haber-Lehigh is an artist, educator, and naturalist with a passion for the native plants of the Pacific Northwest. Born in Poland, she often depicts regional flora, drawing attention to its sculptural beauty and to the fragility of nature and human life.
She holds degrees in art and international studies with a focus on Indigenous cultures, a master’s degree in teaching, and a graduate bilingual certificate in teaching English as a second language. She taught art and English as a second language for 27 years. In 2019, Dorota earned a Diploma in Botanical Illustration from the Society of Botanical Artists in London. She is a member of Oregon Botanical Artists, Pacific Northwest Botanical Artists, and the American Society of Botanical Artists.
Hoffman Center classes and events are often photographed or filmed, and we love sharing those moments on our social media, website, and newsletter so people can get a feel for what it's like to create and connect here. By registering, you agree to be included in images of the event you have registered for. If you would prefer not to appear in images, please tell a staff member when you arrive.
Upcoming visual art classes and events
July 12th | 2-3pm
This event is free with support from Oregon Community Foundation.
Brushes In the wild : art, nature & unexpected encounters
Join Artist Shirl Ireland for a presentation about painting in the field… its challenges, rewards and unexpected wildlife encounters along the way.
Shirl has been creating art ever since the art cart first entered her classroom in the first grade. She went to college for Fine Art, Product Design and Education. Now, she’s been a professional artist for almost three decades.
Some of the highlights include working with a National Geographic video crew where she painted the view from her backyard in Montana. Shirl led a camera crew to a favorite wilderness spot in the Adirondacks to paint the scenery for a PBS documentary. She’s also hiked throughout Yellowstone with a correspondent from England to paint en plein air and record the wilderness sounds for a BBC broadcast. Here in Oregon, she wrote and illustrated a children’s book with her daughter, There’s A Weasel On My Easel!
Shirl has been fortunate to live in inspiring places, from Montana and Yellowstone, to the Adirondacks in upstate New York and now her latest adventure, here in Manzanita along the Pacific Coast.
Hoffman Center classes and events are often photographed or filmed, and we love sharing those moments on our social media, website, and newsletter so people can get a feel for what it's like to create and connect here. By registering, you agree to be included in images of the event you have registered for. If you would prefer not to appear in images, please tell a staff member when you arrive.
Somatic art exploration
Scholarships are available for this workshop.
August 22 | 1-5pm
Join creative facilitator Jenny Siegel for an afternoon of intuitive art-making. Participants will gather together in a relaxed, supportive space. We’ll begin with a short series of simple, beginning somatic awareness/movement practices to land in our bodies and cultivate a felt-sense of spaciousness. These accessible practices are done seated and standing, and can be adapted to your needs and are gentle in nature.
Then we’ll explore intuitive art-making, using color, mark-making, watercolor and other mixed media, carrying a creative thread from the somatic movement practice. We will explore the practice of allowing; following what feels pleasurable, curious, or alive for us in the moment. A creative flow can emerge that is playful, unexpected, and freeing.
All art materials, guidance, space to play, and snacks/tea are provided. No experience necessary—just bring curiosity and wear comfortable clothes that you can move and create in. Bring your water bottle, and a pillow or folded blanket for your chair (optional).
About Jenny
Jenny Siegel is a mixed media artist and facilitator based in Portland, Oregon, and is a part time resident of Neahkahnie Beach. Her creative practice is inspired by forms found in nature, allowing curiosity and spaciousness to inform her process. Jenny’s background in art/design and healing work drew her to creative and somatic practices. Somatic Art rose out of her own experiences in the studio. Jenny then began sharing intuitive art-making + somatic practice with groups.
Upcoming writing classes and events
The Power of Shapeshifting: Healing & Transformation through Memoir with Justin on July 25th
July 25
1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Tuition $100
Can writing heal us? How might we transform our experiences, memories, and identities on the page? During this interactive workshop, we’ll discuss and practice Expressive Writing—the evidence-based modality for healing originated by linguist and researcher James Pennebaker. We’ll also read and discuss excerpts from unconventional memoirs—including Carmen Maria Machado’s In The Dream House and Melissa Febos’ Body Work—in which the authors remake their own selves by renovating the shape and form of their personal narratives. Inspired by these works, we’ll experiment with several writing exercises designed to help us re-author ourselves and transform our own experiences into art. This generative writing workshop is open to all levels of experience. Bring your preferred writing implements – pen, notebook and/or computer/laptop.
About Justin
Justin Hocking is the author of The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld: A Memoir, which won the Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction and was a finalist for the PEN USA Award. He also received the Willamette Writers’ Humanitarian Award for his work in publishing, writing, and teaching, and was named as one of “Ten Writers Who Made Portland” by Willamette Week. Along with an MFA in Creative Writing, he holds a BA in Psychology and a Foundations Training Certificate from the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy. He currently teaches in the MFA and BFA Program in Creative Writing at Portland State University, and his most recent memoir, A Field Guide to the Subterranean, is a finalist for the 2026 Oregon Book Award. For more information about Justin, please visit his website.
Hoffman Center classes and events are often photographed or filmed, and we love sharing those moments on our social media, website, and newsletter so people can get a feel for what it's like to create and connect here. By registering, you agree to be included in images of the event you have registered for. If you would prefer not to appear in images, please tell a staff member when you arrive.
Manzanita Writers Series presents: a reading and conversation with Justin Hocking
Saturday, July 25, 2026
5:30-7:00pm
Free to attend!
Sponsored by the Oregon Community Foundation. Please register in advance; walk-ins welcome as space allows. Optional donations are appreciated.
With themes of transformation, healing, and tipping points, the Manzanita Writers Series welcomes award-winning author Justin Hocking to read from his latest work, A Field Guide to the Subterranean, and open to a conversation with Q&A from the audience.
Books will be available for sale and author signing at the event through Cloud & Leaf Bookstore.
How might we transform our traumas into deeper care for each other and the landscapes that sustain us? How do we transcend the mythos of the rugged American male so rooted in extraction and exploitation? And how far can we move beyond the self in a memoir? Hocking explores these and other vital questions by combining personal narrative with expansions into geology, ecology, gender theory, mining history, labor rights, and even skateboarding.
Abundant with historical research and teeming with birdlife—and ranging in location from remote caves and mountains to secluded surf breaks in Costa Rica—A Field Guide to the Subterranean heralds a boldly original and kaleidoscopic approach to the genre of nature writing.
Praise for A Field Guide:
"A Field Guide to the Subterranean digs deeply down into the earth with powerful questions about who we are and what we've made with our time on the planet. Justin Hocking has created a profound geological journey of the soul, unearthing wisdom about masculinity, the colonization of land and people, and the possibility that we might recover our own hearts if we are willing to be in intimate relationship to the non-human world. A geo love song."
—Lidia Yuknavitch, bestselling author of The Chronology of Water: A Memoir and Reading The Waves: A Memoir
"This book is a marvel of excavation into the stories we tell about land and self. I devoured it in a day, and emerged seeing the world with both more glitter and more shadow, Hocking’s luminous, lyrical voice echoing in my ear. Reading A Field Guide to the Subterranean somehow feels both like going on a round-the-world adventure and curling up on the couch to converse with an old friend."
—Erica Berry, author of Wolfish: Wolf, Self, and the Stories We Tell About Fear
“Justin Hocking is a wizard who crafts his stories with equal measures of passion, poetry, and erudition. His writing voice makes you want to follow him to the end of the Earth, or into its deepest caverns, so that he can show you all the beautiful and amazing things to be found there.”
—Hector Tobar, author of Deep Down Dark: The Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free
About the Author:
Justin Hocking is the author of The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld: A Memoir, which won the Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction and was a finalist for the PEN USA Award. He also received the Willamette Writers' Humanitarian Award for his work in publishing, writing, and teaching, and was named as one of "Ten Writers Who Made Portland" by Willamette Week. Along with an MFA in Creative Writing, he holds a BA in Psychology and a Foundations Training Certificate from the Vancouver School for Narrative Therapy. He currently teaches in the MFA and BFA Program in Creative Writing at Portland State University, and his most recent memoir, A Field Guide to the Subterranean, was a finalist for the 2026 Oregon Book Award.
For more information about Justin, please visit his website.
Hoffman Center classes and events are often photographed or filmed, and we love sharing those moments on our social media, website, and newsletter so people can get a feel for what it's like to create and connect here. By registering, you agree to be included in images of the event you have registered for. If you would prefer not to appear in images, please tell a staff member when you arrive.
Oral history for beginners, kids, teens, and families
Featuring Leila Salmon and Chuck Bridge
Saturday, August 8, 2026
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Many of our family stories never get written down, and once they're gone, they're gone. In this class, we’ll learn how to listen to and record stories using simple, affordable tools.
This workshop is open to all ages.
We'd especially love to see:
Kids and teens who want to interview a parent, grandparent, or neighbor
Longtime residents who want to get their own history down before it slips away
Newcomers who are curious about the community along Oregon’s North Coast
By the end of the afternoon, you'll know how to choose someone to interview, ask good questions, record audio on a phone, and save your files correctly. We will also discuss what oral history is and why a recorded voice might be preferable to a written note. We will practice interviews in pairs. Students will record a short, real conversation with a partner, then switch places. We will discuss consent, care, and how to label and save your files to share a recording with family or add it to a community collection.
Please bring a smartphone if you have one. We'll have a couple of backup recorders on hand.
This class is free for anyone under 18.
Suggested donation of $50 for adults; nobody turned away for lack of funds.
Together, we'll explore the basics of cultural interviewing and recording. We'll be joined by Leila Salmon, Manzanita's 2020 Citizen of the Year and former Council Member. Leila has deep roots in this community, and we are excited to help document more of her stories.
We will also interview Chuck Bridge, Citizen of the Year for 2026. He serves on the Nehalem Bay Fire & Rescue District board and has a long record of community volunteerism. He was the Grand Marshal of our local July 4th parade.
About your instructor
Liam Whitworth has a background in oral history, poetry, and narrative work, along with years of civic communications experience. He's comfortable on both sides of a recorded conversation and teaches the craft of interviewing without making it feel technical or intimidating.
Hoffman Center classes and events are often photographed or filmed, and we love sharing those moments on our social media, website, and newsletter so people can get a feel for what it's like to create and connect here. By registering, you agree to be included in images of the event you have registered for. If you would prefer not to appear in images, please tell a staff member when you arrive.
Upcoming clay classes and events
Saturday, August 29
1 to 5 PM
Come spend an afternoon getting hands-on with glaze!
In this four-hour workshop, potter Mary Roberts will walk you through a variety of the resist methods she uses in her own studio practice for creating surface interest. You will learn easy techniques for creating patterns and designs using sample tiles and resist materials we provide.
Whether you're newer to ceramics or looking to expand your surface vocabulary, you'll leave with new approaches you can bring to your own work.
Scholarships are available
Price includes all materials.
Mary Roberts is a ceramic artist living near Neahkahnie beach on the north Oregon coast. Her work is primarily thrown on the potter’s wheel.
She uses near-to-porcelain stoneware and rustic tawny clay to create elegant and contemporary forms with a fresh feeling. After shaping to a refined surface, she carves, etches, and applies wax-resist patterns, slips or glazes. Roberts is most inspired by contemporary British and Scandinavian ceramics and modern Japanese textile design and ceramics. All her work is intended to be functional. Roberts retired as a consumer brand business executive at age 60. As a lifetime collector of hand-made ceramics, she then had the time to dedicate herself to creating this art form. She studied ceramics at the Oregon College of Art and Craft and the Multnomah Art Center, Portland, Oregon where she was an open studio participant.
She is a member of the Oregon Potters Association and is represented by the Riversea Gallery in Astoria, Oregon.
Mary is also a former Hoffman Center board member and leader, and we're glad to welcome her back to the clay studio, this time as an instructor.
Hoffman Center classes and events are often photographed or filmed, and we love sharing those moments on our social media, website, and newsletter so people can get a feel for what it's like to create and connect here. By registering, you agree to be included in images of the event you have registered for. If you would prefer not to appear in images, please tell a staff member when you arrive.
Upcoming garden classes and events
Japanese gardening for the coastal gardener with Jacob on July 11th
Saturday, July 11, 2026
10:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Stillness, impermanence, mystery and simplicity are not what most of us seek in our coastal gardens. Color, abundance and exuberance are more our style. Yet one step inside a space like Portland's Japanese garden and we immediately sense a very different invitation: to slow down and see more.
And so the question: how to approach a highly refined, 1,500-year-old garden philosophy and find ways to integrate its inherent calm, restraint and deliberateness into our love of abundance?
One place to start is a master class with the former senior gardener at the Portland Japanese Garden, Jacob Knapp.
A garden designer and horticulturist based in Portland, Jacob maintains and constructs gardens throughout the region, blending his love of plants, his respect for materials and his belief in the inherent order of nature. Among his responsibilities at the Japanese Garden was raking patterns into the dry gravel beds that surround the boulders. Watching online videos of Jacob working is a glimpse into his extraordinary skill, attention to detail and respect for ritual.
“The idea of raking comes from exactly what we see on the coast. That flat plane of the ocean with prominent boulders in the water. It's distilling nature in the garden.” — Jacob Knapp
This three-hour immersion into the principles of Japanese gardening begins in the Hoffman Center classroom and ends in the Wonder Garden, where Jacob will discuss the art of placing stone, demonstrate raking and share coastal design ideas that work in harmony with where, and how, we live.
Formerly senior gardener at the Portland Japanese Garden, Jacob Knapp is the owner of Pacific Pruning LLC. In his work he blends technical horticultural expertise with a design approach rooted in observation, nature and spatial restraint.
Hoffman Center classes and events are often photographed or filmed, and we love sharing those moments on our social media, website, and newsletter so people can get a feel for what it's like to create and connect here. By registering, you agree to be included in images of the event you have registered for. If you would prefer not to appear in images, please tell a staff member when you arrive.