August 31 Impact That Bell

Points of Impact is a house show of Portland artists Leif Anderson, Lori Gilbert and J.P. Huckins. They are good from personal connections and the curation of this small space is good from same. So see it. Presented by Bell Curve, bellcurveproject.tumblr.com, a Brooklyn-apartment-style gallery in a private living space. One night. Recommended. Be polite and respect it. At 2819 NE Flanders #2 7PM-late Free

August 23 Donut Donut

Supportland and Portland Made are opportunities for Portland crafty vixens to collaborate and find customers. They were created by Katrina Scotto di Carlo. She speaks this morning as part of the always excellent Creative Mornings. Oh, Creative Mornings includes free donuts too. Tickets are no longer available for her talk, but the video will soon be available on the Creative Mornings website. Sponsored by Portland Creative Mornings at Ziba Design Auditorium www.ziba.com 810 NW Marshall Map Doors 8:30AM, talk 9. Free




Weepy Donuts: The Kratom Kids is a show by Cameron Soren and Melissa Sachs with Aventa Garden. All very high concept and perky. It's at At Appendix Project Space www.appendixspace.com On the alley between 26th and 27th, South of Alberta. Map 8-11:30 Free

August 23-24 How to Freeze a Moment

We have met photographer Gregory Crewdson over an artistic dinner and heard him explain his process. We like. That's why we have mentioned him a few times here.

Tonight and tomorrow you have an opportunity to get the film version. Brief Encounters is a documentary that shows Crewdson at work. Not only is Crewdson a brilliant creative artist, but he has been supportive of his students, launching several significant careers, such as that of Justine Kurland, and an entire genre of photography. Curious if the film includes his Sanctuary work, a recent change in direction.

Friday, Portland Art Museum's photography curator Julia Dolan will give a 20-minute presentation before, film 7:30. Saturday, Reed curator Stephanie Synder, who has brought Crewdson's work and the artist himself to Portland, introduces the film. The Portland Art Museum's Bruce Guenther curated a Crewdson work featured in the film into the excellent Disquieted exhibition in 2010. Recommended and especially strongly recommended for photographers.

Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters at the Portland Art Museum Northwest Film Center Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park 7PM $9/$8 Student, senior, museum members

August 21 Romeo et Juliet

Shakespeare, what can we say that hasn't been?

So let's get directly to the red meat. In 1996, filmmaker Baz Luhrmann made a version set in Southern California's gang lands. Some of the most redic production design you will ever see. That works well for the Fin de Cinema series. The film shows with subtitles while musicians Magic Fades, Grammies (members of Shy Girls) and Soul Ipsum provide a live soundtrack. Fin de Cinema at Holocene www.holocene.org 1001 SE Morrison 8:30PM $5 advance, 8 door

August 20 People Who Live In Glass Cities Don't Throw Stones

Andi Kovel is principal of Esque Studio. It's a hot glass shop that blows vessels. They are well known for artistic collaborations. They even cohosted a dinner helmed by Naomi Pomeroy in which their kilns were used to roast oysters. At 2000 degrees, it took seconds. Tonight Kovel talks about her process taking concepts from design to production. A presentation of the Curiosity Club, you can tune into the free live webcast off the Core77 site or visit the talk and demonstration in person at Hand Eye Supply www.handeyesupply.com/pages/curiosity-club 23 NW 4th 6PM Free

August 18 Crypto Backyard Yeti Research

Research Club hosts talks over a pot luck brunch. Today it's Steven Joiner lensing his experiences in Japan through an analogy with sumo wrestling. Catherine Nikolovski talks about her project Hack Oregon, where software programmers work for social good. Bring some vegetarian or vegan-friendly food, a plate, cup and utensils, and yourself. At PNCA www.pnca.edu 1241 NW Johnson Map Noon-2 Free



Crypto Party continues as relevant as ever. Bring a laptop, USB drive, pen and paper and a curious mind, minimum of two. Crypto Party www.cryptoparty.in/portlandoregon at the Hawthorne Lucky Lab 915 SE Hawthorne 2PM-4 Free



Yetis are real. And Yeti is a journal of original writing accompanied by a recording of rare music. Labor of love by former Portlander Mike McGonigal. McGonigal is publisher of books and tonight curator of videos. The theme tonight is videos from the 1970's-1980's rhythm and blues, disco, house and techno. hollywoodtheatre.org/happy-made-me-hardcore-yeti-bootleg-9/ At the Hollywood Theater www.hollywoodtheatre.org 4122 NE Sandy Boulevard 7:30PM $5



The backyard series of talks, Yardwork, continues this evening. A small number of individuals gather at a private home, in the back yard, to hear a creative discussion, question and contribute. The speakers tonight are Kerri Rosenstein and Sam Slater speaking on presence, generosity, and reciprocity. If you do your research on Portlandyardwork on the Facebook and private message the organizer, you may be able to attend. Bring a blanket to sit on, refreshments to share. It will be fascinating! 9PM Free

August 17 Deep Bell Place

Deep is an 'specially-good Summer month b-boy b-girl meetup and competition. Starts 4. Part of deepworldtour.com. Beer and wine for those 21+ otherwise all ages. At Trio Club 909 E Burnside. Doors 4PM $8 with res on the FB, $15 otherwise



We love the best of curation no matter where the work is shown. Last month we stopped by to see work selected by an individual who is responsible for bringing Portland State University's Littman and White Galleries into the current Portland art era. Tonight artists Perry Doane, Maria Lewis and Manny Reyes show. Presented by Bell Curve, a Brooklyn-apartment-style gallery in a private living space. Recommended. At 2819 NE Flanders #2 7PM-late Free



Place opens Material Concerns by Jonathan Gann and Daniel Long. They continue Event Horizon: living on the edge by Liz Harris and Mask Tape Project by Tim Combs. All at Place, www.placepdx.com a gallery on the 3rd floor of the Pioneer Place Mall along with the People's art of Portland and the Woolley Gallery. If the mall appears closed, enter the film theater building adjacent, travel through the tunnel to the Place mall, and take the elevator to the 3rd floor, sometimes the bridge on the 3rd floor is open too. 700 SW Fifth. 5PM-9 Free

At the same location, the Mark Woolley Gallery and People's Art of Portland will likely be eventing. Free

August 16 Ending Corners

Minimalist sculptor Courtney Kemp presents At The Ending, On All Corners. She has been with Ditch Projects which is a strong recommendation. At Disjecta, in the shadow of Paul Bunyan www.disjecta.org 8371 N. Interstate Map 6PM-9 Free

August 10 Art Hot Mess

Paintalica is to painting as punk is to music. They do sculpture, think John Chamberlain using inexpensive building materials, then paint on that too. Daniel Attoe here is founding principal with a rotating cast of artists that gather, often working 24 or more hours endurance-style making a grand mess. They take over Rocksbox and create chaos. Well worth seeing and always great conversations to be had with local artists who visit Rocksbox openings. At Rocksbox Fine Art www.rocksboxfineart.com 6540 N Interstate Map 8PM-11 Free

August 9 Black Shack Enchanted Music

If you think Portland is weird, try Oregon. We are a state of individualists and innovators in art, food, land, literature, politics and roadside attractions. One example is the Enchanted Forest, a rustic amusement park themed on Oregon forests and logging. And weird combines today with music in the form of the Great Idea at Enchanted Forest where Portland musicians perform live at places in the attraction. The bands are The Builders and the Butchers, Sons of Huns, Rollerball, Thrones, And And And, L’Orechestra D’Incroyable, The Sorry Devils, Phantom, Daniel Rafn, The Weather Machine, Rollie Fingers, Aaron Shay, Will O’The Wisp, The Smiles, Axolotl DayDream, Electon Year, Lone Marone and Dan Mahoney. It's a great collection of independent bands and intimate audiences in a special Oregon spot. The Great Idea www.facebook.com/pages/The-Great-Idea-at-Enchanted-Forest/105417449508623 at the Enchanted Forest 8462 Enchanted Way SE, Turner, Oregon. Gates 10AM. Music Noon-8. Rides $2-$4 extra. Noon-8 $20



RECESS presents The Black Shack an installation by Marshall Astor. You can read the description on the web site and from that it sounds like it's interactive. At RECESS recessart.com at Oregon Brassworks Building, 1127 SE 10th Map 8PM-10 Free

August 8 Maybe That's Your Black Wagon

The Place Interim Series presents Maybe. It is a gap show by Mami Takahashi, Chloé Womack, Chris Freeman, Stacey Villalobos, Will Elder, Ebin Lee, (María) Petra Fortes-schramm, Jakob Vala and Katie Yancey. Curated by Mark Martinez. Place does these one week shows in one gallery alternating with their 3-4 week mainline shows. There will be a panel discussion on the show Saturday August 10th, 4PM. Maybe opening at Place, www.placepdx.com a gallery on the 3rd floor of the Pioneer Place Mall. If the mall appears closed, enter the film theater building adjacent, travel through the tunnel to the Place mall, and take the elevator to the 3rd floor, sometimes the bridge on the 3rd floor is open too. 700 SW Fifth. 6PM-9 Free



Black Wagon celebrates its 8th anniversary with art by Lev Montague. That's coincident with several businesses having art shows on Mississippi on the second thursday of the month. Albina Press, Backtalk, Flutter, Good, Optik, Mississippi Chiropractic and Paxton Gate participate. At Black Wagon blackwagon.com 3964 N Mississippi Map 6PM-9 Free

August 5 Video by Others

Getting to Know You(Tube) hosts Sarah Meadows, Nina Reynolds and Sean Schumacher tonight. Each artist has selected 10-15 minutes of favorites made by others on YouTube. At Getting to Know You(Tube) www.gettingtoknowyoutube.com at the Hollywood Theater www.hollywoodtheatre.org 4122 NE Sandy Boulevard 7:30PM $5

August 3 Blue Bell Control

Blue Moon Camera is Portland's last bastion of chemical photography. They sell all kinds of vintage cameras, lenses, enlargers, projectors, darkroom gear and even film. They are very passionate about the old methods and rightly so.

So you would expect that their staff would actually be photographers themselves and you would be right.

Once a year they exhibit staff work in a big show. See Blue Moon Camera www.bluemooncamera.com at Eastbank Commerce Center 1001 SE Water 6PM-9 Free



State of Scheme is a show by Will Bruno, Jenny Vu, Kelly Wakefield and Katie Yancey. Presented by Bell Curve, Brooklyn-apartment style. At 2819 NE Flanders #2 7PM-late Free



Control Voltage celebrates an anniversary tonight. Ewe of Now and Oligopolist Records local artists Montgomery Word, Tough Fuzz, Floral make some electronic music. At Control Voltage www.controlvoltage.net 3742 NE Mississippi 7PM Free

August 2 Eastside Art Openings

Haunt has photographs by Miranda Lehman. Lehman has a wide range, including fashion. At Haunt www.hauntstudio.blogspot.com 811 E Burnside Suite #113 7PM-9


Redux has Release, the last show at the store curated by Greg Pitters of Hungry Eyeball. He has invited some of his favorite artists, Amy Lynn Morrison, Bwana Spoons, Chelsea Stephen, Eat Cho, Ian Anderson, Kinoko Cascadia, Mark Quemada, Rebecca Artemisa, Scrappers and Tripper Dungan. Fun! At Redux www.reduxpdx.com 811 E Burnside


Nationale continues Those Hidden Eyes by Brandon Chuesy, collage-influenced paintings. At Nationale www.nationale.us 811 E Burnside Map


You can see Color: Photography Now, exactly what it sounds like. At Black Box Gallery www.blackboxgallery.com 811 E Burnside, Suite 212 upstairs 5PM-8:30 Free


Jennifer Levonian does mixed media sculpture and other things contemporaneously. That combines with lost artist Pearl Blauvelt who lived on the crux of the 19th and 20th century. At Adams and Ollman Gallery www.adamsandollman.com 811 E Burnside #213 Free


All at 811 East Burnside Map



Home:Bass has trademark murals, urban outsider-style paintings and anime influenced work, with DJ's to accompany it all. At Home:Bass www.homebasspdx.com 123 NE 6th 6PM-10 Free



Henry Horenstein shows photographs, Animalia, lush monochromes of animals. Robbie McClaran shows Here On, a meditation on changes in her home town. At Newspace Photo www.newspacephoto.org 1632 SE 10th Map 6PM-9



Joni Kabana presents The Market Workers, photographs from Ethiopian markets. An international NGO worker, Kabana has engaged great opportunities to make images all over the world as participant not spectator. At Pushdot Studio www.pushdotstudio.com 2505 SE 11th Avenue Suite 104 6PM-9



Ilan Manouach opens Laws Of Closure at Homeland. The reception is not until August 22. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org in the Ford Building www.fordbuildingpdx.com 2505 SE 11th x Division. Enter through the cafe on the corner if the main doors on 11th are locked. 6PM-9 Free



Sketch To Finish is a show of illustrations stage-wise from idea to final. Illustrators Logan Neitzel, Peter Line, Justin Fry, Geffen Rafaeli, Arsenio Torres and CW Mihlberger reveal their process. Music by the Bobby Torres Ensemble. At Nemo Design www.studionemo.com 1875 SE Belmont 6PM-10 Free



Baba Wagué Diakité is a long time resident of Portland from Mali. Calm in Chaos is a new show of ceramic disks glazed in black and white patterns, unusual, Wague is known for bright colors. Mali has been involved in a coup and rebellion in the Northern part of the country. The primarily Taureg area has a long-running Azawad nationalism movement. The blowback from the Libyan revolution conflagrated fighting with weapons and idle fighters, disturbing Mali's long history of peaceful democracy. Why can't people just get along? All of that turmoil in his home country has inspired this work. At Eutectic Gallery www.eutecticgallery.com 1930 NE Oregon 6PM-9

August 1 Westside Art Openings, Science for the People, Once Upon a Girl

1989 is a long time ago in art time and a long time in culture time. That was the year that filmmaker dad, James Benning, gave his high school daughter, Sadie Benning, a Pixelvision toy video camera. She was establishing her gender identity and pondering lesbian crushes. That age is an intense time for figuring out many dimensions of identity. Even today, almost 25 years later, the country is struggling to establish its identity on the topic.

Sometimes the toy industry gets it right and produces something beyond amazing. In 1989, video camera recorders were bulky and expensive, about $2000 in today's dollars. The Fisher Price Pixelvision brought the price to $100 with a grainy black and white toy video camera that recorded on audio cassettes. It became a popular camera for video artists, many of whom found them at garage sales.

Tonight you can see five of Sadie Benning's early Pixelvision films: Living Inside, 1989, Me and Rubyfruit, 1990, If Every Girl Had a Diary, 1990, A Place Called Lovely, 1991 and Girlpower, 1992. Many were video diaries Benning made and narrated in her room. They are touching in-camera works.

Benning continues making video and paints. She also cofounded the band Le Tigre in the late 1990's. Making political dance music fun.

Benning's videos are not available on the Internet, thought there are short previews at www.vdb.org/artists/sadie-benning. But tonight you can see them in their entirety at YU. At Yu Contemporary Art www.yucontemporary.org 900 SE 10th 7:30PM Free



For all history, and maybe that of our evolutionary predecessors, we have looked out on the moon, stars - space. How we would live in space was a dream in fiction. Military missile technology grew up, launching satellites, and eventually us, into space. That engendered the high frontier movement imagining space colonies, huge rotating stations generating their own gravity, and self sufficient in food and energy. It is a beautiful dream, though I'm not convinced the energy equation to slip the surly bonds of earth's gravity pencils.

High Frontiers is a collection of essays by Claire Evans dropping today at Publication Studios. Evans has been writing across science and its intersection with the arts and culture. Her work has been published in everything from Rhizome to Vice, as well as in her science blog, Universe. Not limited to writing, Evans is also known for her creative musical collaboration with Jona Bechtolt, Yacht. Yacht is no stranger to techno-mysticism and science fiction imagery. To close the loop, Evans writes reviews of classic science fiction novels.

Publication Studios is an on-demand publisher of books in the creative realm. Like a bakery, they print small fresh batches of each book often. Publication Studios celebrates the Portland release of the book with a signing, a chance of music and plenty of creative conversation. At Publication Studio, 717 SW Ankeny 7 Free



Recess Gallery brings a several month project opening tonight at PNCA and continuing around town, themed on social practice tactics. The start is Emerging Tactics: Public Schools. Red 76, Helen Reed, Hannah Jickling, Parallel University, Homeschool, Getting to Know You(tube), Classical Revolution, Community Supported Everything and others are the instigators - so recommended. For August there are a series of free open source classes at PNCA. The whole schedule is at www.recessart.com. At PNCA www.pnca.edu 1241 NW Johnson Map 6PM-9:30



I dig Chinese brush painting. Tim Loh does too, from childhood growing in Hong Kong. He is doing his own East-West fusion version, the wave of the future in many ways. At Visage Eyewear www.visageeyewear.com 1046 NW Johnson 6PM-9 Free



When we are babies we are smarter. Zero to handfuls of months, our growing minds are dedicated to recognizing our parents, understanding facial expression and decoding tone of voice. We carry to adulthood that intuition laid down in brain circuitry as babies.

Two shows at Blue Sky provocatively engage remove from the comfort zone of our gaze on body's physical appearance. Sage Sohier has photographed children and adults with facial nerve or brain damage which changed their appearance. It is a heavy burden to see shock and rejection in those they interact with, based entirely on those subconscious pathways. The work is still, in a video piece on the same theme, the impact would be devastating. So it is a reminder to compassion.
June Yong Lee works with altered images of the chest, identifiably male and female. Using digital image editing, she creates chests unnaturally filling the frame. At PNCA www.pnca.edu 1241 NW Johnson Map 6PM-9:30



Zach Johnsen has House of Uncommons at Hellion Gallery www.helliongallery.com 19 NW 5th Suite 208. Through the lobby of the arched brick entry, up the stairs and to the back. Very upper floor Japan-style.
Map



The Art of Music by Eugene Serebrennikov, Chris Degaetano, Ryan Airhart, Adam Garcia, Joel Colley, Erin Cochrane and Ashley Payne is a show of music-themed 2d work. At Compound Gallery www.compoundgallery.com 107 NW 5th 6PM-10



One of the earliest forms of advertising was billboards. Today they are digitally printed on vinyl. But originally they were hand painted in situ. There is a show this month of large format work representing layers of commercial sign imagery, as if they had pealed down to different depths in weathering - time and spatial sampling. At W+K www.wk.com 224 NW 13th Map 5PM-9 Free



Drawing Board Rejects is an ironic title for a show of tattoo artist paintings and drawings. Skin art is intimate in many dimensions, including size. This show gives the artists an opportunity to work larger. An engaging show to view and imagine on the body. At Gallery 135, 135 NW Park 6PM-9



Everett Lofts are recommended as always. Their open studios and courtyard show upstairs is tonight. It's easier for you to see them all than for me to write suggestions. Some close as early as 9PM. At the Everett Lofts 625 NW Everett. Bounded by NW Everett, Broadway, Flanders and 6th Map