March 30 Burma

This is primarily a blog of creative events. But we have a long time interest in world changing. Tonight you can hear a talk on Burma, a country bordering India and China, how epic. Author Mac McClelland, familiar with the area since 2006, provides her perspective on the years' long struggle for a form of democracy, and the perspectives of ethnic groups there fighting. In the Mercy Corps office - the building next to Saturday Market - at Ankeny and SW 1st, 28 SW 1st Ave. Doors 6PM, talk 7 Free

March 27 Homeschool Pow Wow

Homeschool Art Shop is a DIY shop for affordable art, online and nomadic. Tonight they are hooking up with Pow Wow print live. Homeschool artist Jane Zemel, Mr. 50Backflips John Voves, and Homeschool founder Jess Hirsch show their work. Pow Wow artist Violet will run prints from her ancient letter press. There will be a photobooth too, by artist Kristen Flemington. www.homeschoolartshop.com at the City Sign Building 4th Floor SE3rd and Pine 7PM-10 Free

March 27 NAAU Show Closing Event

The adventurous and experimental gallery, the New American Art Union, closes a show in which painter Timothy Scott Dalbow occupied the gallery as a painting studio for six weeks. Visitors were welcome throughout, or tonight to see the result. At New American Art Union www.newamericanartunion.com 922 SE Ankeny

March 27 Indian Music

Portland has regular performances by musicians from India. There are teachers here and visiting. The result are a few homegrown classical Indian musicians. That would be the case with Josh Feinberg, Portland sitar player. Tonight he is accompanied by Rick Paul Singh on tabla. At Yoga Shala on N Williams yogashalapdx.com. Doors 7PM, performance 7:30 $10 advance, $12 door.

March 26-27 The Foundation

The Foundation is a b-boy-b-girl competition, primarily local crews. This event was hosted by Reed for a few years and packed. They have moved to a larger space for their 10 year anniversary. It's always fun. You always would love to see the gravity defying moves in slow motion. It's early, with various after parties. And it's live streaming at Ustream. Details at www.foundationpdx.com. At the Bossanova Ballroom 722 E Burnside 6PM-10 $20 per day or $30 both days

March 21 World Butoh Here

What is the value of unusual things? My theory is that embedded in our brain, each, is an attraction to the familiar, and attraction to the novel. Butoh would, for most, attach to novel. It's value is psychological resonance. If you are creative, you value that, and use it to create hypotheses, solving problems, including those of business and aesthetics.

I have written many posts on butoh, just search. Portland has a solid butoh contingent. One protagonist, Mizu, advances it through the Water in the Desert project. They bring international artists to little Portland to inform/teach and perform.

Yumiko Yoshioka is one. She performed with the originators of the medium, then formed one of the earliest female butoh groups, Ariadine. Now she creates creative energy at Schloss Bröllin, an artistic retreat + crafts studio in a castle in the formerly East Germany.

For a time, Yoshioka has been creating a performance on Portland workshop participants, the result is this evening. See it at 55 NE Farragut 8PM $12-15. Presales consumed, arrive early to see.

March 20 Obscura, Caldera and Biennial Continues

Today is worldwide Obscura Day, in which you are given the opportunity for expeditions, discovery of hidden treasures and back-room tours in over 75 towns worldwide. A wander through the website is an adventure in itself. In each city, volunteers have planned their favorite events, including Portland. Today, with advance reservations, it is possible to tour Portland's epic Center of Art and 3D Photography. 3D is exploding in filmmaking, after an early experimental period of horror and monster movies in the 1950's, 3D film fell into oblivion. Even before, stereo photographic viewing came to the masses in the form of View-Master viewers and mass produced disks with primarily landscape photographs. It was invented in Portland in 1939. Portland artist Vladamir has updated the medium for art. Meanwhile across town, it's possible to tour with reservations, the Reed College nuclear reactor, the world's only operated by undergraduates. While nuclear chemistry is as old as the universe, the earliest nuclear chemist, was Madame Curie. Rutherford was first to transmute elements, the first successful alchemist. Madame Curie's daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, was the first to make radio-isotopes of non-transuranic elements. So if someone is going to do that sort of thing, I would rather it be a Reed student than a dark magician in a pointy hat or steampunk attire. Details and documentation after at www.atlasobscura.com/obscura-day Free reactor, $5 3D


Caldera continues its monthly open houses showing the work of winter resident artists. At Camp Caldera, www.calderaarts.org Sisters, Oregon (see the web site for directions) Free


The 2010 Portland Biennial of art continues with a large group opening in the Templeton Building. Artists include Holly Andres, Corey Arnold, Pat Boas, John Brodie, David Eckard, Damien Gilley, Jenene Nagy and the Oregon Painting Society. At 230 E Burnside/SE 3rd and Burnside 6PM-10 Free

March 18 Japanese Gardens Spark Art

Art Spark is a monthly networking event for artists and arts administrators. This instance is at Disjecta, giving you a chance to take in a chunk of the 2010 PDX Biennial on display there. This month is unique too: artists may propose a show by 5PM March 18, to be held at Disjecta at a future date. The audience will select the winner that evening. Contestants must be present to explain their proposal and must be present to win! See the Art Spark website for details. At Disjecta www.disjecta.org 8371 N. Interstate 5PM-7 Free



The Portland Japanese Garden is a unique Portland resource. It is widely considered the most authentic public Japanese Garden outside Japan. You can visit it anytime, and it changes through seasons. The garden hosts classes on Japanese gardening, special exhibits, like Ikebana shows, sublime events like moonviewing, and lectures. Tonight noted private garden designer Ron Herman speaks on design and his experiences with clients like Larry Ellison who has built a large scale garden in Woodside. Herman excells at finding the client's inner garden. Details under events at www.japanesegarden.com. The gardens have a great membership program for two, $55 a year, a bargain, considering the admission price is $9.50 per person. As a member, you can stop by in the early morning before the garden is open. At the Portland Japanese Gardens in Washington Park 5:30PM $15/10 members

March 17 Printing Digital Photography With Care

Image science continuously informs the unfolding of image technology. Our eyes of course are the gold standard, backed with an unparalleled analog image processing system, the brain.

Embedded in the digital vs chemical photography debate is the history of image science. Our visual system learns the colors which exist in nature. It is extremely sensitive to skintone. We can easily detect when it is reproduced inaccurately. Kodak had scientists who studied the reproduction of color deeply, and built that knowledge into the dye layers of the film-print chain. Some of that knowledge is being lost. Meanwhile the image processor in current digital cameras adjusts color, and even grain, to "correct" it. Photoshop has innumerable knobs. Current LCD screens are notoriously narrow in the range of colors represented. Meanwhile we have great ink systems for printing. It can work out well if you know how to manage imaging end-to-end.

Photographer and master electronic printer Phil Bard is someone who does. His business Cirrus Digital is the go-to studio for photographers working with digital printing as may be seen by his client list.

Today, he gives a talk on his experience with photography and digital printing.

Sponsored by the Portland Art Museum Photography Council. It's a brown bag lunch in the Miller Room in the Mark Building (formerly the Masonic temple). 1219 SW Park Noon Free

March 16 Salon L'Orient

Belly dance has infested America in a good way. Neotribal groups like Fat Chance in San Francisco sent out seeds which cross bred with immigrants. Those belly dancers are gypsies too. Tonight is an opportunity to see a cross section: Zanama, Nagasita, Grace Constantine, Severina, Danielle Smith, Emilie Lauren, Skylar Castiglione and the Seraphic Society. Live music by Azphodel. At the Fez Ballroom 316 SW 11th 9PM $13

March 14 Harpooning Stock

The Harpoon House is an awesome take by friends Matt and Katherine to produce a beautiful home that is extremely energy efficient on a reasonable budget. Less is more. To make it happen, everything is small, and insulated. Did I say beautiful? They have website; check it. If you are truly interested, there is an opportunity to stop by today to see before they move in. At the Harpoon House SE Portland 10AM-4PM Free


STOCK is a social practice crowd sourced project to fund Portland art over a meal. Pay a reasonable $10 for soup, salad, desert and vote on proposals by artists. The popular choice, selected by you, receives the proceeds of the evening, in the $4-600 range, to make something fantastic. We love RACC, but the work to payout ratio of this program is fantastic. It has a different network than RACC, and complementary. RSVP and be there at www.portlandstock.blogspot.com At PNCA 6PM-8 $10

March 13 The New Biennial

Biennials are a convenient vehicle to survey the state of art, not to frequent, nor infrequent, tuned to today's pace of art evolution. They are lensed through the eye of a particular curator in a time and place. Portland's was managed by the Art Museum, but that ended as the museum had the opportunity to refocus regionally, with a new curator, and select fewer artists, rather than more, in each iteration. They also provided a small prize, cash money.

The Biennial is back under wing of Disjecta, and distributed over many spaces to accommodate 20 artists selected by curator Chris Moss, longtime Portland artist, curator, professor and with an MFA from NYU. Moss was curator of a great series, the Donut Shop, in itinerant spaces.

Several of the new Biennial spaces have opened their artists: Melody Owen at Leach and Marylhurst; Ucci at Alpern. This Saturday and next are multi-artist openings.

Tonight Bruce Conkle & Marne Lucas, David Corbett, Sean Healy, Tahni Holt, Crystal Schenk and Shelby Davis open work in the main Disjecta Space. Meanwhile Ditch Projects, an abandoned factory collective, residency and gallery outside Eugene opens at RocksBox.

Disjecta has a great website with links to each artist for your preview pleasure.

2010 Portland Biennial at Disjecta www.disjecta.org 8371 N. Interstate 6PM-10 Free

And at Rocksbox Fine Art www.rocksboxfineart.com 6540 N Interstate Opening 6PM-10 Free

March 12 Appendix, Alpern, Avantka

Appendix Projects Space on Alberta, home to young modernist artists who are not outsiders, holds an art auction fundraiser event this evening. They are behind Videorama on the alley between 26th and 27th. Arrive early. Cash please. www.appendixspace.com 7PM Free


The new Portland 2010 Biennial is distributed around the city and opening dates are as well. Alpern shows photos by Shaun Jarvis. At 2552 NW Vaughn 6PM-9 Free


Much has been made of the Chinese art scene with its legion of fine art graduates each year. Perhaps a similar dynamic may emerge in India. An example is Indian artist Avantika Bawa who has been artist in residence at Milepost 5. It's at Milepost5 www.milepostfive.com 900 NE 81st (go by MAX) 6PM-9 Free

March 11 Owen, Stadler & Sustainability Talks

Artist Melody Owen gives an artist talk on occasion of her show at the Art Gym. She is also showing a few other places this month, at the Elizabeth Leach Gallery, and a piece at the UofO White Cube Gallery in the White Stag Block. At the Marylhurst Art Gym at Marylhurst University www.marylhurst.edu/theartgym/ Check the campus map to find it. Noon Free



Writer, editor, publisher and organizer Matthew Stadler speaks about his response to selected artworks at the Art Museum. It's part of a monthly series where creatives do likewise. There is a social hour afterwards. At the Portland Art Museum www.pam.org 1219 SW Park 6PM-8 Free members, otherwise pay admission and tour the Museum before



Ziba Design hosts occasional talks of high quality. Tonight it is Allison Arieff. design and sustainability writer for the NY Times and GOOD Magazine. She was founding senior editor at DWELL, and is a design book author and editor. In a way, Arieff has been constructing an ethnographic study, albeit informal, of sustainability early adopters in her work. Her conclusion is that sustainability lifestyle changes propagate in social networks and are not informed by governmental policy. This is no surprise, yet public interest groups lack channels to engage it, though entrepreneurs do so routinely. At Ziba Design www.ziba.com Corner of NW 9th and Marshall. RSVP strongly requested: email events@ziba.com. Doors open 5PM, close at 5:30, promptly when the program begins as the auditorium entrance is on the stage. Free

March 10 Land Art Talk

Land Art was more common when culture was more tied to land. We have examples like the serpentine burial mound. More intimate art made in nature, art on land, has a similarly long history; it has long been reabsorbed by nature too.

The modern era of land art began in the 1960's, an early post modern, post commercial movement. Lightning Field by DeMaria is a spectacular array of properly grounded lightening rods in a sparse field, at once installation and performance. Early the province of men with machines, pushing the land around, land art was termed by Smithson "abstract geology". With the first Earth Day in 1970, many land artists shifted to less destructive work, even to constructive repair of industrial wasteland. Smithson's wife, Nancy Holt, operated with a more subtle touch, creating Sun Tunnels, without digging into wilderness. Later she worked on reclamation projects. Andrea Zittel and friends in Joshua Tree have created the High Desert Test Sites project, focused on annual celebration of art on land. The Center for Land Use Interpretation repurposes documentation of past landscape alteration to art.

I have always been puzzled why art on land is not a stronger movement in the Northwest. Relatively untamed nature dominates our landscape. There was a long running series based in Seattle, Horsehead, created by Matthew Lennon. There is occasional work in Tryon Creek Park, it is not well publicized. Portlander, Scott Wayne Indiana, now in New York, organized a weekend sculpture invitational at Mt Scott Park in 2006.

Tonight maybe we have a chance to restart, with a talk by professor William Gilbert. Gilbert has the obscure honor to hold the "Lannan Chair in Land Arts of the American West in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of New Mexico". I am not making this up, and I'm glad it exists. Lannan speaks on the history of Western land art, and perhaps it reemergence.

He teaches land art and art on the land. Students travel and camp for weeks in the West, observing ancient native art, to Smithson, Holt and DeMaria, to epic alterations like the Hoover Dam, while making their own land work, on the land, as well as bringing it back to the gallery.

At PNCA www.pnca.edu 1241 NW Johnson 6:30PM-8 Free

March 5 Eastside Art Openings+

Newspace hosts a show by Los Angeles photographer Susan Burnstine. She works as a commercial photographer, of great technical prowess. For her art projects, she goes DIY camera bending. Constructing her own cameras from low-fi plastic lens camera parts and household materials, she produces blurry and distorted dream-like exposures. Her effects are in camera, not in Photoshop. It's a great show, demonstrating, again, the growing international reputation of Newspace. At Newspace Photo www.newspacephoto.org 1632 SE 10th



PNCA presents a show Incubate, of Intermedia alumni and residents. The Intermedia program represented a radical break from the traditional structure of the school organized as painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, graphic design and illustration. The school has not looked back since. Artists include David Cipriano, Fei Disbrow, Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulsen, David Cipriano, Tyler Jackson, Claire LaMont, Mack McFarland, Cris Moss, Julie Orser, Patrick Rock, Stephen Slappe, and Nickolaus Typaldos. Strongly recommended. At the Hybrid Gallery in the new Twelve | West Building, 430 SW 13th. Ongoing exhibition hours 6PM–8 Thursdays, 5PM–8 Fridays, Saturdays



Local artists Jenny Hoyston and Sarah Gottesdiener have created a new art night including visual art, installation, movement performance, fashion, live music and a DJ. I have always been a big proponent of artists making a sustainable living by selling their work. This is more a cross fertilization of communities, creative networking, creative curation and fun. At Branx 320 SE 2nd 9PM-2 $5



In the 811 block
NATIONALLE opens in back with a show by Midori Hirose. Hirose is great at small sculptures and her use of material. Opening at NATIONALE nationaleportland.blogspot.com 6PM-9

Grass Hut has dioramas by Faye Jaime. At Grass Hut www.grasshutcorp.com 811 E Burnside

Redux has 12x12 illustration-style paintings by Natalie Phillips, who has cut them from a larger painting. At Redux www.reduxpdx.com

All 811 East Burnside


Minneapolis photographer Ashley Moe shows work at Click Track Lab. The show includes Internet crowdsourced material as well. The space evolves/devolves into a dance party late. www.clicktracklab.com 536 SE 6th 9:30PM on, 21+



Transverse is a painting show by Vanessa Calvert, Jaclyn Fronzack, Ruth Lantz, Jud Richardson, Jason Vance Dickason and Salvatore Reda. It's sure to be lively, and includes the improbable extras of live music with root beer and French fries. Not sure what Michelle Obamma would say about that. At Worksound 820 SE Alder



Guten Tag Meine Freunde, hello my friend, is a show by Berlin artists Nicole Cohen, Ali Fitzgerald, Stefano Minzi, Holger Pohl, Adam Raymont, and Katharina Trudzinski. Berlin and Portland, we are not so far. Gallery Homeland is reducing that distance by exchanges between the two. It's a solid international play. Recommended. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th x Division



Portland Swedish artist Sanna-Lisa Gesang-Gottowt, working in painting, sculpture and photography shows Transclusion tonight. At Juxtapose Studios in the Eastbank Commerce Center 1001 SE Water Ave 6PM-9



23Sandy is a small gallery consistently presenting book arts, photographs, photographic collage and mixed media in two and a half dimension, quiet and sometimes nostalgia tinged. This show comprises books with a vaguely scientific art theme by Karen Hanmer and stencils modeled after France's symbolic shop signs, that would be early graphic design, by Virginia Flynn. At 23Sandy www.23sandy.com 623 NE 23 at Sandy 5PM-8


For something completely different, the Third Angle New Music Ensemble performs Terry Riley's seminal In C as part of their series Chance/Perchance. In C is arguably the first minimalist piece, composed in 1964. The work is made of 53 phrases, to be played in order, repeated any number of times, or skipped, with individual musicians starting the phrase at different times. The score, and performance direction, is one of the most compact existent. For remix and discussion of In C, take a listen. Also collaborating is Beta Collide from Eugene. The program includes Riley and a concerto by Oregon composer David Schiff. All the works include random elements and improvisation. At the Hollywood Theater 7:30PM $30

Mach 4 Westside Art Openings+

The Everett Lofts and associated spaces are recommended, as always, for your viewing pleasure. See them in the block bounded by NW Everett, Broadway, Flanders and 6th.



Portland artist Melody Owen has a show at Marylhurst this month, and has two shows opening this evening. Part of a group show at University of Oregon in the White Stag Block, she shows 8 Knot, in a show themed on Werner Herzog's account of walking between München and Paris. At the Elizabeth Leach Gallery, she shows a series, Letters from Switzerland. She is known for elegant minimalist sculpture, repeating simple elements around an idea. She also works in photography, collage and illustration. Her work is quiet, beautiful, unexpected.

At the White Cube in the University of Oregon White Stag Building, 70 NW Couch
And at Elizabeth Leach www.elizabethleach.com 417 NW 9th



Beppu Wiarda Gallery has a science themed show, a trend we will see more, despite failing science education. The show comprises works by women artists inspired by historic women scientists - the artists and respective scientists include: Abra Ancliffe : Maria Mitchell(1818-1889), American Astronomer/ Katie Ammons : Louise Arner Boyd (1887-1972), Arctic Explorer, geoscientist/ Kate Copeland : Zoe Rodriguez del Rey, Environmental Science/ Kate Fenker : Marcia Ascher, Mathematician/Ethnomathematics/ Bean Gilsdorf : Susanne Gahl, Linguistics / Kim Hamblin : Chrystal Bell, Forensic Biology/ Kim McKenna : Sophie Germain (1776-1835), Mathematics ,Theory of Elasticity/ Sara McKenna : Countess Ada Lovelace(1815-1852), Mathematics/ Lorna Nakell : Sophie Brahe (1556-1643), Astronomer,Alchemist. Notibly absent is Mariana Tres who worked with images from the astronomy archive at Harvard.

The gallery also hosts talks this month around the show, see their website for details. At Beppu Wiarda www.beppugallery.com 319 NW 9th



Noted Portland artist Marie Watt gets at the Northwest Native experience in a way that doesn't pummel. Contemporary art is a great venue for exploration of our post-contact history. It's timely with the great success of the Aboriginal Pavilion at the Vancouver Olympics. At PDX Contemporary Gallery www.pdxcontemporaryart.com 925 NW Flanders



Pulliam has sculptures by David French and paintings by Ken Kelly. French uses wood as a base material upon which to craft exquisite finishes. At Pulliam Gallery www.pulliamdeffenbaugh.com 929 NW Flanders early close 8PM



Augen has a Northwest print show including artists Sheryl Funkhouser, Paul Gentry, Guo Nan, Wendy Kahle, Stephen Leflar, Susan Lowdermilk, Nicole Rawlins, John Saling, Michael Southern, Margaret van Patten, Wang Gongyi and Christy Wyckoff. At Augen Gallery www.augengallery.com 716 NW Davis



Profession as performance artist Lucas Murgida presents, professes and performs tonight. Murgida has learned, practiced and repurposed serial professions including locksmithing, cabinetmaking and teaching yoga. While artists such as Nikki S. Lee document, and Alix Lambert, comment subtly, Murgida takes ordinary professions in radically unexpected directions, kidnapping them for art. He speaks and performs in the Autzen Gallery. Neuberger Hall, Room 205, 725 SW Harrison. Opening early 4PM-6



For something completely different, you can see an open rehearsal and discussion on the its creation by BodyVox of their upcoming world premiere of new work: Smoke Soup. At BodyVox Studios, www.bodyvox.com 1201 NW 17th 6:30PM-8 Free

March 2 Seeds of Change

This is an unusual talk for an art school, but prescient, in the context of the socially conscious fork of the social practice art movement. Dr Alan Kapuler cofounded Seeds of Change 30 years ago to produce organic plant seeds and distribute them to farms and home gardens. All of the seeds are in the public domain. Open source seeds. His talk tonight is "Ecosanity: Ongoing Discoveries About Life", which could cover a lot of ground. The intent of the lecture series is to inspire artists with raw inspiration from the sciences. At PNCA www.pnca.edu 1241 NW Johnson 6:30PM Free