April 5 Circuit Bending Broadcast and Portland Art Confab

Tonight the Video Gentlemen host an evening of circuit bending and secret broadcasts from the Bring Your Own TV(.pdf) video installation at the New American Art Union. Circuit bending is the DIY craft of modifying consumer electronic devices to experimental creative ends. Sound making and speaking toys can be placed into the unexpected service of art and performance. It is the same with video. See and hear it tonight at the New American Art Union www.newamericanartunion 922 SE Ankeny 7PM Free



The Cascade AIDS Project has been in operation since 1983. Focus has shifted to Africa as epidemic reservoir, CAP is concentrated on local. So in the spirit of "think global, act local", the Cascade AIDS Project has a large art auction to raise funds yearly. For artists, being involved means their work will be seen by the guest curator and by Portland art collectors. Thus the selection represents the curator view, especially for the live patron auction, and the inertia of historical participating galleries and artists. The curator this year is the curator of the Lewis and Clark gallery. It is also a social event for the artists, an opportunity to dress up.

Artists include Katherine Ace, Mary Arp, Dina Avila, Diane Avio-Augee, Adam Bacher, Bill Baily, Marcy Baker, Will Barras, Barbara Bartholomew, London Bellman, Tangie Pape Belmore, Patty Bentley , Stan Beppu, Don Bishop, Barbara Black, Nika Blasser, Jill Bliss, Rebecca Block, Chuck E. Bloom, Jacquelyn Bond, Armine Bozhko, Jason Bradbury, Morning Breath, Troy Briggs, Sharon Bronzan, David Brooks, Mazana Bruggeman, Billie Buford, G. Lewis Clevenger, Molly Cliff-Hilts, Sally Cohen, Liz Cohn, Michelle Colbert, Carolyn Cole, Elaine Coleman, Jeff Condit, Lisa Conway, Nigel Conway, Greg Conyne, Jesse Corning, D. Corwin, Jonnel Covault, Tom Cramer, Mae Crauder-Davis, Ron Cronin, Sarah Cruse, Larry Cwik, Kurt Dahlke, Paul Dahlquist, Linda Daily, Nancy Day, Tatiana deFigueiredo, Ronald DeHerrera, Bradley Delay, Shawn Demarest, Krislyn Dillard, Sara Dochow, Jennifer Doheny, Luke Dolkas, Cary Doucette, Stephanie Doyle, Tallmadge Doyle, Christine Eagon, Leslie Ebert, Jeannine Edelblut, Karen Ehlers, Martin Eichinger, Ellen Emerson, Richard Enger, Andrew Englehorn, Tamara English, Karen Esler, Amy Estrin, Bryce Evans, Kyle Evans, Leiv Fagereng, Jaik Faulk, Judith Fawkes, Michael Feely, Stephan P. Ferreira, Super Hightech Jet Fighters, Sally Finch, Al Flory, Caleb Freese, Mitchell Freifeld, Karen Friedman, Tom Gainer, Marcus Gannuscio, J. Garcia, Terrence Gasca, LeeAnn Gauthier, Ellen George, Gordon Gilkey, Gene GillJoAnn Gilles, Jennifer Gleach, Robert Gleason, Richard Glenn, Justin Gorman, , Kojo Griffin, Bryan Grimes, Bernard Gross,Rhonda Grudenic, Korey Gulbrandson, Jef Gunn, Jennifer Guske, Jun Seo Hahm, Andrew Haley, Mabel Astarloa Haley, Yvonne Hanks, Kris Hargis, Fredric Harwin, Jessica T. Hassler, Ron Hendrick, Maureen Herndon, Yuji Hiratsuka, Brandon Hoffman, Melissa Hogan, Steve Hohenboken, Gillian Holbrook, Jeff Houghtaling, Claudia J. Howell, Cody Hudson, Elizabeth Huey, Arlene Huggett, Israel Hughes, Sam Hull, Katrina Humbert, Terry Hutchinson, William Jamison, Michael A. Jarvis, George Johanson, Barry Johnson, Liza Jones, Alicia Justus, Joni Kabana, Kevin Kadar, Eileen Kane, Rafael Katz, Michael Kenna, Karen Kessler, Joel Kimble, Carley King, Chuck King, Carol Lynn Kirchner, Bernard Kliks, Andre Knaébel, Nicholas Knapton, Rochelle Koivunen, Eileen "Ikie" Nolan Kressel, Amy Kuttab, Cynthia Lahti, Sharri LaPierre, Dale Larson, Carson Legree, Bishop Lennon, David Carmack Lewis, Gabriel Liston, Danny Locke, Kandy LozanoBarry Mack, Morgan Madison, KC Madsen, Mandy Main, Gabriel Manca, Guido Malla Marquez, Gordon Marshall, Wells Stuart Marshall, III, Barbara Mason, Kicki Masthem, Brian Mathus, Hollye Maxwell, Mel McCuddin, , Michelle McKay, Carolina Medina-Dupaix, Dave Meeker, Jennifer Mercede, Chi Meredith, Peter Miller, John Mincks, James Minden, Randy Moe, Ashley Montague, Christopher B. Mooney, Norma Morrell, Lee Musgrave, Danuta Muszynska, Lorna Nakell, Nation, Sarah Wolf Newlands, Allison O'Donoghue, , Edward O'Hare, Dallas Oliver, Darren Orange, Kim OsgoodAndy Paiko, Daniel Papke, Eugenia Pardue, William Park, Lucinda Parker, Michael Parks, Eunice Parsons, Angela Passalacqua, Magdalena Pauna, Scott Peterman, Greg Pfarr, Ben Pink, Claudia Porter, Garrett Price, Tom Prochaska, Julie Rall, R. Keaney Rathbun, Lynn Everett Read, Pat Richards, April Richardson, Qiana Rickabaugh, Rene Rickabagh, Mario Roberts, Daniel Robinson, Brad Rogers, Ron Rogers, Francis X. Rosica, Sandra N. Roumagoux, Arletha Mueller Ryan, Civeq Salerno, Adrian Sanchez, DJ Sandler, Adam Satushek, Ted Sawyer, Bryan E. Schellinger, Richard Schemmerer, Jane Schiffhauer, Bill Schlegel, Hazel Skaling Schlesinger, Michael Schlicting, Aaron Schlosberg, Nancy Schmugge, Jean Schwalbe, Andrea Schwartz Feit, Tony Secolo, Bill Seebert, Evan N. Serrill, Naomi Shigeta, Shelly Shinjo, Michael Sieben, Rachel Siegel, Sara Siestreem, Karen Silve, Carol Sims, Charles Sites, Lee Ann Slawson, Damon Sneed, Camille Solzagua, Michael Southern, Raphael Soyer, Tara Stansberry-Roberts, Kathleen Stephenson, William T.C. Stevens, Marlana Stoddard-Hayes, Eric Stotik, Andy Stout, Ian Sundahl, Angelita Surmon, Nina Sutter, Sara Swink, J Swofford, Rabun Thompson, Terry Thompson, Melinda Thornes, A. Thurston, Joe Thurston, Andrew Totman, Evelyn V. Townsend, David Patrick Trowbridge, Zhanna Tsytsyn, Renee A. Ugrin, Rita Urdaneta, Fran Victor, Judy Lee Vogland, Elise Wagner, Martha Wallulis, Stephen Walter, W W Ward, Brent Wear, Mickey Weaver, McGrath Welker, Alisha Wessler, Grace Weston, Brian White, C. Greg Wilbur, Jennifer Williams, Dane Wilson, Sherrie Wolf, Allison Wonder, Mark Woolley, Wrenn, Rick Wright, Judith Wyss, Carol Yarrow, Reneé Zangara, and Jennifer Zika. I don't know how to digest that, but I'm curious about "Super Hightech Jet Fighters".

It's at the Oregon Convention Center. All the details are here. Patron dinner 5PM Artists' reception 8PM

April 4 Design Green Now!

EcoSystems is a Brooklyn-based furniture firm on a West Coast mission: a panel discussion on green design at some left coast schools, including here. Design using sustainable materials, fabrication; weighing lifecycle costs; the cradle to cradle credo; carbon footprinting; human-centered design - all are being incorporated into the programs of leading design schools.

The West Coast Design Green Now touches down at Western Washington University, The Art Institute of Portland, California College of the Arts and the University of California Long Beach. Each locale has a different set of panelists. If you have friends there who might be interested, let them know.

Portland panelists Richard Whitehall, Director of Industrial Design, Smart Design; Debbie Driscoll, Sustainability Group Account Director, Ziba; Peter Kallen - Men’s Product Design Director, Nau; Phil Berry, Principal, Sustainable Product Works present their views.

Full details of the program, the speaker bios and registration, which is required, may be found at Design Green Now. Design Green Now is laying the groundwork for green design competitions, perhaps you are a future participant. I'm a student of quality theory and there is a famous mantra: "quality is free". In the same vein, we will see that green is free too.

Sponsored by EcoSystems, Adobe, Core77, Design 21, GOOD, ReadyMade, Plyboo and Media Temple.

The event takes place Friday at the Art Institute of Portland, 1122 NW Davis. 6PM-8:30 Registration required. Free!

April 4 Eastside Art Openings

Trish Grantham and Amy Ruppel show their individualistic take on Russian dolls. At Grass Hut www.grasshutcorp.com 811 E Burnside

Destroy Store has prolific local artist Chris Haberman. www.destroystore.com 1712 E Burnside

Next door, Life+Limb has a show by Erik Railton, Old Song. Life+Limb specializes in inside zen gardening, including cacti that even I may not be able to kill. www.lifeandlimb.net 1716 E Burnside

Gallery Homeland has an international artist residency program. This month Swiss resident artist Christoph Hueppi shows Swarm Intelligence. The artist statement for the show relates swarms of bugs in India with the distributed algorithms in telecommunication networks that allow electronic outsourcing between the US and India. Me, I'm just thinking about the seasonal return of kitchen ants. www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th

Portland is an encaustic town, owing more to local artists who became interested and taught others, than to winter rains driving artists into medieval studios of art alchemy, mixing pigment and wax over flame. If you are interested in the topic, the Marki gallery is hosting a traveling group show of encaustic work. Talk there Saturday at 3PM by the curator. www.brianmarki.com 2236 NE Broadway

Newspace has Hawaiian landscape photographs on manipulated Polaroids by Ivan Wentland. www.newspacephoto.org 1632 SE 10th

April 3 Westside Art Openings

Some of the best time entertainment value viewing art may be had at the Everett Station Lofts and the DeSoto Building.

DeSoto, comprising Blue Sky Gallery, The Nine Gallery, The Charles Hartman Gallery, The Museum of Contemporary Craft, Augen and Froelich cover a range of superbly curated work in for profit and non profit spaces. The DeSoto Building is bounded by Broadway, Davis and NW Park.

The Everett Station Lofts are live work spaces, changing always, showing spirited and usually authentic work. It's faster for you to see than me write about. Some notable spaces are Sequential Art, which has activated its website, including references to other galleries; Tilt Gallery, known for seriously curated installation; and The Pony Club with very inexpensive drawing-style work begging to be taken home by you. The Everett Station Lofts are bounded by Everett, Broadway, Flanders and NW6th. Generally open until at least 9:30PM


Ogle has work by prolific and provocative Scott Wayne Indiana. Indiana has organized park land art shows and embedded dozens of axes in the ceiling above art viewers. He is the instigator of the Horse Project, the toy ones attached to rings in the curb from the pre-fossil fuel days; he has been collaborating with Harvest Henderson and Andrea Zittel on the Cali desert Geochain. This month Ogle has 3 Indiana works: "Blown Over", "Door Man" and "one day you motherfuckers will See". He also has a performance at the gallery "Waiting in Line" April 19. Ogle www.ogleink.com 310 NW Broadway


The Elizabeth Leach Gallery has collages of layered paper cutouts and also bright jigsaw puzzles by Al Souza. Fernanda D'Agostino has blown glass sculptures and a video installation. Elizabeth Leach Gallery www.elizabethleach.com 417 NW9th


James Lavadour paints seemingly effortless abstract landscapes. Sublime. PDX Contemporary Art www.pdxcontemporaryart.com 925 NW Flanders


Masters Reborn are today's artists reimagining classic old chestnuts from art history. Reimaginary artists inclide Krista Huot www.kristahuot.com, Jeremiah Ketner www.smallandround.com, Makiko Sugawa www011.upp.so-net.ne.jp/makiko/menu.html, Neri www002.upp.so-net.ne.jp/d-bird/, Cristy Road www.croadcore.org/start.htm, Naoshi www.naoshii-u-iii.com, Daniel Lim "fawn fruits" www.daniel-lim.com, Arisu www.arisuart.com, Skaffs www.skaffs.com, Yoshi Tajima www.radiographics.jp, Nishi www.myspace.com/nishi89, Deseo www.deseoworks.com, Anke Weckmann www.linotte.net, Andy Council www.andycouncil.co.uk, Robert Hardgrave www.farmerbobsfarm.com, Kat Leuzinger www.katleuzinger.com, Milk www.myspace.com/logyu, Naomi Nowak www.naomi.se, Re-verse www.hcn.zaq.ne.jp/re-verse/, Annali Olander www.anneliolander.com, Aaron Sikstrom http://seethrou.carbonmade.com/, David Macdowell www.macdowellstudio.com, Miss Kika www.misskika.com, Sophie Varela www.sophievarela.com, Tessar Lo www.tessarlo.com, Ippei Gyoubu www.gyoubu.com, Used bandaid www.myspace.com/gingerbreadcoffin, Matt Linares www.myspace.com/kamikazecauser, Nati www.nati-art.com, Jeni yang (jeya pomkuri) www.jeniyang.com, Leeloo www.june-leeloo.com. All at Compound 107 NW 5th

April 2 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

The usual path for art is from artist to gallery, shop, cafe to your wall. Artists often trade works among one another. Art is now finding a home direct through artist websites, Etsy and Myspace. There is a secondary market though, where art is resold. An extreme example are art center auction houses with prices in thousands to hundreds of millions. In contrast, the secondary market in regional art, where it existed at all, has been behind closed doors and conducted in whispers. That is changing.

Seattle artREsource, connected to dealer Greg Kucera, has created a persistent visible secondary market for art. In Portland, Marilyn Murdoch mixes new shows with consigned resale at The Murdoch Collections. A more rational system would follow European droit de suite law, in which artists, or their heirs, receive royalties each time the art is resold. Ideally droit de suite would apply to private sales, and to emerging artists.

Mark Woolley presents a show this month Choice Cuts: Selected Work from Private Collections, a one time version of artREsource. The show is an excellent opportunity to see art of the 1990's in Portland, some earlier. How does that work fit between regional work in the Art Museum and today's art?

Artists include Rick Austin, Rick Bartow, Louis Bunce, Marc Chagall, Tom Cramer, Michael Dal Cerro , Richard Davis, Christian Eckhart, Howard Finster, David French, Gordon Gilkey, Francisco Goya, Paul Green, Anne Grgich, M.K. Guth, Sally Haley, Claudia Hart, Tom Hardy, Tyler Hays, Barry Haram, Charles Heaney, Bill Hoppe, Jerry Iverson, Manuel Izquierdo, William Jamison, Liza Jones, Mary Josephson, Barbara Kruger, LaVerne Krause, Ferdinand Leger, Fritz Liedtke, James Martin, Jack McLarty, Kenna Moser, Royal Nebeker, Alison O’Donoghue, Trude Parkinson, Robert Rauschenberg, Dana Roberts, Ralph Rosenborg, Laura Ross-Paul, Michele Russo, John Serl, Roy Setziol, Ku Fu Sheng, Russell Simmons, Corey Smith, Amanda Snyder, Jay Steensma, Eric Stotik, Jed Thomas, Marie Watt, Milton Wilson and Purvis Young.

At Mark Woolley Gallery www.markwoolley.com 817 NW 2nd

March 27 REBAR Re(MIXING) Landscape

REBAR is an arts group based in San Francisco. They have transplanted samples of offices, like conference rooms and file cabinets, to the desert, and transplanted samples of parks to parking places and bicycles. Orlo, a Portland group creating its own mix of art, literature and environment is bringing them to Portland to speak and agitate. Your ideas and participation are encouraged, maybe re(mixing) Portland's environs. That opportunity would be at the Portland AIA office, 403 NW 11th (x Flanders). Doors 6PM, talk 6:30 $5

March 22 Analog Shutoff as Art

The New American Art Union launches its Couture series with an opening tonight. Ruthann Brown has competitively selected artists to take over the entire gallery with an installation. The opportunity, so rare in Portland, comes with an even rarer stipend.

The first NAAU Coture is The Video Gentlemen - Carl Diehl, Jesse England and Mack McFarland - with their installation Bring Your Own TV (BYOTV).

This affects you. So for a little background, this map shows how radio waves are used in the USA. All the large blue areas are AM radio, FM radio and TV. All of the other little slices are used by everything from garage door openers to WiFi, satellites, taxicabs, navigation for ships at sea, GPS, thousands of little uses. Sidestepping for a moment the content value today of television, the television spectrum is literally valuable, on the order of $5 billion per nationwide channel if it's used for mobile phones. In our democracy, the radio frequencies are considered owned in common by you and me. Thus the government, acting on our behalf, decides who gets to transmit what on each frequency, under the approving authority of the UN. The government decided in the early 1990's, in response to Japanese competition in high definition television, to move TV to digital in a project known as "The Grand Alliance". That situation seems so quaint now. Integral to the move, is shutting off the analog TV broadcasts that began in 1926. (Cable TV, satellite TV and Internet TV are not affected) If your TV gets its programs from an antenna, it will be useless after February 17, 2009 without a converter box and maybe even an antenna on the roof. That is called the "analog shutoff", which was conveniently scheduled to be after the Superbowl TV broadcast.

Note your TV may also be toxic waste because all tube TV's contain lead to keep some of the x-rays in (really). So don't just throw that TV in the trash! The [LCD] flat screen TV's, in contrast, have mercury as a dangerous ingredient for the next few years.

You can read about the Video Gentlemen's take on all of this and bring your own TV to the gallery to receive their artistic transmissions of some pretty awesome content.

The Video Gentlemen reference artists' use of TV and video which is documented in the excellent reference Illuminating Video. Early video artists, such as Nam Jun Paik were invited nto television studios to make work. As equipment became affordable, they moved into the DIY realm. There was a pretty awesome use of infrared video, then available only to the military, in Rauschenberg's Open Score, produced in the 1960's by E.A.T.

The wedge shaped room taking most of the gallery is actually a secret TV studio of circuit bent video gear. It's complete with a green screen to chromakey talking heads live into video's virtual world. The artists will produce live programs from the secret broadcast room at times during the show's run.

The real interests of the show are the videos the artists have selected to broadcast. Check the broadcast schedule, and tune in!

Artists' reception tonight. At New American Art Union 922 SE Ankeny 5PM-7 Free

March 20 ArtSpark!

If you are reading this, you are in the Portland art world. Probably in the segment comprising visual artists, collectors, and creatives compelled to examine the unfolding edge of culture purposed for good. You are probably laying down that front edge.

That's one facet of Portland's art world. But there are more such as institutions like the symphony, museums, theater groups, childrens art programs, dance companies, multicultural arts programs, public art programs and many more.

All this exists beside a representative democracy system elected to tax and spend. The aformentioned groups and the city have created a Creative Capacity Initiative with elements based on the writings of Richard Florida. They have formed two high level advisory boards and are working with RACC which dispenses Federal and State money as well adminstering public art and sculpture projects.

One of the Creative Capacity projects is finding funds to promote Portland's creatives, artists, designers, small fashion labels, exhibitions, and live-work spaces.

ArtSpark is a monthly gettogether with the leaders of the program to meet you. They want to know what you need. If you don't tell them, all the money and effort will go to the aforementioned institutions. So this is your chance. Go to the ArtSpark website and RSVP, then stop by any 3rd Thursday of the month. Tonight it is at the Living Room Theater Lounge, NW 10th and Stark. 5-7PM

February 19 Architects and Carbon Traders Speak

Tonight in a continuing series, Portland architects Jeff Kovel, Carrie Schilling and Bill Neburka speak about their work. Kovel and his Skylab Design Group have built speculative elegant projects such as the East lounge, the Foug Fir lounge, Sinju, soaring modern residences, the mixed use building at SW Alder and 12th, and provided retail design for Nike and Nau. Schilling+Neburka at Works Partnership with its experimental arm, Project Cityscope (responsible Portland Pecha Kucha), have worked extensively with developer Brad Maslin creatively reusing old buildings. It should be a free ranging discussion and it's free! At Design Within Reach, Corner of NW Everett and 12th 7PM


Addressing global warming will require everyone working individually and together. We can do it. It is no secret that over 1/3 of the new money invested by leading Silicon Valley venture capitalists is focused on green projects today. Another emerging business-oriented approach is carbon trading and caps. In this system, carbon emissions are limited to a measurable number, the cap, and each emitter is given credits proportional to their emissions under the cap. Emitters can trade the rights among one another, those investing in reduced emissions can trade their credits to those slower to invest. It is a key element of the Kyoto Protocol. The Western Climate Initiative, under both Republican and Democratic governors, are committed to carbon trading as a mechanism for reducing greenhouse gasses. Tonight's talk in Portland's venture community is on the business of carbon trading. Steve Gutmann from EcoSecurities explains how they facilitate carbon trading in concert with financing new renewable energy projects. The event is sponsored by Tie Oregon, a group of entrepreneurs. At PSU University Place Building 310 S.W Lincoln St. 6PM-9 $35, $15 students.

March 10 Anissa Mack Speaks at PSU

Anissa Mack, famous for baking pies at an art museum and giving them free to passers by in NY, is back. She has shown at Small A. Tonight she speaks of her work, very much in the social practice mold - the idea and connection with and between viewers is the thing. Mack speaks tonight at PSU 5th Ave Cinemas 510 SW Hall Room 92 7:30PM Free

March 7 Eastside Art Openings

Destroy Store has small bright paintings by Nicole Linde. Some look like undersea coral reefs caught in the diver's light and surrounded by blackness. At least that's what she showed at an Everett Lofts studio show. Be surprised. At Destroy www.destroystore.com 1712 E Burnside 7PM-11


In the 811 Block

No one would characterize the art of Grass Hut as lacking character. Thus so appropriate that inaugurating their new space with wider store frontage is the show "Balls Out". Yea enthusiasm! Grass Hut artists Esther pearl Watson, Mark Todd, Luke Ramsey, Martha Rich, Scrappers, Bwana Spoons, Andrew Brandou, Martin Ontiveros, Le Merde, Cupco, Wrecks, Carson Ellis, Brian Ralph, Jeff Soto, Roberta Alyward, Dawn Riddle, Shawn Wolfe, Chris Johanson, Kiyoshi Nakazawa, Rodney Alan Greenblat, David Wien, Maija Fiebig, APAK, Ryan Jacob Smith, Tim Biskup, James Jean, Lisa DeJohn, Reuben Rude, Will McCurtin, Evan Harris, Monica Canilao, Evah Fan, Deth P. Sun, Jesse Reno, Ron Reggie Jr., Kurt Halsey, Clutch, Ryan Bubnis, Chris Ryniak, Arbito, Oliver Hibert, Spencer Hibert, Dave the Chimp, John McCambridge, Colin Johnson, Jun Seo Hahm, Amanda Visell, Joshua Herbolsheimer, Mark Nagata, Farel, Scott Saw, Meredith Hamm, Skinner Davis, Cho-Chan, Jill Bliss, Souther Salazar, Gary Baseman, Kristin Cammermeyer, Mark Warren JacQues, Corey Lunn, Corey Smith and Maja Nakazawa represent! Sharp eyes will note that this is a greatest hits show and for everyone a chance to see the range of art Grass Hut is known for in just one visit. All the artists started with a panel supplied by Bwana and Scrappers but the results are highly varied. At Grass Hut www.grasshutcorp.com

Redux has collage by Sand Francisco artist Lisa Congdon. The shop specializes in art, jewelery and accessories remade from the waste stream. www.reduxpdx.com

All at 811 E Burnside


Newspace is known for straight photography, well curated, ranging to very current. This month they expand with a show based on photography, but incorporating "journal entries, letters, emails, drawings, poetry, found objects and personal keepsakes" in service of a life. That life is a 14 year slice of the photographer Bobby Abrahamson. He has entitled the effort Rabbit, paean to his totem animal, the rabbit, and the rabbit dynamic of running from its fears while at the same time seeking social connection. Maybe also an Updike reference. Part of the project was developed in residency at Caldera. At Newspace Photo www.newspacephoto.org 1632 SE 10th


Ann Ploeger has made beautiful portraits of Portlanders at home. Her specialty is an almost faded Kodachrome palate adding instant nostalgia to many of her subject's precious thrift finds; many of them are barefoot too. Her colors though are now shifting to bright hues, almost to the cross processing point. That may be with the controlled assistance of Pushdot who help photographers with color management from scan or electronic file to the final ink jet pigment print. Pushdot has relocated to a new space in the industrial SE, near Newspace and this is the maiden voyage for the gallery attached to their electronic photo printing service. Pushdot www.pushdotstudio.com 1021 SE Caruthers St


Artists Karl Burkheimer, David Corbett, Arcy Douglass, Jeff Jahn, Todd Johnson, Jesse Hayward, Sean Healy, Cris Moss, Jenene Nagy, Joe Thurston, Josh Smith, and Ryan Suther are grist for the show "Dudes Night Out". In the mind of curator Chris Moss, the show is an analogue for the process by which Portland artists exchange ideas and provide support for one another. Recommended. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th x Division 6PM-9

March 6 Westside Art Openings

A standing recommendation are the Everett lofts. See. Respond. One interesting show is "In The Name Of" at Sequential. Artist Shell Frogge has documented white bikes and roadside memorials of autofatals. Frogge's photos are sometimes titles with those lost to collisions between 3000 pound metal and 100 pound people. www.sequentialartgallery.com Sequential Everett Lofts, Broadaway side.


Elise Wagner is an encaustic painter, she teaches encaustic classes and formulates the pigments too. Her show "Particle Maps" incorporates imagery from cloud chambers in which charged particles in high energy physics experiments are bent to spiral patterns by magnetic fields. The texture of encaustic painting gives the feel of medieval illustration; so a mashup of DaVinci and quantum physics. Butters Gallery 520 NW Davis - 2nd floor


Ethan Rose is a musician's musician. Solo, Small Sails, Adelade; he has made somewhat ambient music which in a group could rock out too. It is music for dreams. He has been generous playing for all manner of art events, making them something special. Now he shows an installation themed on music machines, player pianos, in a gallery. Not to be missed at Tilt 625 NW Everett #106 Until 9


James Boulton launched a new generation of large bright abstract painters here. He has spent the last few years getting schooled in LA's art world and this show is the result. Pulliam Deffenbaugh 929 NW Flanders Until 8


British American artist David Hockney is known for pop imagery and collage. Living now in LA, swimming pools have become somewhat of a motif. Usually his work is seen in museums, Augen this month shows prints. Augen downtown 817 SW 2nd


David Levinthal and Jim Riswold are pop artists in culture sampling. Oh so po-po-mo. Often they photograph toy figures of historical icons, like Hitler, Mao, BarbieTM, sports figures, Marie Antoinette. This month it is Jesus, rising from the dead. Augen DeSoto 716 NW Davis


I'm not sure having an art show "Keep Portland Weird" at City Hall is the best mashup for either. Nonetheless, work selected for "great quality, overall weirdness, and inherent Portlandness" can be seen at City Hall early, 5PM-7


Painter Lorna Nakell started with 1950's style illustrations of meals like something from old cookbooks. Her paintings are abstract now and enigmatic. You can see them at Beppu Wiarda 319 NW 9th


Compound has a group show themed on Alice in Wonderland which somehow has an Easter theme, maybe by virtue of the rabbit. Artists include: Yan Wei, Marie 'Mijn Schatje', Suicide, Orkibal, Brett Superstar , Zach Johnsen , Aya Kakeda , Hannah Stouffer, Mr. Gauky, Jason Graham, Eatcho, Johnny Siu, Jeremiah Ketner, Liz Adams, Geneva Smith, Scrappers, Pooka machine, Tatiana Krasovski, Kelly Tunstall, Axelhoney, Makiko Sugawa, Siori Kawamoto, Kate Durkin, Amanda Weathers Bradway, Panni Malek, Juri Ueda, Yagi Tomoko, Mhak, Imaone, Kaz, Questa, Ogi, Ina Takayuki, Naoshi. Compound 107 NW 5th


Laura Fritz shows a video installation Interspace at Quality Pictures. Fritz is known for laboratory-like artwork, enigmatic and maybe a little disturbing, in a good, puzzling way. At Quality Pictures 916 NW Hoyt


Moshi-Moshi has moved from East to West and is now curated by the owner, seller of vintage action toys and the like. So appropriate his first show is art inspired by b movie vintage character actor Mr. T. 916 SW Burnside


P:ear is taking over Backspace with art by kids in the project. P:ear engages homeless kids in art and more. Maybe that will cause them to move on, off the streets. 115 NW 5th 'til late


India, being bigger, has bigger problems, though it's arguable its family structure is more intact. Tonight, early, will be a party at the shop Chinoise. No cover charge, but sales tonight benefit Kids With Cameras project Hope House - Asha Niwas. It's a home for children born in Calcutta's brothels. At Hope House, they receive a free education through high school and an opportunity to form a new life. They also live in a very cool modern building. DJ The Incredible Kid will be playing the Indian subcontinent remixed and there will be complementary wine and vegetarian Indian snacks. 728 NW 23rd 6PM-10 Free


Meanwhile DJ Anjali will be playing vintage Bollywood soundtracks as part of the Hexasion series. Visuals provided by the Pareidolia consortiuma. A Paint and Copter project. Someday Lounge 125 NW 5th 7PM-9 Free

March 5-9 Reed Arts Weekend

RAW is a student planned and managed arts festival. This year's theme is Ghosts! There are plenty of events, installations and workshops. The artwork of Reed students are interspersed with that of visiting artists. It's all free to Reed students and alumni, with a small fee for the public for some performances. Some things of interest to me are the PaperRad show-films, Cat Chow, ghost stories, tEEth, Lucky Dragons and seeing unseen objects in the library. Spooky. Schedule on the website.

March 4 Dine for Darfur

There are plenty of awful things going on everywhere. So unnecessary. Death in the Darfur region of South Western Sudan in Africa is one. I thought starvation was common in Africa, but my experience there was different. Starvation in Africa is caused by drought sometimes, but more often, war. War disrupts farming and the flow of food. It concentrates large numbers of migrants or refugees onto land beyond its carrying capacity. That is Darfur. The conflict is overflowing into the Central African Republic and Chad. It may ignite all of Southern Sudan. It is getting even sadder.

Portland has attracted a center of Darfur concern with NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, born in Yamhill, visiting and writing extensively, the Portland Amnesty International chapter raising funds and awareness, and other local organizations involved. You can't get more involved though, than putting feet on the ground as does Portland's Mercy Corps. Mercy Corps provides emergency medical and relief workers, then works to develop community centered and directed long term programs.

Tonight dine or hoist a beer in a restaurant participating in Dine for Darfur and 25% of the bill goes to Mercy Corps for Darfur programs. So easy. The participating restaurants and taverns are listed on the website. Thank the venue, thank yourself. One night only. So easy.

March 3 Julio Cesar Morales at PSU

Tijuana born Morales studied in the SF Art Institute's New Genres program, graduated and now teaches there. He works in video, performance, murals, photography, tapping the aesthetics of Tijuana street art. A new generation of artists with a cause, Morales examines the Mexican cross border experience. Morales founded the Queen Nails Annex gallery near Bernal on the fringe of SF's gentrifying Mission district and has worked with Oakland's Creative Growth Center (see ANP#6), a program for artists with disabilities. Morales speaks tonight at PSU 5th Ave Cinemas 510 SW Hall Room 92 7:30PM Free

February 29 Newspace Photo Funder

Newspace Photo operates a darkroom, exhibition space and shooting studio in SE. They offer innumerable workshops on imaging at a reasonable price. They are embarked on a plan to do more and do it well.

In support of that, they present their third annual silent auction of photographs. Included are works by Larry Fink, Stu Levy, Hiroshi Watanabe, Cherie Hiser, Shawn Records, Jonathan Brand, Lyla Emery, Joe Glasgow, Dale Strouse, Jim Lommasson, Randy L. Rasmussen, Scott Jackson, Ann Ploeger, Paul Yurkovich, Barrett Rudich, James Nakagawa, Jeffrey Wolin, Jessica Burko, Phil Harris, Angela Cash, Keith Wood, Heather Gonsior, Gene Faulkner, Christine Laptuta, TJ Norris, Audim Culver, Jake Shivery, George Kelly, Faulkner Short, Dolly Winter, Vernon DiPietro, Terry Thompson, Bob Farr, Diedrich Dasenbrock, Myron Filene, Jeff Condit, Rick Regan, Chris Willis, Ann Kendellen, Bill Watt, Blake Andrews, John Blalock, Mariana Tres, Jackson Nichols, Zeb Andrews, Alexis Pike, Chris Bennett and Laura Valenti.

See, and if you like, take some beauty home. Network with other photographers. At Newspace Photo. 1632 SE 10th Ave $10/members free. 6PM-9. Bidding ends at 8.

February 28 Office on the Waterfront

Ziba Design conceived an arts focus to creating community in a neighborhood created from scratch, and a construction zone for the foreseeable future. That would be the South Waterfront, towers opposite Ross Island, at the base of the Tram and fronting the riverfront bike path. Monthly, artists take up residence making site specific art. This month, photographer Chris Rauschenberg presents his work at SoWa. Rauschenberg is known for urban documentary photography worldwide, including Paris, the Portland Grid Project and elsewhere. A world renowned photographer who happens to live here. For this project, Rauschenberg photographed residents and their inside spaces. Visit the project website for a map. AiR Studio Storefront, 3623 SW River Parkway 6:30-8:30PM Free


Art and design is a continuum and it is sad insecurity when one ridicules the other. Office PDX is trying to bridge the gap. Tonight they present the art of two designers. Heather Amuny-Dey, designer, artist and Dora Drimalas, designer, artist and creator of SF store Super-7. 21+ as New Deal is sponsoring. At Office PDX 2204 NE Alberta 6PM-8 Free

February 27 Vision and Hearing Landmarks

Another music+visuals event is an installment of the irregular Vision+Hearing series. The show is themed on Portland landmarks. With Ethan Rose, visuals by Jeremy Bird; Yellow Swans, visuals by Avalon Kalin; Unrecognizable Now, visuals by Rob Tyler; Very Stereo visuals by Matt McCormick; Dj's late Linger and Quiet . Want to contribute your own Portlandific videos? Go to vimeo.com/vhlandmarks. Holocene 9PM $6


This is rarely a political blog. I leave it to others who do it much better. But a unique Oregon phenom is the Bus Project, which is presenting one of their periodic debates tonight. By 2015, young voters will make up a third of the electorate, if they vote. Turnout for young voters is always high, but maintaining the requisite voter registration is difficult if you are moving. The non partisan Bus Project addresses this by registering voters and making politics fun! Tonight they host a debate on Oregon's new domestic partnership law. A real debate on both sides of the issue. It is 21 and over, at Rontoms 600 E Burnside 7PM Free

February 26 Social Responsibility and Photojournalism Explored Through a Lens on Iraq

Perhaps this falls into the category of wishing we didn't know now, what we didn't know then. Photojournalist Joel Preston Smith spent months in Iraq, spanning the time immediately before the 2003 invasion, when its inevitability was clear, and immediately after as well. He documented the everyday lives of ordinary Iraqis. They are ordinary, just like us, and to demonstrate that is the aim of Smith's work. Smith speaks with slides, it's a one night event, sponsored by the Oregon Council for the Humanities. Smith's focus is the responsibility for sensitivity by the documentary photographer in wartime. Maybe a guide to the responsibility for sensitivity in life. At Newspace Photo 1632 SE 10th 7PM Free

February 25 PSU Andrea Bowers Artist Talk

Artist Andrea Bowers speaks on her work. Based in California and CCA schooled, Bowers has a long history of politically inspired work. At PSU 5th Ave Cinemas 510 SW Hall Room 92 7:30PM Free

February 24 Cartunz and Hooliganship of the Good Kind

Combining visuals and music as a form of creative communication is not new. In France in the 1700's a keyboard instrument was developed to play visuals and music together. In the early 1900's, the Society of Prometheans in New York collaborated on audio-video composition, resulting in Thomas Wilfred's Clavilux instrument. Jump 90 years and you have Advanced Beauty and Hooliganship's Cartune Xprez in Portland. They collaborate with musicians, including themselves, to produce animation. Tonight filmmakers E*Rock, Hooliganship, Takeshi Murata, Bruce Bickford, Amy Lockhart, Barry Doupe, Lief Hall, Peter Burr, Josh Mannis, Adrian Freeman and Hooliganship collaborate with musicians and turntablists E*Rock, Hooliganship, the Gay Deceivers, Nollifur and Beyonda. If you have some red-blue 3d glasses, throw them in your pocket as some past Hooliganship animations were made with that in mind. At Holocene. 9PM on $6

February 20 Microfinance in the Developing World

TiE is The Indus Entrepreneurs, also known as Talent Ideas and Enterprise. Not limited in membership to the Asian Indian Diaspora, TiE is a network of entrepreneurs and investors, which is how jobs are created. TiE started in Silicon Valley, home to many garage band startups, such as HP, Apple, Google. Maybe you have heard of them. (This carpet store played an interesting role too) But entrepreneurship also includes your friend's Etsy, shop, web design business. In that vein, microfinance is the business of making small loans to individuals in developing countries. A noted example is the Grameen Bank founded by Muhammad Yunus, who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize for it. Grameen Phone, an offshoot of the Grameen Bank operates by the same model. Mix microfinance with Hernando de Soto's ideas and you have a powerful combination.

Tonight TiE Oregon presents Chris Brookfield from UNITUS which bankrolls microfinance. He will discuss the microfinance world, its impact on poverty and creating self sustaining microfinance networks. Details at TiE.

PSU 310 S.W Lincoln Street. 6PM-9. $10-$35 - see the website for details

February 20 Abandoned Mill as Urban Laboratory?

Portland is a river town. The Columbia River reaches deep into Canamerica's grain lands as does active rail. That grain is exported by ship to China, with a waystop in grain elevators on the Willamette. Daily you may see them in operation adjacent to the Steel and Broadway bridges.

Centennial Mills is a grain mill hulk north of the Broadway bridge. It sits adjacent to both the River and unending residential development in inner NW. The Portland Development Commission has received 3 proposals for transforming the mill into a park+offices+businesses. You can see the proposals at a public meeting at PNCA tonight.

More interesting is the proposal from LAB Holding of Costa Mesa. The LAB is known for their famous AntiMall which is so Costa Mesa. (The AntiMall also had free WiFi way before it was common, especially in SoCal) As LA grew with good jobs, its families moved to the 'burbs. First building out the Valley, North. When the valley was filled, family suburb seekers turned South to Orange County and Costa Mesa. When those kids grew up, they spawned an expanding surf and skate culture. Costa Mesa is filled today with companies small and large in that space.

LAB Holdings has continued to create space locally adapted to creative culture, folding in green building. That is their proposal for making the River accessible and recycling the parts of the old mill that are not falling down.

Given Portland's talent why is there not a LAB-style developer based here?

You can get a flavor of the LAB and the other conventional style proposals at a public meeting at PNCA. It's a PDC public meeting, usually not exciting, but that is how the City works, and they are interested in your comments and insights. NW Johnson at 13th 6-9PM Free

February 18 Center for Land Use Interpetation Talk

The Center for Land Use Interpretation could have only emerged in our West. Here human changes in the landscape are often dwarfed by the grand scale of our mountains, canyons, deserts and coastlines. The changes are recent too. The Center hosts very smart people to research, classify, extrapolate our use and abuse of the landscape. They publish the results and put on documentary exhibits. Ever seeking new insight, they operate an artists residency at a partially abandoned military base in remote Utah, where pilots trained to drop the first atomic bomb on Japan. It is adjacent to an active bombing range, filled with uncountable unexploded bombs. They have an outpost in the Mojave for researchers and occasional exhibitions and a new East Coast outpost in Troy. The Center's Culver City office hosts exhibitions, a library and geographic databases. Their varied projects have included the Greenland, Antarctic stations, wireless towers, atmospheric nuclear tests, mining, sewer pipes, videos made by cameras attached to livestock and a myriad of other fascinating and obscure meditations. The Center for Land Use Interpretation's founder Matthew Coolidge speaks at the PSU art lecture series tonight, 5th Ave Cinemas 510 SW Hall Room 92 7:30PM (The earlier you arrive the less chance to sit on he floor) Free

February 11 Pecha Kucha #2 and Drawing

Drawing has undergone a resurgence. From the mundane to the profound. Emily Prince spans both in a good way. "Familiar" are drawings of objects from Prince's living space, grouped. Sadly profound are Prince's "Memorial Drawings", drawings of each soldier killed in Iraq, mapped by hometown. Memorial Drawings was selected for the Venice Biennale. Prince speaks at the PSU artist lecture series. Early arrival suggested as it's been SRO. At the 5th Ave Cinemas 510 SW Hall Room 92 7:30PM Free



Pecha-Kucha emerged in the creative community in Japan to present primarily visual material influencing designers and artists across language boundaries. Thanks Teruo Kurosaki and John Jay for cluing us in. Its Portland instantiation is organized by urban design architecture house Works Partnership. So far it has hewed to the urban design theme, physical, political and social. Tonight's organizing thought is "Hidden and Apparent Constructs". The first one was packed as has been a similar program Ignite, emerging from the software book publishing and open source community, albeit with a more random focus. Tonight's Pecha-Kucha is at Imago Theater 17 SE 8th 7:20PM by donation

February 9 Hip Hop is Life not A Genuine Imitation

And we are living it. It is a powerful organizing force for identity and one of its threads has always been positive political change. This event brings it home. The Portland Black Intelligencer and the Hip Hop Congress are organizing "It’s Bigger than HIP HOP", the community's 2nd Annual Youth Summit. Longtime local hip hop activist Mic Crenshaw teams with Seattle's very active Hip Hop Congress for a day of workshops and an address by elder statesman Professor Griff. Later in the evening there is a performance by local artists. For more information call (503) 781-5313 or email pbitruth @ yahoo . com.



Genuine Imitation, one of the Everett Station's more active galleries has graduated. They have moved to St Johns' Northern frontier. To celebrate, they present "Lost and Found: A Show About Love". A second copywriting award this month is deserved: "Our lovely artists include Ashley Armbruster, whose work emphasizes the importance of things we hold dear like our hearts, our trinkets and our friends, illustrated with chubby cheeks and cupcakes; Kimmie Hutchins, whose paintings feature playful monsters dancing with robots in the sky, and children frolicking with oversized bumble bees on a hillside; Kendra Binney, who illustrates a world draped in memories, remorse, and fragile realities, evoking both nostalgia and contempt; and Kara Burke, whose work features a cast of big-eyed characters tackling misadventures". Also showing are Tom Luedecke, Ashley G, Not Too Pink, Ubiki, Chris Brindley, Creative Thursday, Brownington Forest, LilyMoon, Jun seo Hahm, and Joom. www.genuineimitation.com 8926 N. Lombard 5PM-9 Free

February 7 Art Openings Westside +

Portland's bike culture is varied and likely you are part of it. We have bikes who can haul heavy loads, even moving people from one apartment to another, a dynamic oh so sought messenger group that holds bike polo in the mud and mad alley cats, Zoobomber gravity players, fixie aficionados, velodrome and Fairmount-Skyline spandex racers, safe routes to schools advocates, tall bikers, the baby trailers, custom frame wranglers; more for sure. Documentation of this becomes a show, Teams of Portland, at the local ad agency. Four days only. W+K 224 NW 13th Thurs 6PM-9, Fri 10AM-6PM, Sat/Sun 12Noon-6 Free



Portland painter Molly Vidor is a master of lush still life and abstract work. Past work has spanned the tonal range, often with black backgrounds, fierce highlights and a sensual clear glaze over the finished work. This show, Destroyer, is a continuation, more abstract, and sometimes adding the suggestion of figurative observer. The work has a dreamlike emotion that some may enter and others may not register. Also in the PDX Window Project, a large display window viewable 24x7, is Artocracy, project by Portland artist Megan Murphy, to sell prints online at a great price and with maximum proceeds to the artists. A virtuous cycle. At PDX Contemporary Art 925 NW Flanders Closes early, 8PM



Paul Missal has trained generations of Portland painters at PNCA, that is 25 year's worth. Yale schooled, he founded the Blackfish Gallery coop in 1978 when the Portland's slim contemporary art world comprised the Portland Art Museum, PNCA, OCAC and Arlene Schnitzer's Fountain Gallery (-1986), later subsumed by Fountain gallerist Laura Russo into the Laura Russo Gallery. At Blackfish, Paul Missal shows his own work tonight. Though Missal paints still lifes and landscapes, he is primarily known for sensitive portraits. See and meet the master. At Blackfish Gallery 420 NW 9th



I like minimalism and conceptual work as well as the next, arguably more. Nonetheless unique figurative work that touches is a love too. I dig the energy of Superflat, no apologies, and collect it. One such figurative artist is Kendra Binney who shows "in better light" at Compound/Just Be Toys this month. Pacific Rim Binney is tapped into the kawaii-style, her figures have preternaturally large eyes. This is perfect fit for the illustration-style work so successively championed by Compound. Binney shows worldwide, from originals to very reasonably priced prints. At Compound-Just Be Toys www.justbedesign.com 107 NW 5th Avenue



Artist Gretchen Vaudt shows drawings at Valentines. Til 9, lights on, after Vaudt spins and Al James, aka The Un-phased, from Delorian plays. 232 SW Ankeny lateish



Stumptown has distinct curators for its downtown, Division and Belmont instantiations; resulting in distinct vibes at each - see yourself. This month the show downtown is Sacred Pop: Exploring Text Through Collaborative Processes. 3 collaborations share walls: Todd + Craft show oil paintings of landscapes, painted under the McLuhanesque tutelage of painting 1.5 phenom Bob Ross; Gary Weseman and Amy Steel show "A Penny For Your Thoughts" which includes and audio piece; Philip Cheaney and Laura Aiken show "You Are What You Sing" portraits of pop singers in Dymo lettering tape. 128 SW 3rd



This is too good to not note. Artists are the canaries in the coal mine of culture. Forever they have been critics-commentators on the leading edge of culture as noted by MacArthur winner Dave Hickey. Picasso was an early innovator and critic. The issue in his time was the Spanish Civil War. It is argued that the first world war, WWI, marked the transition to modern war, targeting civilians, aka people. So sad. (note my home was built in 1918 by a Spanish Civil War volunteer and a relative served in WWI, surviving it; many of his colleagues, sadly, did not) Artist Picasso, modded earlier work into the mural Guernica. This artwork is a touchpoint into the horror of total war, targeting civilians, to this day. To see it full scale pierces the heart. Portland State shows the preliminaries - Picasso's artist studies, which resulted in the final work. It is so apropos in the time of war and saber rattling. PSI shows 42 reproduction sketches for Guernica. At the PSU Littman Gallery in Smith Center. Free



Always recommended are the DeSoto Block and the Everett Block. The DeSoto Block encompasses the Contemporary Crafts Museum, always free; Blue Sky / Nines Gallery- for conceptual work, Augen and the Charles Hartman Gallery. It is easy to see it all on opening night and through the month.


The Everett Block is bounded by NW Everett, Flanders, Broadway and 6th. Most of the live-work space are open first Thursday only. So see it until about 10PM.



Each venue, for visual arts, and for music, has its vibe. Brand. One of Holocene's vibes has been Portland's art community. Tonight they tap that with an art show by Cory Smith, Sarah Gottesdiener, Olivia Edith, Chloe Richard, Wesley Younie, Bradley Royce, Kjerstin Rossi and Hooliganship. That is accompanied by a fashion show by Denwave, Luxury Jones and Stand Up Comedy. (!) Musical contributions by Glass Candy, Fleshtone (!!!), and a myriad of DJ's. 9PM-late $8

February 5 Lucy Orta Speaks at Reed

Fashion communicates a complex message at a distance. So too does the best art. Lucy Orta studied fashion, expanding into artwork, architecture, installation and sculpture. All focused on social issues, such as sustainability, human rights, living standards, nationality, social connection and exclusion. She works solo and with her partner Jorge Orta, showing extensively, worldwide and teaching at a top school, the London University of the Arts in a very progressive College of Fashion.

Early works were experiments in clothing which were later echoed in the work of Kosuke Tsumura's Final Home, (.) and Mary Mattingly (.) and Seattle's Susan Robb (.). Orta is more explicitly political.

Later work includes interconnected garments, machines, political work referencing the Iraq war, and a series of fabric igloo tents installed in Antarctica, where countries collaborate on science research, including on climate and fundamental physics.

Food+Water are social art works. One food project collected fresh fruits and vegetables discarded as overripe or with cosmetic defects by sellers at the greenmarkets of Paris. The produce was transformed into a communal meal by top chef volunteers. The project was repeated in a depressed farm town in the French countryside. Water is life, so necessary. Plants are brilliant, absorbing any old water and purifying it. Humans are the reverse. We are so lucky here with pretty pure water on tap. Not so in many parts of the world. Orta developed a sculptural small scale water purification system. Installed in a museum in Venice, it piped water from the very dank Grand Canal and transformed it into drinking water. Orta is working on incorporating the project sensitively into the real lives of villagers in Burkina Faso; approaching relevance from the art direction, compared to approaching it from the technology direction as does Amy Smith.

Orta speaks at Reed College in the Vollum Lecture Hall 7PM Free

February 4 Mundane Journeys May Be Not So Mundane Plus a Talk on Nothing

San Francisco artist Kate Pocrass is a social practice artist and photographer. Pocrass leads viewers on self guided tours, dubbed "Mundane Journeys", perhaps similar to the work of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. Cardiff-Millers work I think of as documentary, while Pocrass places more emphasis on self selected viewer-participants finding direct experience. Maybe the PSU social practice students will show her their Portland world. Pocrass speaks at the PSU art lecture series, 5th Ave Cinemas 510 SW Hall Room 92 7:30PM (The earlier you arrive the less chance to sit on he floor) Free

Earlier in the day, Molly Dilworth discusses Nothing and wins the copywriting award of the month:

""Photos’re better than nothing, but things’re better than photos ‘cause the things themselves were part of what was there.
–David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

What are we looking for and what are we doing here? If you scratch the surface of most artists’ writings, the answer is always the same: we are trying to feel, to move and be moved; to find a way to transcend this life, this body, this mind. Neil Young said “everybody knows this is nowhere”—we’re in a limbo, a center point from which we send sorties to find that something which surrounds—something other than this nowhere.

The subject of the lecture is nothing: what it means—in a world full of too much, all the time—to make nothing. How does one turn something into nothing—or nothing into something—an important question since this alchemy is the essence of creating. Dilworth looks at a variety of models—from Emma Kunz to Brian Eno, Alex Katz to Martin Creed—to think through what we are doing when we make things.

In the modern world we live in air-conditioned suburbs where history and ritual are jettisoned, we have no spirit quest or sweat lodge. The context has changed but the search–and the tools–have not.

Molly Dilworth is an artist and curator who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Dilworth has exhibited nationally and internationally including, Deitch Projects, Participant, Inc., Exit Art, X-Girl and Artists Space in New York and BM Suma Contemporary Art Center, Istanbul, Turkey, and the Melbourne Art Center. In 2006 Dilworth curated the interactive exhibition “The Great American Store(age)” at Spring Gallery in DUMBO and “The Searchers”, a show with performances and catalog for the Elizabeth Foundation Gallery in NYC.

Dilworth will return to PNCA along with Amoreen Armetta to curate the group show, The Searchers in the Feldman Gallery + Project Space April 3 – May 24. “The Searchers” uses the construct of a first time eBay seller to explore the way that people connect, or don’t connect, through technology—websites, email, letters, newspaper, books, iPods…""

At PNCA www.pnca.edu Room 201 4PM Free

February 2 Group Show Limelight

Local curator Jeff Jahn shows artists Philippe Blanc, Marne Lucas and Salvatore Reda. Reda samples pop culture figure Dean Martin. Blanc is known for sculpture installations and for this show has constructed an outhouse as part of an exploration of what is quintessentially French. Lucas' dramatic self portraits are often social comments. All at the Clackamas Community College Alexander Gallery • 19600 Molalla Avenue, Oregon City. Opens 4PM-6. Free

February 1 Wild West We are in It

Are you a native? Me, I'm a Midwest migrant, attracted by the West's mystical mountains, oceans and hot springs, to say nothing of its political independence and progressiveness. So region is special. Psychographic. Psychic even.

Tapping that, Gallery Homeland presents a show of photography, curated by Todd Johnson, Wild Wild West. Post the Civil War, the DC government sent war-trained photographers West, accompanying survey teams. Rousseau's transcendental philosophy's is represented in their work. It was thought that at, the time, that the West's sublime landscapes were proof positive of a god. So ironic that we have tried our best, in the mode of Walter Prescott Webb's thesis' to destroy it.

In Homeland's show, artists and their themes include: Mark Hooper who reenacts Lewis and Clark expedition scenes; Timothy Hursley imaging brothels of Nevada; Ethan Jackson: spaghetti Western, signs, symbols, and symptoms; David Levinthal: wild West, toy cowboys deconstructed historic icons; Marne Lucas: logging pin-up photographs; Richard Misrach: shows a photo of a military officer on a desert campout; Pipo Nguyen-duy: from Vietnam, now here, reprises formal portraits of 19th century Chinese immigrants who worked to construct Oregon's railroads, now himself the subject; Lori Nix: disaster photographs, blending truth and illusion; Shawn Records: ironic and anecdotal photographs of the suburbs; German Berthold Steinhilber shows cinematicly-lit nightime ghost towns.

So this is a show you should see, on its frontier opening. Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org Check their website for the showings until March. 2505 SE 11th x Division. 6PM-9. Free

January 31 Altman Way Back Films Meet Globetrekker as Art

Director Robert Altman is known for ensemble casts and on-set improvisation. That is a lot of risk, and the magic, if it works, is in edit. Maybe like real myspace life? Isn't that what writers do too? Thus inspired, writer Jon Raymond hosts a Robert Altman double feature. The films California Split and Popeye are 80's, coke addled in their making, relics of a period, when free trade ment free trade in psychobiopharmaceuticals from Southern neighbors. We have gone so far since then? Raymond is cofounder of Plazm Magazine and author of quintessentially NW literature. This is an intimate event in Small A Projects back gallery, repleate with popcorn and refreshments. Meet other creatives over films curated by artists, free. At Small A Projects 1430 SE 3rd 7PM Free


Rerarato is a private home. DIY-style, they host art shows and experimental music in their front room sometimes. Just inviting some friends over to talk and share culture. So it is unfortunate that Rererato finds itself under scrutiny by the City for being a business, which their profit and loss deny so severely. So visit, but be a friend, not a statistic. If autoparking, do it on on 42nd, don't bug the neighbors, whisper and don't drop any random litter. Let's make their-our-your home sustainable.

Tonight Rererato has invited friend-photographer Michael Cogliantry. He traveled in India by rickshaw and other locally optimized transport, over 2000km, photo documenting his experience meeting India's ancient-modern culture. Cogliantry represents the new admixture of commercial and creative projects as personal brand for hire. So, though India is far from Africa, Cogliantry brands this project as Hearts [sic] of Darkness meets Borat". In this series, his trademark white attire is so apropos. In dusty poor countries, clean white clothes represent luxury, provided by legion subworkers, as were the pyramids, art too today.

At Rererato 5135 NE 42nd x Sumner 7PM Free

January 30 Fashion Show Inspired by a Museum

Portland's fashion world plays well with our creative art, music and design worlds. The fashion ecosystem here enfolds thrifty reconstructors, original-small run makers, mid-small size labels that sell far beyond Portland, venture backed brands hoping for sustainable growth, the industrial giants, sustainable fabric suppliers, small shops, academic programs, knitters and crafters. Fashion shows are part of that ecosystem too. They are labor intensive to produce, but can draw paying crowds of a thousand. The beauty of a fashion show is that the audience is encouraged to be on its best behavior, ideally in clothing by local designers. A virtuous cycle.

Tonight, the Museum of Contemporary Craft hosts a fashion show organized by Lisa Radon. Radon blogs daily on Portland fashion, design and culture at her site UltraPDX. For Action/Re-Action local designers have made work inspired by items in the Museum's collection. It's a good complement to the current jewelery show and an opportunity for the Museum's dynamic curator Namita Wiggers to engage another facet of the Portland creative community.

The space is not too large, so reservations at 503-223-2654 are recommended. At the Museum of Contemporary Craft 725 NW Davis x Park $10 7PM

January 28 State of the Union Sellout Organizing

You have some great choices this Monday (!)

The Bus Project is a group of people interested enough in politics to work at it. A non profit, they register voters statewide, host educational lectures and train the next generation of political activists to become staffers and (gasp) politicians. Really great smart people. They like fun and tonight have organized a game of bingo around the State of the Union address by George Bush. The address always has its formulaic aspects, aka traditions: seating arrayed by party, who claps when, the acknowledgment of heroes, a generally upbeat tone and the launch of new initiatives. The Bus Project has organized the search for formula, by the audience, you, into a bingo game. If you would like to participate, come by early to get your card and the rules. www.busproject.org At Roots organic brewery 1520 SE 7th 5:45PM rules and get your bingo card, 6:00 State of the Union Speech Free


I have mixed thoughts on labor unions. In history they have produced great change. Yet in many industries their formation is a sad signifier of a lack of communication and respect, a spirit of working together to accommodate rapid changes for the customer. Nonetheless, one of the "new unions" is SEIU. Their dynamic president, Andy Stern speaks tonight. It is at the First Congregational Church 1126 SW Park, 7:30PM Free union members, non profit employees, students. $5.15 for everyone else RSVP lezakproject@pdx.edu


The PSU lecture series hosts impresario Andrew Dickson tonight. Artist Dickson performs his life with the assistance of PowerPoint, instructing acolytes on how to become an EBay Power seller or how to sell out. Dickson is always entertaining and insightful, you will not be bored. Arrive early for a seat. 5th Ave Cinemas 510 SW Hall Room 92 7:30PM Free

January 26 Psychoanalysis Skinner Box Rocks

Artist provocateur Patrick Rock has converted his Interstate house-storefront into an itinerant gallery; always challenging work and tonight is no exception. Austrian artist Johann Neumeister, member of the arts group Bad Beuys, interacts with you tonight in Psychopsychoanalysis. No guarantees of a cure though. At ROCKSBOX www.rocksboxfineart.com 6540 N Interstate x Rosa Parks Way-Portland Blvd. 7PM on Free

January 25 Tilt is Two

I usually do not report in detail Everett Station Loft openings because it is easier to just go see them. Many are only open First Thursday. Tilt is open weekends and by appointment consistently, and consistently shows critically curated work, often hard to sell sculpture installation. Tonight they celebrate two years of presenting challenging shows. Stop by. Tilt Gallery Everett side www.tiltpdx.com 7-11PM Free

January 24 Trends in Designing Elizabeth Taylor

Small A Projects continues its free film series as imagined by artists. Last week experimental musics accompanied Fantasia live. Tonight artist Storm Tharp has edited together intense scenes from little known Elizabeth Taylor films Boom, Suddenly Last Summer, and A Place in the Sun and offers his thoughts on Taylor's "crazed" acting and "badness". Meow! Popcorn and refreshments. At Small A Projects 1430 SE 3rd 7PM Free


Sole exponent of modern design on crafty outsider style Alberta, Office PDX hosts irregular design talk gettogethers. As collaboration and community are Portland's currency, that is a great thing! Tonight they host a discussion "5 Top Design Trends for 2008". Panelists Michael DiTullo, Core 77 contributor and Converse basketball design director; Rebecca Huston, director of design strategy for Twenty Four Seven; Lisa Radon, editor and creator of Ultra PDX; and David Hawkins, VP of brand-creative strategies for Umpqua Bank provide their views. RSVP required to info@officepdx.com. At Office PDX www.officepdx.com 2204 NE Alberta 6PM-8 Free

January 23 Film and Politics

We are in the political season, or as they call it, the season of change. In Portland we have public financing for elections in which the city matches candidate contributions from small individual donations. One candidate sponsored a hip hop dance battle. Tonight city hall candidate John Branam raises money by donation at an otherwise free film showing.

The film is the Academy Award nominated documentary Street Fight. It is the true story of African American Cory Booker, educated at Stanford, Yale and Oxford who returns home to run for mayor of a depressed Newark. Disproving the sentiments expressed by a soulful Lou Rawls in his song "You Can't Go Home No More", Booker settled into the projects to live and campaigned with all his heart.

You can see the film at Mississippi Studios, 3939 N. Mississippi (21+) 7PM Free

January 18 WAR Themed Art

Jim Riswold is not a stranger to politically infused art. He is a communicator provocateur with a background in advertising at W+K. Maybe a character from the advertising themed novel Palladio. So he's the perfect curator for a group show themed WAR. Artists include Susan Seubert, Eva Lake, Michael Spafford, David Levinthal, John Wesley, William Anthony and Riswold himself. The show is in North Portland's Guestroom Gallery 4114 N Vancouver 6PM-9 Free

January 17 Live Fantasia

An established gallerist recently told me that the only art that sells in Portland is narrative or pictorial. Thus, that Small A Projects has consistently shown challenging work by local and international artists is bold. The gallery primarily sells its work outside Portland. Small A has also compiled a library of video work, viewable by appointment. The gallery has hosted some great events, such as a showing of Velvet Goldmine, with the director in attendance. They are beginning a new film series this evening with Fantasia. It is fluid old school hand drawn animation. The original orchestral soundtrack by the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Leopold Sowkowski was stunning, though the recording technology in 1940 primitive. No matter, because tonight the score will be provided live by
Danny Sasaki and Waren Lee (Problems), Kelvin Pittman, Tara Jane O’Neil, Liz Harris (Grouper), Micheal Whittaker (Lemon Bear) and Brian Mumford (Dragging an Ox through Water). Thanks to artist Dana Dart-McLean for producing tonight's event! At Small A Projects 1430 SE 3rd 7PM Free

January 14 PSU Lecture Amy Franceschini

Art, design and social change form a continuum today. Some artists are comfortable navigating the whole space and Amy Franceschini is one. Futurefarmers is one of her projects in which she and collaborators explore issues in the environment, energy, urban architecture and play through residencies, sculpture, installation and intervention. Some projects have had a mad scientist aesthetic with a message, such as Gameboys powered by lemon trees or homebrew hydrogen energy generators powered by photosynthesis. Others package information in beautiful design like their local farm project F.R.U.I.T.. Fingerprint Maze personalizes gaming, adds a social element, while making a comment on identity and security. Design oriented companies hire them from time to time to do projects too. So artists can be paid to change the world through play and beauty. Yes! Franceschini speaks at the PSU art lecture series, 5th Ave Cinemas 510 SW Hall Room 92 7:30PM Free

January 12 Homeland Music Videos

Karl Lund has been producing a series of film and video showings: Odds and Ends. This one is of music videos made by and of Portlanders. It is reported that the inspiration for MTV was founder Bob Pittman's thesis that a sequence of seemingly unrelated images could form a poetic emotional field when coupled with pop music. 25 years later, the result is history. Music videos quickly became an experimental cinema genre and training ground for image makers with modest budgets and musicians unafraid of cinematic creative risk. Lund has pulled together local imagemakers including Autumn Andel, John Bacone, Chris Bennett, Uli Beutter, Kara Blake, Melanie Brown, Grace Carter, Allen Cordell, Ali Cotterill, Nate Goodman, Ron Gassaway, Gretchen Hogue, Whitey McConnaughey, Matt McCormick, Mike Mudd, Chioke Nassor, Tyrone Olsen, Ted Passon, Vanessa Renwick, Cat Tyc and Adam Long, and Rob Tyler. All at Gallery Homeland. www.galleryhomeland.org At 2505 SE 11th Avenue x Division Doors 7, vids 8, $7

January 11 Back Room Quality Thrift

Brilliant company, edifying speakers, tasty music and fine food have been the hallmarks of The Back Room series. The Back Room is now a seamless collaboration between Mathew Stadler, writing in sunny Mexico, and Reed Gallery director Stephanie Snyder. Most events sell out, including this one, but keep an eye on the Backroom website or sign up for future mailings. Tonight guests are the principals of Plazm. Joshua Berger, designer, founder and creative director of the Plazm protoplasm, Jon Raymond, writer, founder and coeditor, Tiffany Lee Brown, writer, producer and co-editrix, all speak of the Plazm process and their inspiration. At Podkrepa Hall 2116 N Killingsworth 6:30. $48 (sold out)



Chicago photographer Brian Ulrich opens Thrift in person at Quality Pictures this evening. Ulrich's Thrift documents scenes familiar to denizens of the bins, the Portland Goodwill outlet store, where excess consumption is recycled into excess consumption. Thrift is part of the artist's larger series on shopping entitled Copia. Ulrich is a mashup of Gursky's 99 Cent and Chris Jordan's Intolerable Beauty. Tonight you may bring a piece of clothing to donate, its fate unknown. Refreshments. At Quality Pictures www.qpca.com 916 NW Hoyt 6-9PM Free

January 7 Rauschenberg Rephotographs Atget's Paris

I have never visited Paris, but I am digging lately the film Paris, je t'aimie, love stories and observations on the human condition shot in every neighborhood of the City of Light. (Someone should do the same for Portland!) Studying historic photography, I came across the documentary photography Eugène Atget who photographed Paris from 1888 to 1927, continuing the work of photographic pioneer Felix Nadar. Christopher Rauschenberg has visited Paris, often, photographing back streets, flea markets and landscapes. He has for some time also rephotographed Atget's Paris, same place, different time. Tonight he speaks of the experience and signs a book on Atget's Paris, rephotographed. Rauschenberg's book is Paris Changing, Princeton University Press. Perhaps in 100 years we will find the same fascination in rephotographs of Portland's Grid Project, founded by Rauschenberg, also a founder of the Blue Sky Gallery. At Powells City of Books www.powells.com 10th and W. Burnside 7:30PM Free

January 7 PSU Lecture Series - Temporary Services

There is an interchange of artists and inspiration between Portland and Chicago. Many Portland artists were schooled there and social performance groups M.O.S.T and Red 76 have connections there. Thus it is apropos that the PSU Art Department Lecture Series, under the direction of Harrell Fletcher, a social artist himself, has invited Marc Fisher, a cofounder of Chicago's Temporary Services to speak tonight. They have many awesome projects documented on their website. Take a look, if it interests you, hear the talk. At the 5th Ave Cinemas 510 SW Hall Room 92 7:30PM Free

January 5-6 Children of the Revolution - Art and Bands

Art, music, beer (and conversation) would sum up this annual festival at Audiocinema. That is a good thing, and really the basis for art events from lowbrow to the Museum. It's the conversation that matters, and as noted by Dave Hickey, conversation advances art's aesthetics faster than society advances. That is the power of art. "Art, music, beer" was also the motto the Blue Gallery which showed Portland artists and alongside bands. Continuing this Portland creative tradition, curators Cassandra Adams and Holly Johnson have put together an art show by E«ROCK, SOHALE DAROUIAN, DAN ANDERSON , CHRIS JOHANSON, TARA JANE ONEIL, SARA ROBBIN, WILLIAM WACKER, LIZ HALEY, CHRIS HELD, KRISTIE LOUDERBOUGH, REBECCA SHELLY, COREY SMITH, YONI KIFLE, LAWRENCE ROBBIN, JHORDAN DAHL, JO JACKSON, BRIAN PIETROWSKI, MATT MCCORMICK, MIDORI HIROSE, CHRIS RIDER, ROXANNE JACKSON, JENEVIVE TATIANA, SARA GOTTESDIENER, ANDREW ELLIS, MAURA ARRAJ, JOSHUA KERMIET, MORGAN ALEXANDER RITTER, ANGELA WILLS, ARYA BENNER, EMILY PLEWS, ADAM BAZ, RYAN JACOB SMITH, KYLA CECH, PETE CHALEK, BIRCH COOPER, IAN HAWK, TARYN TOMASELLO, and BRAD ADKINS. Some of these are new Renaissance creatives who operate in the visual art, music, film and writing worlds altogether. There are art workshops 2:30PM-5:30. Many bands playing from about 6PM to late each day with the art on view. There is also an artists reception 1-2:30PM Saturday. All details http://myspace.com/cotrfest At Audiocinema www.audiocinema.org 226 SE Madison 5:30PM-Late each day, Advance tickets at Jackpot or at the door. $12, or $20 both days.

January 4 Eastside Art Openings

In the 811 Block

Photographer Alicia J. Rose presents Fairytales, inspired by select stories of the brothers Grimm. Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White. Someday perhaps the underlying basis in brain science for myth's appeal will be discovered. Until then we are left with our individual relationships with childhood myths and fairy tales. Rose writes "Once upon a time, long, long ago, a little girl lost the ability to remember her dreams. In picture books, and aging tomes she took shelter in the grandiose images they generated in her imagination. The girl grew up, making music with an accordion that she always described as "soundtracks to films in her head." Eventually the pictures she was making music for became larger than her music could properly accompany or her small head could possibly contain. The girl then took up another instrument, a camera, that allowed her the proper sight necessary to capture the stories that had been running amok in her skull for years, and share them with other sets of eyes everywhere." Rose, an accomplished musician, is a chemistry-based photographer. She has photographed many musicians in trademark style, saturated color and cinematic lighting. This work continues that.

At Grass Hut Gallery www.grasshutcorp.com


Pepe Moscoso shows collage and diorama documenting "life's everyday dramas". Redux is the queen of reuse, transforming valuable materials, normally discarded into crafty objects, one of sustainability's vectors. The art shown there is often based on this idea too. At Redux www.reduxpdx.com


The curator at Moshi-Moshi is now at Compound and Moshi-Moshi plans to relocate into a space adjacent to Billy Galaxy possibly continuing art under a new curator.


All at 811 E Burnside



Hiroshi Watanabe shows photographs from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, that would be the North, perhaps one of the few places left on the planet lonely of trekkers. "Ideology in Paradise" depicts a little of that closed land that now is opening up with limited visitations by families separated over 50 years ago.

At Newspace Photo www.newspacephoto.org 1632 SE 10th


Well known lowbrow artist Charlie Alan Kraft shows paintings and prints at The Destroy Store. Music and beer. At The Destroy Store www.destroystore.com 1712 E Burnside


Artspace 2000 SE 7th is back in external operation with a group show by its artists. Now dubbed Bite Studio it is open 6-9ish.


And Westside, Tilt Project Space, known for consistently challenging installation work opens a Jesse Hayward show. Biennial slectee Hayward is not shy about bright work, a welcome brightening flav in Portland's dark winter! At Tilt Gallery and Project Space 625 NW Everett #106 www.tiltpdx.com 7PM-10

January 3 Westside Art Openings

The Everett Station lofts, and diametric coanchors Ogle and Rake, occupy the block bounded by NW Everett and Flanders, Broadway and 6th. The lofts' individualistic galleries represent the explorations of residents in their social-artistic sphere - it is arts' evolutionary edge. A worthwhile stop this evening as few are open the rest of the month.



The DeSoto block is bounded by NW Davis, Park and Broadway. The galleries there, including the Contemporary Craft Museum, are long time sustainable galleries and always worth stopping to see, and open throughout the month.



Quality Pictures continues "It's Kind of Endless", Portland artists previously noted. www.qpca.com 916 NW Hoyt



Hap Tivey is a longtime Portland light artist. Portland sees little of this medium, ditto video. Both share challenges to conserve. Lighting technology is changing as Edison's tungsten filament vacuum glass gives way to light emitting diodes. Although Tivey is no Dan Flavin, James Turrell or Robert Irwin, his work is welcome in dark Portland, and, for this show, his work incorporates LED's with their 10,000 hour lifetime! For local artists to advance, and bring collectors, seeing more light art her would be better. At Elizabeth Leach Gallery www.elizabethleach.com 417 NW 9th



Kristin Timken explores the limits of landscape photography, at Pulliam Deffenbaugh www.pulliamdeffenbaugh.com/ 929 NW Flanders



Two longtime Portland artists, JD Perkin and Henk Pender show at Laura Russo. Perkins is known for sculptural multiples and the trailer in the woods tableau at the Portland Art Center. Pender paints in oil and watercolor with a individualistic, maybe a little dark style and has been commissioned for some large public works. At Laura Russo



Hiedi Kirkpatrick continues photographs themed on the body at Chambers Gallery. www.chambersgallery.org 207 SW Pine



Compound in presents a show Neulovers, presaging Valentines Day. Japan is unencumbered by some of our taboos, social pressure there substitutes for reducing antisocial behavior. More effectively. So this work is not J-taboo at all. In our, even West Coast, legal constricts, this show is open to those 18 and older. Silly. The group show artists include Ina Takayuki, Dennis Hayes IV, TRIP aka Meg Hasegawa, Tadaomi Shibuya, Kaz, Teriyaki, Kosuke Ikeda, the infinitely detailed Neri, Ippei Gyobu, ENA, Cho-Chan, Mitsuru Saigusa, Momoyon , Megumi Terada, Maya Nukumizu, Sayaka, Makiko Sugawa, Micca Icca, Yuji Moriguchi, Pomme Chan, J.W. Howard, Marguerite Sauvage, Panni Malek, Kozyndan, Yoshihisa Hakai, Edwin Ushiro, Richard Hogg, Naja Conrad, Christina Vantzou, Lydia Bradbury, Shannon McGlothin, Eveline Tarunadjaja, Peter Vattanatham. All at Compound/ Just be Toys www.justbedesign.com 107 NW 5th x Davis



And on the Eastside, outsider style artist Chris Haberman shows paintings. At 23 Sandy www.23sandy.com 623 N.E. 23rd Ave x Sandy

January 3 and 10 Butoh Workshop

Portland and Arizona butoh artist Mizu Desierto [water desert] presents a strictly participatory butoh workshop two Thursday evenings. Butoh is a modern Japanese performance art form. Often improvisational, the intent is to leave behind the way we move daily and discover something new. Well done, the effect is electrifying for the viewer, but it is a rare thing and the audience specialized. Mizu has studied extensively with Kazuo Ohno and Diego Pinon, but her performance aesthetic is more similar to that of Harupin-Ha and Dairakudakan. For this workshop, the gateway to creating new movement is returning to childhood, one of Ohno's themes. More information at www.mizudesierto.com

At FlowForm Studio (Watershed Warehouse) 5040 SE Milwaukie Avenue 6-10PM $60 one night $110 both

December 22 Tahni Holt S Waterfront Movement Project

Arts funding is fleeting. A new addition is funding by developers, envisioned by branding visionaries Ziba, and set on the Civic Condominiums and the South Waterfront Development. Artist choreographer curator Linda K Johnson has selected performance artists to work there and all their performances are free to you! And the artists are paid!! So be there!!!

Today modern dancer choreographer Tahni Holt presents the "The Party Project". You, the audience, stroll outside between 3 performance inside venues. Therein observe 30 performers, some collected from an open call to anyone, including SoWa residents perform Holt's movement abstracted from parties. The link above explains it. In the end join everyone inside for one big party. Music created and played by Kate O’Brien-Clarke, Corrina Repp and Joe Haege. Lighting Bill Boese. Meet at the Bella Espresso Cafe, in the Meriwether Building - consult the S. Waterfront map on their website. You can easily go by streetcar or Tram. 4PM sharp. Free

December 20 Modern Dance

Modern dance performance is an endangered art. It is expensive to maintain a warm dry rehearsal space to develop the work, especially one with a floor that doesn't kill. That is to say nothing of renting a space to perform. It is somewhat obscure as well, often an altogether short lived creature of college dance classes. But like musicians, dancers may find the experience so transformational it is bliss. Thus they are driven to continue. We are glad they do.

I think that is the case tonight as performers Cydney Wilkes and Mike Barber are commissioned to perform seminal mover-choreographer Deborah Hay's "The Runner". These two are known as organizers of "Ten Tiny Dances" and often collaborate together on that small stage. Seeing them move together is always a pleasure. It is at the Lent School Gymnasium. 5105 SE 97th Ave. (Just south of Holgate)Doors 7:45, performance 8 PM $10

December 16 59 Seconds Film Festival at Gallery Homeland

Friday's opening at Homeland's new home brought together a great collection of artists. The space is large, a wide windy corridor with high ceilings, and extends, for now, into additional yet to be rented areas. The building is drawing plenty of creative cotravelers too, such as Plazm. Tonight they present films as part of Project 59 which is a very complicated media art project originated on the East Coast. Kind of like Drowning By Numbers but with 59 only. A lot of 59's. The simple version is you can go see short films there tonight and maybe make one to submit to the project. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th Avenue x Division 7PM $5