December 31 Movement for Peace

Tahni Holt makes idea driven performance in the realm of modern dance. Her performances have themed landmines, the simultaneity of time, safety & material, office work, a theater within theater, repetitive movement & narrative and open source movement.

New York dancer and choreographer Miguel Gutierrez has created a work, Freedom of Information, to be danced by dancers across the US. Each performs a personal continuous improvisation blindfolded for 24 hours with ears plugged.

It is Gutierrez' meditation on war and refugees, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan. Each dancer moves from 12:01AM to 11:59PM Wednesday December 31. It is each mover's meditation too. Maybe something for us each to give some thought to.

I had an opportunity to visit a UN friend in Afghanistan and toured the landmine museum. It was a surreal experience as our guide recited an explanation, memorized in perfect English. The mines, missiles and bombs in the museum are found daily throughout the country with sad result. One of our Afghan hosts had lost a few fingers as a child to a Soviet cluster bomblet, disguised as a toy.

Holt takes up this open source social practice project at Performance Works Northwest. Audience may stop by to see or connect to Holt's webstream.

At Performance Works Northwest 4625 SE 67th 12:01AM-11:59PM Free

November 12 SciFi Inspired Art and PNCA Homeland Films

Impossible Instruments / Future Flags is a show curated by artist Nathaniel T. Price. Science fiction has only a loose connection with either. It is more a prediction of a future. Science enters only as a signifier of the monotonic unfolding without end of technology.

Perhaps art is the same, continually expanding the edge, while occasionally resampling the ghosts of art past which isn't done so much in technology. It's not as if steampunk is real for instance, or that mysticism surrounding the mythical undiscovered discoveries of Tesla is anything but misplaced.

Artists Alex Felton, Kristan Kennedy, Corey Lunn, Chris Johanson, M Blash, Dana Dart McLean, Rob Halverson, Steven Wirth, Jo Jackson, Nathaniel T. Price, Arnold J. Kemp and Bobo provide art inspired by our strange future.

All this at Fourteen30 Contemporary www.fourteen30.com 1430 SE 3rd opening 6PM-9


Also this evening are new Portland films sponsored by PNCA. Movies are by Adrienne Huckabone, Brennan Broome, Bryan Colombo, Chris Bodven, Israel Lund, Jacob Winfield, Jim Hill, Joey Lusterman, Julia Perry, Kevin Tinnell, Morgan Ritter, Sarah Burke and Tesar Freeman. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th 7PM

December 5 Eastside Openings

The Eastside is huge now. Here are some suggestions.

There is a show by 100 artists, each making 10 things each in 10 days for $30 each. Each piece is unlabeled, except on the back, so go for love and beauty. That is at the Olympic Mills Building 107 SE Washington.

EBu: the 811 Building, 811 E Burnside; NAAU 922 SE Ankeny; Destroy Store and Life & Limb, 1712 E Burnside; artist books at 23 Sandy 623 NE 23rd Sandy

SE: Newspace Photo, 1632 SE 10th; Pushdot 1021 SE Caruthers; Gallery Homeland, corner SE Division and 11th

December 4 Westside Art Openings

Portland painter Adam Sorensen makes fantastical landscape paintings filled with schematic surreal elements. It's a welcome variation on the Northwest fascination with landscape. This show, False Fjords, will brighten the cloudiest of days. What's more, Sorensen's statement wins the copywriting award of the month: "The Narrative of the Romantics had long been to capture and present the awe and strength of natural vistas. Landscape, which was often found on the fringes of human exploration, was imbued with mystery and danger, and was therefore stirring to the viewer. It seems as if humanity has conquered the once harrowing wild, and in turn made it strange. This is where my work sits, attached a century later to the romantic narrative. The abstract, the awkward, and the absurd have much more of a presence in contemporary life, and cannot be ignored when painting the landscape. Emphasizing the strangeness of modern nature, and embellishing it with contemporary aesthetic ideas, is in a way, a type of contemporary romanticism." At PDX Contemporary Art www.pdxcontemporaryart.com 925 NW Flanders until 8



Rain. Puddle Town is an art show themed on rain. Artists Robert Pellicer, Scott Rohlfs, Angel Davis, Sam Tudyk, Dane Svenningsen, Max Kaufman, Timothy Karpinski, Keenan Havens, Jessica Rosario, Eliott Wall, Geneva Smith, Rudy Fig, Eli Effenberger, Miette, Sophie Franz, Tatiana Krasovski, Jason Graham, Eatcho, Josh Heilaman, Lily Pham, Andy Gouveian, Ricardo Rodriguez, Alex Willan, Nati, Jun Seo Hahm and Clone provide their response to rain's inspiration. At Compound www.compoundgallery.com 107 NW 5th



The Everett Station Lofts are always recommended. They change hands aperodically, each occupant has been curated and the ground floor spaces commit to open their living rooms an evening a month to you. Bounded by NW Broadway, Everett and 6th.



The Desoto building bounded by NW Broadway, Davis and Park includes several established galleries, the Museum of Contemporary Craft and Blue Sky, with its Nines Gallery. All are often worth a stop. This month in that building the Charles Hartman gallery has Fish-Work. Corey Arnold makes documentary photographs of the life on fishing boats in the North seas. At one time fishing was local. Today ever larger boats travel further to the last fisheries yet to be endangered. Meanwhile fish farming is not only causing pollution by concentrating fish waste beyond local carrying capacity, fish farming consumes about 1/3 of wild fish caught in the form of fish meal. At Charles Hartman Fine Art www.hartmanfineart.net 134 NW 8th



G Lewis Clevenger makes abstract paintings of rectangular pattern. He is loosening up his patterns while maintaining a strong sense of beauty. His pallette and the textures are worth studying. At Pulliam Deffenbaugh www.pulliamdeffenbaugh.com until 8



Stumptown downtown has a holiday themed show. Gretchen Vaudt is a multiartist and curator for a time at Albina Press. Her work spans photography, ceramics and design. This evening Going Home is a group of individual small works, each as different as a snowflake reprising winter holiday sense memories of her Midwest childhood. Another Midwesterner, Norm Sajovie, shows Polaroids Holiday Drifter of a Christmas wandering Portland's mainly empty streets for inspiration. At Stumptown www.stumptown.com 128 SW 3rd



Skate decks as a canvas are pretty archival. Ditto snowboards. Someday they'll show up on some museum walls. Monsieur T is an artistic streetwear concern, based in Portland. Monsieur T has invited many artist friends to make designs on decks or create skate themed art and this is the result. Jeremyville, Andrew Pommier,Bwana Spoons, Lance Mountain, Martin Ontiveros, APAK, Adam Haynes, Le Merde, Jon Humphries, Ruben Sanchez, Fred Mortagne, Huskmitnavn, Andrew Groves, I Love Dust, Arbito, Shawn Wolfe, Ryan Berkley, Scrappers Betsy Walton, Jay Howell, Klutch, Mark Warren Jacques, Lee Zeman, Jeff Proctor, Tom Webb, Brett Superstar and Steve Matthews have made work. For the opening of the show, which will also be online artwise throughout the month, Kez spins. At Hecklewood www.hecklewood.com 114 NW 3rd



Portlander's are all weather skaters everywhere. There is another skate deck art show tonight, benefiting Complete Skate, a youth tutoring and skating project in schools. Many Portland artists have made decks which are being auctioned online, ending 8PM tonight. You can see the decks in person at the auction closing party at DWR. Details at www.completeskate.org/ondeck/ DWR Portland Studio 1200 NW Everett until 8



PNCA photograd Chloé Richard ’06 shows candid portraits of friends from LA and Berlin. The work has a French New Wave feel, very light and real. The show's title makes the reference too. And, well, she's French. At Valentines 232 SW Ankeny

December 3 Social Practice Everywhere

I was not aware that social practice art had infiltrated even the undergraduate PSU art program. The BFA students have a Public Social University project of short talks on useful things for the public. Today's classes are:

Eric Steen provides his survey, best to worst, of film depiction of utopia and distopia, in science fiction. (1:30PM-2)

Greg Wandering Yeti and Adam Stone speak about Permaculture and demonstrate Chinese internal martial arts, drawing a relationship between them. (2PM-3)

Tracé Hulette demonstrates basic mending with thread and needle. (3PM-3:30)

Davis Eliason Brown gives practical advise on hip hop rapping including positive message, collaboration, rapping with others and linguistics (3:30PM-4)

You can find more about the project at psuart.blogspot.com It's at the main downtown library in the US Bank Room 2PM-5. Free

December 2 Wild Beauty as a Book

The Art Museum has a show of photographs of the mighty Columbia River, curated by Terry Toedtemeier. The West drew post Civil War photographers who imaged landscapes for a society influenced by transcendentalism. Ultimately the combination inspired the preservation movement, the creation of national parks and finally the Columbia Gorge scenic overlay, the first of its type. Tonight hear Toedtemeier and coauthor John Laursen present the book Wild Beauty, Photographs of the Columbia River Gorge, 1867-1957 and discuss their selection of images for the show and the book. At Powells Books www.powells.com Corner West Burnside and 10th 7:30PM Free