First Friday is split by venue between openings tonight and next Friday the 10th owing the Labor Day holiday and audience travel plans.
Golden Rule has a very interesting show, Making Sense, by Delphine Bedient. Bedient is working well across mediums, sometimes mixing them. She has a good eye for interior and exterior landscape photography; work involving thread and embroidery, including installation; found-reused materials; and a zine life as editor of Peep!. Some of this month's work is made from teabags of tea consumed and stains on paper of daily coffee grounds. Her work is part of a unique experiment in retail and family culture in that it is paired with a specific collection of vintage clothing in a shop that is gallery to both. At Golden Rule Gallery www.goldenruleportland.com 811 E Burnside, Suite 122 in the back
Carhole has Terminal Examination, by Liam Drain and Carmen Denison. This show examines formal education. Though we debate around the edges, formal education and its strictures are tightly woven into culture, from imperial China and ancient Greece, onward. Drain questions logic itself with book art and ceramics incorporating the symbol ≠, not equal. Denison infiltrates academia with textbooks and black/white boards of her own lessons, questioning education's foundations. At Car Hole Gallery 114 SE 12th x Ankeny 6PM-9:30ish
Mike Bray opens It Was Never About The Audience at Fourteen30. Bray makes sculpture, photographs and video. He is also a curator and arts organizer, cofounder of Springfield, Oregon's Ditch Projects, arguably the best thing that ever happened to Springfield since Matt Groening; and expertly tapping Northwest Twin Peaks mysticism. At Fourteen30 Gallery www.fourteen30.com 1430 SE 3rd 6PM-9
Kelly Rauer's Shaping Sequence continues at New American Art Union www.newamericanartunion.com 922 SE Ankeny
Redux has a charming show of fairy tale-inspired illustration by Julianna Swaney At Redux www.reduxpdx.com 811 E Burnside
The Art Department has a show of PSU graphic design graduates, Keeping It Together. Designers include Tally Gunstone, Rachel Yoakum, Crystal Peck, Kyla Tom, Jesse Matz, Marsha Lindsey, Sylvia Dihn, Jordan Lessler, Linda Lee, Kristina Morris and Amanda Benson. Music by Wild Hog in the Woods and Drunk on Pines. At the Art Department http://www.artdeptpdx.com/ 1315 SE 9th Avenue
Longtime Portland photographer Stewart Harvey shows I Am What I Need To Be, The Odyssey of Identity in New Orleans. New Orleans is a unique place. Even in the law, it is different than the country in incorporating French law. It has its Creole - Krio language, shared with West Africa. Harvey likens New Orleans' uniqueness to Portland's, which is quite a complement. This show is his photographic exploration of the people of New Orleans. At 23Sandy www.23sandy.com 623 NE 23 at Sandy 5PM-8
Bside6 continues with its installation series in the form of BIG shirt / little TOP by Elisa Linda Saethe At bSIDE6 524 E Burnside
Milepost 5 opens their latest, Hidden Among the Leaves, paintings by Stephen Plount At Milepost5 www.milepostfive.com 900 NE 81st (go by MAX) 6PM-9 Free