Portland Music Mural

Here are a few photos of the new-ish Portland Music Mural, next to the MAX turnaround on 11th in downtown Portland (and near the RBG mural we looked at recently). Painted by the Pander Brothers, and featuring prominent local musicians past and present, and backed by various movers and shakers in local music, the mural got quite a media blitz when it was created in 2023. Here's an Oregonlive story, one at Willamette Week and one at the Portland Tribune, a KATU story, and probably others I missed in a quick search. Which, ok, that may not seem like much of a media blitz, but it's more than new murals usually get around here.

The worst thing about it has nothing to do with the mural itself. It got a generally positive reception here, so its backers concluded the next logical step would be to rapidly take the concept nationwide, to finally celebrate local music in places like Austin, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle (ugh), and even Boise, where the local music scene is just cave people hitting rocks with sticks and grunting on the 1 and 3. I dunno, it just reminds me too much of what happens whenever a beloved local business sells out to private equity: First there's an aggressive nationwide expansion, and then the whole thing craters a couple of years later, and after that -- instead of losing their shirts over this -- the private equity dudes just use the loss to cancel out profits elsewhere and end up owing precisely zero dollars and zero cents in taxes again, year after year. I'm not suggesting there are big piles of cash changing hands behind the scenes here; just that taking things nationwide ASAP usually doesn't work out as planned, and it makes me sad to see dumb ideas from Wall Street popping up in the arts.

The best thing about the mural is that the website includes a key to who's on the mural, which you should probably commit to memory in case someone challenges you to Portland's traditional bloodsport, a "You Probably Haven't Heard Of Them" duel. Be aware that merely identifying semi-obscure musicians is not enough to win the duel most of the time, so come prepared with bonus facts and opinions: Be ready to name all of their albums, ordered correctly best-to-worst, and identify which of these albums you own on vinyl. Then explain when and how that artist sold out to The Man (because everyone does eventually) and discuss why their early work up until that point was better. Score even more points for each artist on the mural who is totally overrated and doesn't belong there, and for ranting about exactly who should be up there instead, double points if your opponent hasn't heard of them. Whoever loses the duel has to skip town on the next Greyhound to Boise, while the winner gets to stay, for now. But the price of victory is eternal vigilance; new bands you probably haven't heard of are constantly forming in garages all over town, even while you're asleep, and some might escape detection for a while by not putting out a vinyl EP right away. And inevitably, one of these days, a younger, hipper challenger will say a name that doesn't ring a bell, and it'll turn out to be a 15 year old beatboxer from Hillsboro who also raps in Tamil and has over 10 million TikTok followers, and she's never even touched a music CD or a vinyl record, and has no idea why somebody would want to make one in 2024. Therefore, send not to know for whom the Boise bus rolls; it rolls for thee.

La Lucha Sigue (RBG Mural, SW 11th & Yamhill)

Next up, here's a mural by artist Allison McClay, honoring the late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You might recall that she passed away shortly before the 2016 election, and the linked post is dated November 13th, 2020, shortly after the 2020 election, when ol' whatshisname was rummaging through his bag of dirty tricks looking for a way to overturn the election, and everyone wondered just how far he'd really go.

The mural is on the side of a building at SW 11th & Yamhill, next to the MAX turnaround. This half-block is home to a couple of other murals, including City United, Country United (2007), and a recent one honoring Portland music history that I haven't finished the post for yet. This post lingered around in drafts for a while too, but it seemed apropos to post it now: It's been four years since the mural went up, and ol' whatsisname is on the ballot again, and the polls are way too close, and I just deleted a whole paragraph wringing my hands about if and when elderly Supreme Court justices ought to retire, and I already know I'm not going to feel any better about all this after posting this, and I'm pretty sure New Zealand simply doesn't have room for all of us if the worst case scenario plays out. So anyway, 3...2...1... posting...

central eastside murals, october 2023

Here's a slideshow of various new and new-ish murals around Portland's Central Eastside as of a couple of months ago. My mom was in town back in October, and she had somehow figured out that a.) outdoor murals are kind of a big deal here, and b.) I knew a thing or two about the phenomenon and might be up for playing tour guide. So here are some photos I took that day. Also, various food carts and twee little shops were visited in between all the art appreciation, and a fully artisanal, small-batch Central Eastside tourist experience was had by all that day, minus the beer part, since mom never really got into that.

Most of these were taken at either the Electric Blocks area near OMSI, or a previously-nondescript warehouse building at SE 8th & Alder. The outside of that warehouse has been sort of divvied up, with various artists each getting a panel of the exterior to work with. If I was really focused on this as a project like I was for a while back in the 2010s, I'd probably give each panel its own post and link to each artist's Instagram and find other work that they've done. But this year I've had enough trouble just maintaining the one-post-per-month bare minimum and that sounded like an excessive amount of work (unpaid (and unrequested) volunteer work, at that) to take on right now, so that stuff is left as an exercise for the reader. I did at least take photos of artists' signatures where possible, and those are typically Instagram IDs these days, so you at least have that as a starting point if you want to learn more about a particular mural.

Belmont Rotating Mural

Next mural up is the Belmont Rotating Mural, which is basically the garage of someone's house on SE Belmont near 32nd which gets repainted by different mural artists every so often. These are rather old photos and I'm positive it doesn't look like this anymore. The PDX Street Art page (1st link) has a few photos of it as it's changed over time.

23rd & alberta roses

And here's the rose design I mentioned in the previous post, also by artist Pablo Garcia. Street View says this was still there as of June 2016. Like most other pictures of roses you see here, I ran across this in a Portland Roses Tumblr post.

ne 23rd & alberta mural

This mural was on the side of a building at NE 23rd & Alberta just over a year ago. It was created by artist Pablo Garcia, who also did the elephant mural that replaced it, which I don't have photos of, as well as the rose design on the front of the building, which you'll see in the next post.

ne 27th-28th alley murals, ne alberta

Next up (and still on NE Alberta), here are a couple of murals on either side of the alley between NE 27th & 28th. I don't know who created these or when, or even whether they're "official" or just sort of appeared overnight. You might think that since Alberta's heavily marketed as an artsy sort of place, someone might be maintaining a map or a list somewhere, so you could go on an art stroll around the neighborhood after your fancy wine and cheese party. As far as I can tell nobody's taken on that project. I mean, I suppose if you needed that you could probably use the "NE Alberta" tag here in lieu of a proper quality list. I tend to say "I don't know" quite a lot, but at least I usually get the locations and photos right.

ne 29th & alberta murals

These panels are, or were, on the side of a building at NE 29th & Alberta. They looked potentially temporary, and I took these photos over a year ago, so it's possible they aren't there anymore. And it's NE Alberta, so it's possible the entire building isn't there anymore.

mural, ne 30th & alberta

The ongoing mural tour is back on NE Alberta again, this time at Alberta & 30th. This one was on my todo list thanks to a post on the Portland Roses Tumblr. That's all I know about this one, I'm afraid.

"Rediscovering Belmont" Mural

Next mural up is a fading one at SE 30th & Belmont, on the same building as the Peace Mural we visited some months ago. A 1999 issue of CultureWork (a University of Oregon arts publication) mentions it:

One of my favorite murals in Portland is the 1,725 sq.ft. "Rediscovering Belmont" mural on the Futon Factory at SE 30th and Belmont Streets. I'm always engaged by it every time I walk or drive by. It took five months to organize, two weeks to paint, and involved over 100 neighborhood volunteers, including schools, neighbors, and local businesses. If you read the attached plaque you'll see that it was sponsored and supported by the Sunnyside Neighborhood Association, AmeriCorps Members for Neighborhood Safety, Southeast Uplift Neighborhood Program, the Regional Arts and Culture Council, and supported by the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office, Bitar Brothers, Corp. and the city's Graffiti Abatement Project.

Much of the rest of the article is devoted to lamenting the art vs. billboards legal battle that put nearly all murals on hold in Portland in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I've discussed that a few times before, most recently in another post earlier today. So I won't go into that again here.

Mirador Community Store mural

Next mural up is this design outside the Mirador Community Store on SE Division, created in 2002 by artist Gwyllm Llywdd. You don't see a lot of circa-2002 murals as this was right in the middle of the city's mural wars. The semi-short version: City sorta-welcomes murals, but frowns on billboards. Malevolent out-of-town billboard conglomerate sues, arguing that treating the two differently violates the state constitution's free speech provisions, which are even more generous than the federal First Amendment. Billboard company wins. City decides it's better to regulate murals like billboards than vice versa. New rules are very strict, with the city fining violators and sometimes sending crews to paint over unauthorized murals, for fear of being hauled back into court for selective nonenforcement. Artists hate this. Everyone hates this. Eventually the city finds better lawyers, who come up with some creative legal dodges, and a permit system that theoretically allows advertising too, if it has enough artistic merit, though off the top of my head I can't think of any examples of this actually happening.

The mural you see here was rather controversial back then. Not because of the subject matter, but because it was just too big. City rules specified the maximum size for a sign in this area was 50 square feet, and murals were now considered signs, and this one was at least 3x that large. So the city ordered the store to paint over it or be fined $50/day. After some wrangling the store gave in, sort of, and nailed plywood over parts of the mural, just enough to get it down to the allowed 50 square feet. It stayed that way for another five years, until the new city mural program kicked in, and it was finally safe to take the plywood down.

(As a small counterpoint, the anonymous "Art Wall of Shame" Tumblr really hated this mural, with a tiny bit of semi-praise: "It’s very Portland. The greenery, the essence of Hippie-ism, the rolling hills." before diving into the full rant.)

Burnside Brewing mural

The next mural we're visiting is outside Burnside Brewing, on the NE 7th side of the building. Apparently the mural predates the brewery; it's signed by Brazilian artist Herbert Baglione, & dated 2006, while Burnside Brewing was founded in 2010. It featured in a 2009 Mercury story about edgy local murals, again before the brewery started up. A web address on the mural mentions hipster retail chain Upper Playground, so maybe they used to have a store here (that was a decade ago & I honestly don't recall), or maybe it was just an ad for a store elsewhere, I dunno.

Alberta Street Crossing

Next up we're visiting Alberta Street Crossing, a pair of murals on NE Alberta Ct. on either side of 42nd Avenue. These were created in 2011 by artist Loey Hargrove, with a grant from the RACC (the local public arts agency). I was going to snark and be pedantic about the title saying "Alberta Street" when it's really on Alberta Ct. But I noticed my original notes from whenever I saved this draft post said "Note ct. not st., to be pedantic about it.", and I'm kind of inclined to play against type for once. So really, who cares? It still says "Alberta", after all. Close enough.

Alberta Who's Who

The next mural we're visiting is on NE Alberta, facing the alley between 29th & 30th avenues. An old Neighborhood Notes post calls it "Alberta Who's Who" (or I think it does, or did; the site seems to be down at the moment). The mural doesn't list any names, but I gather this is a diverse assortment of prominent people from around the neighborhood. Call me a non-Alberta resident if you like -- and you'd be correct -- but I have no idea who any of these people are.

Bob White Theater mural

Meanwhile, our ongoing mural project is visiting this design in an alley next to the long-defunct Bob White Theater, on SE Foster just west of 65th. I don't really know anything about the mural, unfortunately; the theater itself was the subject of an attempted revival a couple of years ago, but that stalled out, & the theater was sold to a mysterious LLC in September 2015, with rumors the space might become mini-storage or something mundane like that, just based on the name of the LLC. I have a thing for old movie theaters and I'd hate to see that happen. There's always room in this city for another neighborhood beer-n-pizza theater, or another fancy art house cinema if the gentrification gods really smile on the area. Surely that would be worthy of a chunk of PDC development money, assuming you know the right people and so forth.

underground garage mural, sw 3rd & yamhill

A mural I ran across inside an underground parking garage on SE 3rd between Yamhill & Taylor. I don't know anything else about this one, and as far as I can tell the rest of the internet doesn't either.

La Calaca Comelona mural

Mural outside La Calaca Comelona on SE Belmont. This is another one that's been in drafts for quite a while; I posted photos of another mural next door back in August of last year, which seemed late already because the photos were taken in January. Still, I'm fairly sure a year and a half in drafts isn't even a record here, but then I've never claimed to be a breaking news outlet. I take photos when I feel like it, and I post them when I feel like it, if I get around to it.

Longfellows Books murals

Next up we're visiting a pair of murals outside Longfellows Books, a small used book store at SE 14th, Division, & Orange Ave., on the edge of Ladd's Addition. One has an Alice in Wonderland theme (as seen in posts at Kay's Bird Club post and Savouring the Seasons), while the other features a dragon (as seen in an old Portland Public Art post). I looked but couldn't find artist/date info about either one, so we'll just have to go with the photos this time.

Hand-Eye Supply garage mural

The next mural is a black-and-white zebra pattern on the Hand-Eye Supply garage building on NW Glisan, between Park & Broadway. They even used some sort of sunshade/mesh material to extend the wild stripes over the building's windows, which is kind of cool. So maybe this doesn't qualify as a mural, strictly speaking, but for the purposes of this project the rules bend whenever I need them to bend. So there.

Sky mural, NE MLK & Shaver

The next stop on our mural tour is the blue sky & clouds mural at NE MLK & Shaver, on the church building that's also home to Now is the Time, the Time is Now. This wall hosted a companion mural about African history from 1989-2009, but it was lost as part of emergency repairs to the building. A 2009 Oregonian article about that mural's demise noted: The church is open to working with the original artists to possibly paint a replacement mural someday, according to Marie Larkins, a church board member. It isn't clear whether this sky design is the hoped-for replacement mural.