September 13 Pat Boas at Marylhurst

Portland artist Pat Boas makes schematic paintings that would not be not at home with the works of MC Escher. The Marylhurst Art Gym does a great job showing the work of mid career artists, that means they have found a way to make a sustainable living with art. Live and learn. At the Marylhurst Art Gym at Marylhurst University www.marylhurst.edu/theartgym/ Check the campus map to find it. 3PM-5 Free

September 12 Craft+Design MFA Open House

The history of craft extends back into prehistory. In Portland a notable event was the establishment of an Oregon crafts school, now Oregon College of Arts and Craft in 1907; and the founding of what has become the Museum of Contemporary Craft in 1937. PNCA, founded in 1909, originally associated with the Portland Art Museum, itself founded in 1892, the earliest art museum on the West Coast.

It's all new now. PNCA+OCAC+MoCC are embarking on a new MFA program including craft and design, essentially a meditation on materials in the service of three dimensional objects.

OCAC is expanding its facilities in the West Hills. The MFA studios will be under their own roof on the East side. Today they open their doors with a party. The studios were constructed by the students themselves in collaboration with noted design-build advocate Steve Badanes.

At the craft+design MFA studio 421 NE 10th x Glisan 8:30PM Free

Sept 10, 12, 13 Video Curios Curated by Melody Owen

Portland artist Melody Owen is known for visually elegant, idea-infused, minimalist work. East Coast and international studies have brought her into contact with a myriad of inspirations. Tonight she curates two international selections of video pieces for the big screen, Circles and Spinning Wheels, and If I Could Crowd All my Souls Into That Mountain.

Circles includes a recurring theme of curves and circles. Crowd is organized around artists who are symultaneously subject and maker in their films. The artists are Boris Achour, Guler Ates, Barak Bar-am, Jean Charles Blanc, E*rock, Ben Fino-Radin, Liz Haley, John Hey, Gretchen Hogue, Cassandra C. Jones, Alexandra Lakin, Chris Lael Larson, Zak Margolis, Alicia McDaid, Ma Qiusha, Daragh Reeves, Michael Shamberg, Sigtryggur Sigmarsson, Catarina Simoes, Matt Underwood and Ola Vasiljeva.

The program is at the Art Museum Whitsell Auditorium, www.nwfilm.org 1219 SW Park Thursday, September 10, 6:30PM; Saturday, September 12, 6:30PM; Sunday, September 13, 2:30PM $6 members/$7

September 9 Video Echo Gap

Valentines hosts a one night show of video art, a perfect complement to the historical show at Lewis and Clark College. Modou Dieng, artist-curator at Worksound, has assembled the show. The artists are Hannah Piper Burns, Sari Carel, Posie Currin, Sean Carney, David Eckard, Jeff Jahn, Arnold Kemp, Stephen Slappe and Kelley Rauer. At Valentines myspace.com/valentineslifeblood 232 SW Ankeny

September 8 Broadcast Art at Lewis and Clark

Portlandorusnow has been on holiday from the matrix. We resume tonight noting a show opening on media art, a personal interest, Broadcast. The collection covers the late era of mass broadcast media, repurposed by artists. Radio and broadcast media receivers have achieved nearly 100% penetration in American homes, but it is the end of their era.

Artists began using cheap video making equipment as soon as it became available in the 1960's to create narrow channel broadcast art, communicating with their social networks. That effort by artists has now become mainstream, as was envisioned by media and arts theorist Gene Youngblood, over the Internet.

The show includes Korean artist Nam Jun Paik, widely considered the first video artist. He was active in the 60's Fluxus movement with artists such as Yoko Ono, and continued his career into the mid '90's. His work, Video Tape Study No. 3, 1967-8 is a remix of press conferences by President Johnson and Mayor John Lindsay.

Dangerous performance artist Chris Burden shows TV Hijack, 1972, in which he took a cable access announcer hostage at knifepoint in reaction to the station rejecting his art programming proposals. He demanded that the recordings of the show be destroyed. This exhibit includes stills of the event. Also showing are Burden's Four TV Commercials 1973-77 and 2000.

Christian Jankowski shows Telemistica, 1999, he documents his calls to broadcast television psychics in Venice to ask how his artwork will be perceived by the public in the Venice Biennale.

neuroTransmitter shows 12 Miles Out, 2005, themed on 1960's-80's offshore pirate radio stations in Europe, now made obsolete by the Internet. It's an audio piece. They also shows Frequency Allocations, 2005.

Dara Birnbaum is known for her piece Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman, and is notable for her successful lawsuit to decommission a work when a client wanted to show advertising on her public artpiece, Rio Videowall. Birnbaum's Hostage,1994, is a six channel piece comprising news footage from a German politcal hostage situation of 1977.

Doug Hall, Chip Lord and Jody Procter, working as Ant Farm, show The Amarillo News Tapes, 1980, the result of being artists in residence at a television station.

Gregory Green shows WCBS Radio Caroline: The Voice of the New Free State of Caroline, 89.3 FM, 2007 is a 1 watt pirate radio station. Much of his other work has involved being arrested by police.

MacArthur fellow Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle operates across media, often making work commenting on technology, such as several beautiful series on human genetics. His piece is Search - En Busquedad, 2001 is a simulated radio telescope using a Tijuana sports stadium. It is a comment on the parallels between the search of space aliens and the search at the border for illegal aliens.

MIT professor Antonio Muntadas shows The Last Ten Minutes, 1977, a three channel installation showing the last minutes in th elate night of broadcast shutdown in The US, Germany and the Soviet Union.

Long running San Francisco video collective Top Value Television, TVTV, active in the '70's shows Four More Years, 1972, their own news coverage of the 1972 election campaign of President Nixon.

Siebren Versteeg shows CC, 2003, news broadcasts captioned with unrelated random Internet blog content.

The show, curated in Baltimore, is at the gallery at Lewis and Clark College www.lclark.edu/hoffman_gallery Opening 5PM-7 Free

August 30 Stock Now (Naau)

Art Gallery NAAU has undertaken a year long series of smartly curated installations. It puts the gallery squarely in the experimental space of Deitch Projects. Tonight Grande Ronde by Rose McCormick opens. At New American Art Union www.newamericanartunion.com 922 SE Ankeny Noon-3 Free



Stock is a literal stone soup funding art. It's a project of the social practice group spawned from PSU. The idea is that artists prepare a delicious soup of local ingredients. You come to dine at a nominal fee. Artists propose projects posted on the walls needing a little funding to move forward. The diners select a project to receive the night's proceeds, the diner's donations. It is patron crowdsourcing. It is a good thing. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th x Division 6PM-9 $10

August 29 Ballet Festival

The Oregon Ballet Theater, OBT, has a little space on the East side, an old bank redesigned by Holst. They are adapting their performances and school of ballet to connect with you in a day of free performances and workshops. The full schedule is here. At the OBT rehearsal studios 818 SE Sixth, 11AM-6PM, Free

August 27 Evan B Harris at Together Gallery

Illustrator Evan B. Harris shows Fables and the Flourish with musical accompaniment by Horse Feathers At Together Gallery www.togethergallery.com 2916 NE Alberta 6PM-10

August 26 OfficePDX in neu situ

OfficePDX is a design concern and store. They were the lonely outpost of mid-late 20th century design and smart art on NE Alberta street. They have gone virtual, Internet sales, and nomadic, popping up for events. This is one.

Tonight they show art by illustrator Matte Stephens at friends Sandbox Studio's space. OfficePDX at Sandbox Studios 420 NE 9th, RSVP shop@officepdx.com 7PM-9 Free

August 25-27 Rock Poster, Book Cover, Type Design Design Festival

This blog does not list shows of rock poster art. Not that is is not creative. It exists in its own local ecosystem of aesthetics, audience and commerce. But for an examination of that world, Died Young, Stayed Pretty, by filmmaker Eileen Yaghoobian, shows this evening as part of a three night series, Design à Trois, by the local chapter of the AIGA. They do graphics. Music after, of course, at Slabtown.

Night two is an examination of book cover art. Powell's always has many entertaining examples in the windows facing 10th. Tonight New York designer-comedian, an interesting combination on many levels, Patrick Borelli, presents You Should Judge A Book By Its Cover. It is his presentation of 50 favorite book covers, with comedic commentary.

The third night is a one hour collection of typography and motion graphic text films. The Typophile Film Fest is produced by Punchcut, a San Francisco interface production company. The trailer is an old i-D punk-style collage, which was [is?] a common rock poster genre.

Tuesday, film, Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st 7PM $8, bands later Slabtown, Free
Wednesday, talk, Art Institute of Portland, 1122 NW Davis, 7PM cash only $10
Thursday, film, Art Institute of Portland, 1122 NW Davis, 7PM cash only $10

August 22 The Art of Touring Music

Fontanelle Gallery has assembled a show of documentation: musicians on tour. As part of the show they have music of the subjects of the show. Tonight is live Sara Jaffe, Erase Errata; Rebecca Gates; Tara Jane Oneil and Julianna Bright, The Golden Bears. A nice confab of music and art, which are the same. At Fontanelle Gallery www.fontanellegallery.com 205 SW Pine 6PM Free

August 21 Tuvan Throat Singing

Portland musician Enrique Ugalde, performing as Soriah, knows a little about Tuvan throat singing. He has traveled to the small Russian republic, which lies between Siberia and Mongolia, to study and perform. Last year he placed third in the world in a competition at the International Symposium of Khoomei, the annual world gathering of throat singers from Central Asia and beyond, including from Portland.

Soriah performs a variety of music, locally and internationally. Tonight he releases a new recording, Atlan. At Someday Lounge, 125 NW 5th 9PM $15

August 20 Art Spark at Radio Room

Art Spark is a monthly networking happy hour for the Portland art world. It is loosely structured with a guest arts organization given 10 minutes to present themselves at 6PM. This cross art group and cross artist networking is what will sustain Portland arts and allow it to grow in the next few years. These events are great for creative, free ranging conversation and are free! www.portlandartspark.com at Radio Room 1101 NE Alberta 5PM-7 Free

August 15 Portland Enters the Iron Age: an Iron Pour

The Iron Age began in various parts of the world between about 2000 and 300BC and is considered to have persisted until the rise of the great civilizations such a the Greeks and the Han Dynasty. Yet it has not yet come to Portland. That changes Saturday, with Portland Iron's First Iron Pour.

It is something that has been going on for a few years at art schools. Artists (you) prepare sand molds. A furnace is charged with ferrous scrap and coke, heated to 2800F and the resulting molten iron is poured into molds. Crude but effective.

Our profligate consumption of steel ensures that we don't need to make metal from iron ore, as did our ancestors, simplifying the process immensely. We have that advantage and the advantage of leisure time to contemplate aesthetics.

If you want to make a mold, there are workshops 6PM-10 at the Watershed Thursday and Friday August 13,14. There is a fee for materials of $20. Or show up early at the pour and there will be a limited number of open-faced sand-resin molds you can hand carve to your own likeness and contribute $5 for the pour. Watching is free!

These pours are dramatic community events, entirely safe at a distance, fun to watch, and even kid friendly.

We usually don't list sponsors, but they are the Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, Vancouver Iron and Steel, Bridgetown Cores, Harbison Walker Refractories, Willamette Graystone, Portland State University, Pacific NW College of Art, Gallery Homeland, Silverton Foundry and Tool Shed PDX. Great job all for catching Portland up to the Iron Age!

Mold workshops August 13,14 at Tool Shed PDX www.toolshedpdx.org 5040 SE Milwakee 6PM-10 $20. Pour at OMSI www.omsi.edu 1945 SE Water. Furnace starts noon; mold carving ($5). Pours 3PM-6. Furnace breakdown 6PM. Watching, Free

August 15 Performances + Art at Disjecta + Audio Cinema

Disjecta is currently showing PNCA MFA work at the half point. This first MFA class will go on to produce their thesis work next year. So it is a preview and a pleasure. Complementing the show is an evening of performance by Bill Brown and Sabine Gruffat themed Time Machine. I am excited for this after many a conversation about "performance art", the art people love to hate. At it's best, it is story telling, perhaps a little abstract and ideally laconic and lyrical, like Zen landscape poetry. Personal and authentic is good too. See and hear for yourself. All at Disjecta www.disjecta.org 8371 N. Interstate opening 8PM $5


Audio Cinema is a rehearsal space, shooting space, and more, making an important place in Portland music. Many musicians here are artists, and vice versa. These creative vectors combine when Audio Cinema mounts its annual art show. Artists include Candace Gossen:paintings, Dustin Zemel: video, Evertt Beidler: sculpture, ilan Laks: paintings & photos, Cat Coats: paintings, Marian Slakie: paintings, Jacob Perkins: video, Heidi Wirz: paintings, Mike Albano: paintings, Jennifer Sims: fashion, George Perrou: paintings, Michelle Thompson: photography and Jonathan Stanish: paintings. Accompanying all this art is music by Strangeletter, Casper Maccabee, Jacob Perkins, Search Party, Defeating the Purpose, Hotter than a Crotch, Drunken Prayer, Noise, Battle Axe Massacre, Doonevetter, The WokenBokes, Julius and Loyd Family Players. All at AudioCinema www.audiocinema.org 226 SE Madison, 6PM-2 Free, $5-10 suggested donation

Aug 14-23 Manor of Art

The alliance of art and space takes form again at a large show at Milepost 5. You have likely been there and may have noticed a modern lofty building and an old brick building. The older building is planned for conversion into artist workspaces. For this show, art spans many of both building spaces. In the old building, artists have their own room for installation. There will be music and experimental theater as well.

Artists include Adam Bailey, Adam Charles Ross, Alicia J. Rose, Amy Jorgensen, Amy Ruppel, Andrea Nelson, Andrew Enna, Anna Solcaniova King, Anni Tracy, Angela Gay, Appendix, Arringtond de Dionyso, Ben Pink, Brennan Conaway, Urban Eden (Bret Hostetler and Andrew Wenna), Brin Levinson, Brooke Weston, Chris Haberman, Cris Moss, David Stein, Derek Ecklund, Derek Olsen, Eatcho, Erin Nations, Ezra Johnson-Greenough, Felicity Fenton, Gabe Flores (w Jerry Gilmer), James Wood, Julianna Paradisi, Gabriel Decker, Gabriel Liston, Gary Wiseman, George Perrou, Heather Hawkins, Heidi Elise-Wirz, Jennifer Doheny, Joe Shea, Joel Barber, Jason Brown, Jason Graham, Jeff Fontaine, Jennifer Mercede, Jeremy Schultz, John Graeter, John Meyers, John Wray, Jonathon Hill-Jacquard, Jonathan Stanish, Karah Bruce-Larkin, Hypnokomix/Kate Fenker, Keith Rosson, Kelly Rauer, Moto Galore/Kenneth Wright, Klutch, Launchpad Gallery, Luke Heinrich, Maggie Casey, Marian Spadone, Mark Randall, Mart Schaefer, Marlena Simone, Matthew Haggett, Matt Schlosky, Meredith Andrews, Michael Fields, Michael Costello, Michael T. Hensley, Misty Ray, Muse Design, Nathan Bennett, Nicole Linde, Hypnokomix/Jason Squamata, Rachel J. Siegel, Rebecca Shapiro, Rhoda London, Richard Schemmerer, Rob Pellicer, Roscoe Hall II, Roxanne Jackson, Sarah Kamsler, Scott C. Johnson, Sean Joseph Patrick Carney, Stephen Plount, Suzanne Elizabeth, Tender Loving Empire, Tamara English, Taylor Cass, Tiffany Lee Brown, TJ Norris, Tomita Designs, Travis Taylor, Troy Briggs, Tyler Corbett and Walt Curtis.

There is a detailed schedule of music, theater and art viewing times at the website. It's at Milepost5 www.milepostfive.com 900 NE 81st (go by MAX) 7PM-10 Free

August 14 Brickout Viola Cello En Pointe

NATIONALE is an intimate art, design and style space. This month they show Brickthrough by Edward Jeffrey Kriksciun. Music opening evening on viola too at NATIONALE nationaleportland.blogspot.com 2730 E Burnside 6PM-9 Free


Also this evening in the Rose Garden is a collaboration of the Portland Cello Project and the Ballet. At the Washington Park amphitheater. 6PM Free

August 13 Jeffry Mitchell at the Museum

The Portland Art Museum has started a monthly intimate program where you can stroll through the Museum with an artist who speaks about what work they like and why. This month's artist is Seattle's ultra baroque sculptor Jeffry Mitchell Later everyone retires to the cafe for drinks and more conversation. It requires museum admission, to keep the museum from becoming even more nonprofit than it already is, so go with a member or make an afternoon tour. If interested, meet promptly at 6PM at the side entrance by the courtyard. Note you can join for a year of unlimited admission for $55 for one person or $85 for two. At the Portland Art Museum www.pam.org 1219 SW Park 6PM-8 $10, 9 students

August 11 Taiko+Butoh Free

Art is life and love. Mischievous Fox's of the Murdoch kind, and their ilk, seed the culture wars to boost wanning circulation. But Portlander's know that creative culture experienced, sustains creativity practiced, in commerce, worldchanging and family.

The City of Portland Parks and Recreation Department has preserved its free performances in the park this summer. You can see them free in a recession pestered economy, and be inspired in your own challenges to meet them creatively. Free. Free is good.

The big list is here. Tonight the Portland Taiko performs with the Mizu Desierto Butoh Theatre.

At the Washington Park amphitheater. 6PM Free

August 7 Eastside Art Openings

Life+Limb shows designs and illustrations by Lisa Dejohn. The work is a good match with the shop's elegant but understated minimalism. At www.lifeandlimb.net 1716 E. Burnside


NAAU continues Ty Ennis's examination of a series of murders in Spokane, Washington: You’ll Live It Here: The Lilac City Track Murders ‘96-’98. At New American Art Union www.newamericanartunion.com 922 SE Ankeny


Worksound presents a group show "Future in Retrospect". At WorksoundPDX www.worksoundpdx.com 820 SE Alder



In the 811 block

Second Nature shows photographs by Sarah Meadows.

Grass Hut shows Inkwads, classic comic book style illustrations by Hellen Jo, Brent Wick, Kiyoshi Nakazawa, John Black and Tom Neely.

Redux has Sinister Concept, dioramas by Rochard Fox.

All 811 E Burnside


Down the block Anja Verdugo shows illustrtions, frocks & freemasons, at clothing store Frank James 729 E Brunside


Homeland shows, Incompletely, curated by Calvin Ross Carl and includes himself, Derek Franklin, Ashley Sloan, Josh Smith, Bailey Winters and Gary Wiseman. At Gallery Homeland www.galleryhomeland.org 2505 SE 11th x Division


Newspace has an annual curated group show. www.newspacephoto.org 1632 SE 10th


The Press Club has brush illustration work incorporating the artist, Dante Cohen's interest in China. It will be interesting to see how this mix crosses the pond, and in which direction. At The Press Club 2621 SE Clinton