Interview with Carol Ferris

Interview with Carol Ferris in celebration of reintroducing Sitka’s original logo, designed by Byron Ferris

Sitka: As Sitka approaches its 55th anniversary in 2025, we’re reintroducing the original logo Byron designed in 1970. How do you think Byron would feel about seeing his work brought back to represent Sitka today?

Carol: He would be honored, and he would be delighted. He purchased [our condo within Cascade Head Ranch] in 1974. The Scenic Research Area Act was underway. He fell in love with the entire site—the place, the idea, and the possibility, not just of conserving something but of cherishing something and keeping it whole, even as change occurred.

This was the approach he brought to design—to try to capture the essence of something. For him, the dedication of the acres within the Ranch [to Sitka], to share it so it wouldn’t be accessible only to the privileged, was important. This idea motivated him to bring his design sensibility to the signage of the Ranch and to Sitka. I think he’s grinning.

Sitka: You’ve mentioned how much Byron loved Sitka and Cascade Head Ranch. What would you like the Sitka community to know about his connection to this place, and why was it so meaningful to him?

Carol: Byron would tell people, “We have the cleanest air on the planet here. When the air comes over us, it has been washed by the Pacific Ocean. It picks things up all across the United States, gets a little bit cleaner over the Atlantic, then it picks everything up from Europe, Russia, and China, and then it gets cleaned again by the Pacific.”

Being between the two headlands on an estuary, and the commitment to a shared space with the Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy, the homeowners, and, more broadly—through Sitka—the public, was an inspiration to Byron. It was like breath, like clean air. When we were [at the Ranch], he wouldn’t do anything else but go out on the deck and breathe. Conceptually, psychologically, spiritually… the place invited thoughtful design.

That idea—that we don’t come here to import our way of life; we come here to be changed by the place—inspired him. He thought that good design came from drawing material and structural inspiration from the nature of the place. That’s what his life was really all about.

Sitka: Both you and Byron served on Sitka’s board of directors at pivotal times. Looking at Sitka today, what is your greatest hope or wish for its future?

Carol: From what I see, especially about Sitka in the local schools… We had board members when I served who did not want to broadly share Sitka because, of course, it’s sweet and juicy in that kind of lovely and private way. But we were receiving criticism from locals for being elitist.

It seemed like a logical and important next step in sharing the idea of Sitka was to extend our notion of boundaries—not to export Sitka in the sense of selling it, but to share the inspiration that the place makes possible to the creative spirit. Now that’s happening. That was always one of my dreams for Sitka… to expand more broadly into the community.

The other thing that I see happening, which was something we were just beginning 25 years ago, is the synergy of art and ecology. The possibility that scientific inquiry and aesthetic inquiry could meet and generate something out of the incredible richness of the place—the estuary, the headland, the ocean itself, the movement of the land, the Experimental Forest, the Conservancy’s work, including silverspot butterfly conservation. It just seemed like a logical place to bring researchers, students, and inquiry together for dialogue. My sense is that this has really gone forward.

Those are the two things that, for me, and within Byron’s aesthetic and psychology, feel so significant. This place is too important to keep for ourselves—it deserves a wider love.

Sitka: Is there anything else you’d like to share about Byron, his legacy, the logo, or his and your connection to Sitka?

Carol: This has to do with Byron’s life as a designer in Portland and more broadly. He liked to say that he was part of the “golden age of design”—this was pre-computers. There was a different kind of thinking that was emerging, including the idea of corporate responsibility. Design wasn’t just about making logos and packaging and annual reports.

Corporations in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s were beginning to understand themselves as larger citizens. Byron was a part of that and saw good design as part of that. He did everything by hand, so he was definitely of an era. That era, and the metaphysics and ideals of that time were central to him. Everything that was happening at Sitka and the Ranch spoke to him in that way.

Byron Ferris was a prominent designer and influential figure in Portland’s design and advertising community in the 1960s and spanning decades. Known for his creative storytelling, innovative collaborations and commitment to elevating design standards, he was a founding member of both Cascade Head Ranch and the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, where he served on the first board of directors. He is survived by his widow, Carol Ferris, a former Sitka board member and past Cascade Head Ranch homeowner, who currently resides in Portland, Oregon.