Musgo mural

Ok, next mural up is in Old Town, on NW Flanders between 6th & Broadway, outside the Musgo art gallery. The only show listing I can find for this place is from May 2012, so either they're defunct or they have a really bad PR person. The name is the Spanish word for "moss", btw. (As in regular moss, not Spanish moss, which is a whole other thing entirely.) I gather that in the late 90s & early 2000s there was a New Agey shop & gallery here, which might be where the murals came from.

SE 48th & Hawthorne Roses

Sometimes when I think I've gotten a little too esoteric here, I remember somebody has a Tumblr (and a Google Map to go with it) that are just about Portland murals of roses and nothing else. You probably know about this already because I, uh, link to this Tumblr a lot. Still, I'm reasonably sure that this humble blog is less esoteric than that Tumblr. I like to think this is a fascinating and eclectic corner of the interwebs, at least if viewed over a sufficiently long time scale, e.g. if you want to see something other than murals, just go back to somewhere prior to last August or so, and there's all sorts of other stuff. Ok, it was mostly public art then if I remember right, but there were a bunch of bridges before that, plus vacation photos now and then. And after murals it'll be something else, though I'm not sure exactly what just yet.

Anyway, the aforementioned Google map included a couple of painted roses somewhere around SE 48th & Hawthorne, so a while back I went to track them down. They apparently didn't merit a post of their own on the Tumblr, so I wasn't sure what I was looking for, but eventually I found the one you see here. It was quite the thrilling adventure, as I recall. Although it was a while ago, and it's possible I'm misremembering, and the whole middle part with the tigers never actually happened.

But I digress. Turns out the rose here is identical to a couple on a different building further west on Hawthorne. So maybe it's a sort of corporate logo, though PortlandMaps shows different LLCs owning the two buildings (yes, I checked). Or maybe there's an obscure local rose artist who works in stencil and doesn't sign their work. Dunno.

Second Nature Design mural

The next mural up is at Second Nature Design at SE 47th & Clay, just off Hawthorne. This was created in 2013 by J.Shea, who also did a number of the Forest for the Trees murals that have appeared here before, e.g. the one at Kidd's Toy Museum, and ones at SE 8th & Sandy, and SE 9th & Oak. I think I ran across this one while paging through the artist's website for one of those previous posts. I rather like the others, so I figured I should track this one down too. It's because of stuff like this that I use the word "ongoing" a lot when talking about the, uh, ongoing mural project.

Creating Community Mural, SE Chavez & Division

The next mural on our tour is a large design on the Rite Aid drugstore at SE Chavez & Division. It seems kind of weird that there'd be a community mural on a big corporate chain drugstore, even in SE Portland, but this one actually has a long history. Before it was a drugstore, this building was a Kienow's grocery store (a long-defunct small Portland-area chain), and they let some local residents paint a mural on the store circa 1984. It faded over the years, and the building changed occupants, and by 2003 the people who decide these things felt a new mural was in order, and local artist Rin Carroll Jackson was selected to create the new one you see here. Her website calls this the "Creating Community Mural", so that's the name I'm going with.

The interesting part is that this happened right at the height of City Hall's anti-mural paranoia, after the city lost a court case with an aggressive billboard company. It turns out that under the state constitution, the city can't distinguish between capital-A art and mere commercial speech, and anywhere murals are allowed is fair game for advertising too. So for a few years the city prohibited new murals entirely, and sent work crews around to paint over any illicit wall art they could find. This mural was grandfathered in, though, due to the previous mural. So long as you were painting over something that was there before 1998, and you made sure to paint in the same exact spot and not cover a single additional square inch with anything that looked like Art, the city could allow that without also letting the barbarians through the gate. Eventually the city came up with a couple of maybe-clever legal dodges involving permits and easements that let them re-legalize mural painting, while keeping the nefarious billboard companies at bay, at least for now.

O'Malleys mural

Ok, continuing today's Foster Road theme, the next stop on the mural tour is outside O'Malley's Saloon & Grill, a bar at SE 66th & Foster, just east of the previous three posts here. Their Facebook page includes a 2009 photoset of a few people painting mural panels. I mean, if you're interested in photos of people painting stuff, which I realize is sort of a niche interest. Also Lcscss.com has an interview with one of the artists, mostly concerning a much larger mural he did on Hawthorne... which, as it turns out, I already have a long-delayed draft post about. Hopefully I'll get around to posting that at some point.

Bar Carlo mural

Next up on the mural tour takes us to Bar Carlo, at SE 65th & Foster. If you're following along at home, you might have noticed this is just a couple of blocks east of the last two tour stops. I'm still trying to make a dent in my ginormous draft posts folder, and my latest semi-brilliant plan is to go through my remaining draft mural posts roughly oldest to newest, and worry about the non-mural ones -- which do, in fact, exist -- once I'm done with that. Given that the last few posts involve photos from December 2014, I'm not going to predict any sort of ETA on when I'll have this sorted out.

Anyway, going back to the topic of the current post, this is one I ran across in an old Kay's Bird Club post. It looks like a couple of scenes from Russian folklore, but that's not really my area of expertise and I don't get the reference. The restaurant itself isn't Russian, but the surrounding neighborhood has a large Russian immigrant population, so I guess the theme sort of makes sense, maybe.

Bar Maven mural

The next stop on the mural tour is outside Bar Maven, at SE Foster and what Google Maps calls "SE 63rd Ave-SE 62nd Ave Alley". It kind of looks like at least 3 people worked on different parts of this one. Searching the interwebs about it comes back with nothing, though, and I can't make out any of the signatures well enough to search on them. Oh, well.

Meticon Bikes mural

Ok, the next Portland mural on our ongoing tour is at the Meticon Bikes shop at SE 60th & Foster. The old Murals of Portland website gave the artist's name as Stephen Williams, but that's all I know about this one. When I took these photos the shop was closed and I honestly thought it was defunct, and I had a few prepared remarks about how this was a sign that gentrification hadn't reached this part of the city yet, seeing as the neighborhood wasn't able to support a local bike store. Turns out I was wrong and the shop just keeps eccentric hours, so I had to toss all that earnest social commentary stuff. Still, Foster hasn't sprouted any luxury apartment towers yet, so I wouldn't have been entirely wrong.

Do Not Ignore the Humanity in Front of Your Eyes

The next stop on the ongoing mural tour is at N. Albina & Killingsworth, where a building bears the inscription "Do Not Ignore the Humanity in Front of Your Eyes". I've found a lot of photos of this on the interwebs (see [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]), but nobody (myself included) seems to know who painted this or why. Though I suspect that if this sort of sentiment has to be spelled out for people, the struggle is not going well.

SE 76th & Mitchell

Ok, the next post up is something I debated whether I was going to post at all. There's a guy on Flickr who posts a lot of Portland mural photos, and he geotags his photos religiously so they're easy to track down. (I used to tag and geotag my Flickr photos too, but it's kind of a hassle, and I stopped several years ago.) A while ago he posted several photos of elaborate graffiti on the back of a warehouse at SE 76th & Mitchell, just north of Foster Road and a short walk from the Firland Parkway blocks. I wasn't sure it was really blog material, but I put it on my great big TODO map just in case, and eventually I was in the area and tracked it down. Sure enough, graffiti wall. I don't usually do graffiti walls, but since I'd gone to all this trouble already, I figured maybe I should go ahead and post the photos anyway. So I went back and forth, and this post sank down into my vast Drafts folder, never to be seen again, until now. Anyway, just to be clear, this isn't a precedent. If all you do is tag buildings with your initials, you almost certainly won't get a post here, or receive the international fame and fortune that comes along with being posted about here.

Hawthorne Ink murals

Next up are a couple of murals outside the Hawthorne Ink tattoo place at SE 34th & Hawthorne. One mural's by Hunter Armstrong, who also did the giant snail mural at SE 22nd & Ankeny. The other one is by Jason Prouty of Garage31. I've said this before, I think, but I just want to thank artists who include a web address, Twitter handle, etc., in their work. This blog business is so much easier when people do that, and it helps me sound like I sorta-know what I'm talking about, which is nice.

Don Pancho murals, NE Alberta

Ok, our first stop today is the set of murals outside the Don Pancho Market & Taqueria, at NE 20th & Alberta. I don't know anything else about the murals, and I also haven't tried the tacos here, so I don't have a lot of material for a proper blog post. That's sort of the problem with a lot of stuff I have in drafts right now. I feel like I ought to say something and not just post photos, and I sort of hit a wall at that point. I could probably fill a few paragraphs snarking about Alberta St. gentrification, but I feel like I've covered that topic a lot already. So anyway, enjoy the photos, I guess.

ok, let's try this again...

It's been ages since I've done a real post here. I got tied up with Real Work, and sort of got out of the habit of posting. I'd occasionally look at my Drafts folder and get sort of discouraged; at one point I had a goal of zero drafts by New Years, and that's not looking very likely at this point. Anyway, I thought about doing another lame "keepalive" post just so I'd post something this month, but I don't have anything better to do this weekend, and there's a huge storm outside, so I'll see if I can put a few actual posts together for once.

keepalive (again)

So it's been another ultra-busy month at $REAL_JOB, and I haven't posted anything here since late August. I've never gone an entire month without posting anything at all; back in March I posted a short "keepalive" thing just to have a nonzero post count for the month. I think I'm going to have to do that again this month. I mean, I reserve the right to go on a huge writing binge between now and midnight tomorrow, but I have to say the odds don't favor it. Maybe next month...

SE 9th & Yamhill

Every June-or-so, a few more City Repair painted intersections pop up here and there around Portland. To be honest I haven't put a lot of effort into locating this year's crop of new ones; given the size of my Drafts folder right now, I wouldn't say I'm in desperate need of new material, and Real Job stuff keeps absorbing what would otherwise be free time to pursue this. In short, I've found precisely one of them so far, and only because I stumbled across it. So with that intro out of the way, we're at freshly painted SE 9th & Yamhill, where a big hops-and-barley design graces the intersection. This intersection's kind of an unusual case in that we're in a light industrial area, not a residential neighborhood. One corner of the intersection is home to Rogue's Green Dragon Pub, while diagonally across is a large Rogue warehouse. So the relevance of the design to its surroundings is kind of obvious here. (And yes, I noticed the thing when I came by for lunch and a beer or two or so.) So this is the bit where I tell you I told you so: A year ago, in a ranty bit in a post about the NE 12th & Beech intersection, I predicted that companies would eventually get in on the act, and the painted intersection thing would evolve away from being a community volunteer effort. I figured tech companies would do it eventually. I didn't figure it would happen the very next year or be arranged by a local brewery, although that kind of makes sense in retrospect. Still, when it comes to predicting the future, when you have a chance to take partial credit, take it.

Speaking of hops, this summer I tried my hand at growing a hop vine for the first time. You can assume by the lack of gardening photos here that it's not going that well. I don't believe I've ever seen that many bugs on a single plant before. Tiny little pinhead-sized bugs, clinging to stems and the bottoms of leaves, sucking the life out of the poor vine. After investing in this plant, I came across a Michigan State extension document about "Hop Insects and Diseases", which begins with an old Kentish proverb about hop growing: "First the flea, then the fly, then the mould, then they die". The remainder of the document is equally encouraging. Still, hops are a perennial (assuming they survive), so maybe I'll have better luck next year.

SE 3rd & Morrison mural #2

Last summer, a colorful snail mural appeared on a City Liquidators building in industrial SE Portland, as part of the 2014 Forest for the Trees event. A few months later, a second mural appeared next to it, full of bright colors and swirling eagles. This new one was created by artist Yatika Fields for a Native arts event called Native+Portland. If you look closely, the mural includes an "#FFTTNW" hashtag even though it was painted months after the festival. The official festival Instagram also has a photo of Fields painting the mural, so I'm tagging this post accordingly. I figure if they're not going to get all pedantic about it, I probably shouldn't go there either.

EuroClassic Furniture mural

Next mural up wraps around the outside of the EuroClassic Furniture store at SE 66th & Foster. (I don't get out to SE Foster a lot, so I first heard of this place in a Kay's Bird Club post.) It's got vignettes of Venice, London, and other European cities, surrounded by painted-on arches and columns and whatnot. On the east side of the building, a large sign reads "русский мебельный магазин", which just means "Russian furniture store". Which isn't too unusual given the surrounding neighborhood's large Russian immigrant population. Going by the store's website it seems like a regular (and well-regarded) US-style furniture store that welcomes Russian speakers and has a loud wacky mural outside. I dunno, I guess I was expecting something a little more flamboyant given the exterior.

Manuel Levenson Rose

It's been a while since we've done any Weston rose murals, but I found another one recently, so another of this humble blog's ongoing projects is still ongoing, it seems. The Manuel Levenson Rose is located on the Columbia East office building, on SE Division at 100th, just north of spooky, mysterious Kelly Butte. I'm not entirely sure who the rose is named for, but it's dated 1974, and a quick search comes up with someone by that name who lived in Portland and died in 1974. So that seems like a reasonable guess.

I occasionally wonder what future archeologists might think if they stumbled across a few of these rose-and-flag designs. Like, maybe the Portland area saw a renewed Lancaster vs. York civil war spanning the last quarter of the 20th century and the first couple of decades of the 21st. If they kept digging around the city they'd eventually bump into someone's discarded SCA/cosplay armor, too, and we'd go into the textbooks all wrong. I mean, unless this humble blog survives centuries into the future to set the record straight(ish). (Hey, this site does get archived by the Wayback Machine, so I can't totally rule that out. Howdy there, future historians!)

SE 23rd & Morrison mural #2

Next up we're visiting the second mural at the old gas station at SE 23rd & Morrison. This one was created by artist Paige Wright for the 2014 Forest for the Trees, and you'll notice that it includes a large ceramic face in addition to the painted bits. The festival's Tumblr calls it a "ceramic mural", which is an odd-sounding term even if it's basically accurate.

SE 23rd & Morrison mural #1

Our ever-ongoing mural tour is paying a visit to a former gas station at SE 23rd & Morrison, where a pair of murals were painted for the 2014 Forest for the Trees event. This is about a block due north of the warehouse on Belmont where we looked at The Fall and another unnamed mural earlier today (well, the posts went up today. I took the photos months ago.) So the first one here on Morrison is this giant robot mural, created by local artist Blakely Dadson. A big Forest for the Trees photoset at Empty Kingdom has lots of photos of last year's crop of murals being painted, including several of this one. I gather, from this, that you want to color in the laserblasts first thing. Rembrandt neglected to do this, and viewers barely even notice his laserblasts.

Hawthorne Fish House mural

The next mural up is outside the Hawthorne Fish House restaurant on SE Hawthorne near 44th. This was painted by Portland artist Matt Schlosky, sometime before November 2013 (since some of his photos of it are dated then.)

My usual policy here that posting about someone's mural isn't an endorsement (or otherwise) of the business inside. Or at least I've intended to say that, whether I actually have or not. I'm going to make an exception this time, however, because tasty Wisconsin-style fried fish (oh, and deep-fried cheese curds). Happily endorsed, for whatever that's worth.

Hawthorne Literary Mural

Next mural up is the Hawthorne Literary Mural, a collection of author portraits on the side of a building at SE 33rd & Hawthorne. This was painted back in 1997 by New Orleans artist Jane Brewster. The building it's on used to be a large, rambling used book shop, but it's evolved into more of a general vintage store in recent years, so the connection with the mural isn't as clear as it once was. I've seen this called the "Sylvia Plath mural" more than once as hers is one of the more prominent (and spooky) portraits. Turns out that it and many of the other portraits are now available in t-shirt or coffee mug form via Cafe Press.

Warehouse mural, SE 23rd & Belmont

The next mural up is at SE 23rd & Belmont, on the same warehouse building as The Fall. This one's on the opposite (west) side of the building, facing the La Calaca Comelona restaurant. I didn't see a signature on this one and I don't really know anything about it.

The Fall

The next mural on our ongoing tour is an autumn-themed one on SE Belmont near 23rd, on the side of a small warehouse building. The Fall was created for the 2013 Forest for the Trees event by Australian artist Reka One. A 2013 Vandalog post has a few photos of it and a larger Reka One mural in San Francisco, along with a TV interview clip about the latter.

OR-7 mural

Next mural up on the tour is the OR-7 mural outside the Alleyway Cafe & Bar on NE Alberta at 24th. The design's based on the famous Oregon wolf OR-7 (a.k.a. "Journey"). Here's a blog post about the mural by Roger Peet, one of the artists.

Transformation, Integrity, Community

Next mural on our ongoing tour is Transformation, Integrity, Community, on a Concordia University building at NE 30th & Ainsworth. The brief RACC description:

This mural was painted by Concordia University students. It prominently displays an open book with the words transformation, integrity and community under a flowing tree. The mural is physically situated where the campus meets the community.

Ciao Vito mural

The mural tour is still on its extended visit to NE Alberta St. -- I thought that for a change I'd do a few in the same area instead of hopping randomly around the city. This time we're checking out the bright design outside Ciao Vito, an Italian restaurant at Alberta & NE 22nd. This is directly across the street from the To Oregon With Love mural we looked at a couple of posts ago. The old Murals of Portland site mentioned that this is by Tom Cramer, who also created the Machinery mural on Williams Ave. that we looked at recently. I don't know the exact date on the mural here, but a 2012 Willamette Week profile of Cramer seems to indicate it's at least as old as Machinery, and is much older than the current restaurant. So technically I probably shouldn't be calling it "Ciao Vito mural", but I haven't seen any other name for it, so I'll have to go with that.

Keep Your Chin Up

The next stop on the mural tour is on NE Alberta once again; in fact it's on the opposite side of the same building as the last installment (To Oregon With Love), and the artist behind that mural co-created the subject of this post too. So this is Keep Your Chin Up, painted for the Forest for the Trees event by Portland artists Blaine Fontana & Zach Yarrington, and Tokyo's Jun Inoue.

So there's sort of a local mural subgenre centered on upbeat, inspirational phrases: This one, obviously; the huge Everything is Everything in industrial SE Portland; the phrase "You are confined only by the walls you build yourself" on To Oregon With Love, and probably a few others I'm forgetting offhand. I have to say I have mixed feelings about this subgenre. I can't quite put my finger on what it is, but Alberta was the core of a historically black neighborhood that's now gentrifying at warp speed, displacing many longtime residents in the process. In this context, murals coaching people about unlimited personal achievement seem a bit... problematic, if you ask me.

To Oregon With Love

The ongoing mural tour returns to NE Alberta St. again (and not for the last time), and this time we're looking at To Oregon With Love, at the corner of NE 22nd & Alberta. This was created in 2014 by Blaine Fontana, who also did the cool Koi mural on SE Hawthorne (which has since been partially painted over, unfortunately). The RACC description:

This mural represents many of my favorite aspects about Portland and Oregon, but is collectively a quilt representing our independent spirit, our vibrant attitude and tremendous pride we all carry as Oregonians.

If the title sounds vaguely familiar, you might be thinking of "From Oregon With Love"/"Oregon kara ai", a 1980s-1990s Japanese TV drama set in Central Oregon. Some sort of corny heartwarming thing about an orphan from Japan who comes to live with his aunt and uncle in America. YouTube has part of a 1992 episode in which the now-teenage kid tries his hand at logging and driving a semi. I'm not actually recommending it, but here it is:

Tango Berretín mural

The next mural up is on SE Foster again, this time at the Tango Berretín dance studio at SE 63rd & Foster. The mural on the building was created in 2010 by artist Remedios Rapoport. (A short video of the mural being painted is on Vimeo here.) Its RACC description:

Tango Berretín is one of the only all-Argentine tango studios in the US and exists not only to teach the dance, but doubles as a cultural museum. Argentine filete, an art style native to Buenos Aires, and Argentine tango are culturally inseparable. The idea of this mural is to showcase this connection. Also, as both art forms are descendant from European traditions, and as the Foster-Powell neighborhood becomes more culturally diverse with many European immigrants, it seeks to embody the essence of the community. The mural with tango dancers’ feet on the dance floor and a bandoneón—an accordion-like instrument—playing tango shows what is happening inside the building. The colors and faux Buenos Aires look will create an enjoyable cultural exchange within the neighborhood by putting the vision out for all to see.

Pal-Do Market mural

The next mural up is the Pal-Do Market mural, outside of the eponymous Korean market at SE 61st & Foster. The RACC description:

This mural, located on a popular Korean market, is the first mural in Portland designed specifically on behalf of the Korean community. The artist, Una Kim, chose the image of a dragon because it is a powerful and positive symbol of good luck in Eastern art. Recognizing the role public art can have in recognizing specific communities, Kim sought out artists from differing minority groups residing in the surrounding neighborhood to complete small vignettes on the dragon using text and images to represent their cultures. She also invited a graffiti artist to contribute an element of street art to the mural.

The artist is a professor at Portland State, and she also created the Alive mural on SW 2nd, on the back side of Keller Auditorium.

Bridgetown Aikido mural

The next stop on the mural tour is at the Bridgetown Aikido building at NE 28th & Flanders, where we find a "monkey king" design created by Portland artists Jessie Weitzel & Brianna Farina. The RACC's old, defunct Murals of Portland website said there was a mural here, so I came looking for it, but I gather that one was replaced by the current mural at some point, since the listed artists are different.

Jolly Roger Skull mural

A while back I was putting together a post about the big Arch Angel mural at SE 12th & Madison, and noticed a brief aside in a writeup about it by Meggs, one of its co-creators: "Also had extra time to Jam with Gage Hamilton on a quick Skull piece on the side of the Jolly Roger Dive Bar, opposite the main mural!" (links added by me, btw.) I completely didn't notice this skull at the time. I would have noticed if only I'd turned around and looked behind me when taking Arch Angel photos. But I didn't, so I had to make another trip to go find it. And voila, here it is.

Giant Rabbit mural, NE Alberta

The mural tour is visiting NE Alberta again, and this time we're taking a look at the ginormous rabbit mural on the side of a building between 18th & 19th. This was painted by LA-based Brazilian artist Mateu Velasco for the 2014 Forest for the Trees event.

Given the subject matter, I have to put in a plug for an old blog post of mine about the movie "Night of the Lepus", a not-very-scary 70s monster movie starring DeForrest Kelley (Star Trek's Dr. McCoy). This was from the short period of time when I thought this might evolve into a blog about bad movies. Eventually I realized that writing about bad movies was a lot of work, or at least I made it into a lot of work, and this humble blog eventually morphed into today's photos-of-stuff format. The current all-mural thing is not a permanent feature of this blog, by the way; it's just the current project, which turned out to be a bit larger than anticipated. Eventually I'll move on and do something else, though I'm not sure yet what that might be. Maybe historic buildings or something like that. Dunno.

Lost Cause mural, SE 34th & Belmont

The next mural up is another Forest tor the Trees one, located on SE Belmont just east of 34th, at the far end of a parking lot facing Belmont. This was painted by The Lost Cause for last year's edition of the Forest for the Trees festival. The 2015 edition is coming up in a few weeks, with a whole new batch of murals to cover. I still have several unfinished posts about previous years' murals sitting around in Drafts. Hopefully I'll have those done & dusted before the new batch arrives, but you never know.

Dragon, SE Alder

Next mural up is this whatzit on the D&J Imports building on SE Alder, between 11th & 12th. wiredforsound32 says it's a dragon, and was painted by Klutch (who also did the large mural at Buckman Field). I think it looks more like a firebreathing Left Shark, but what do I know?

Nectar Cafe mural

The ongoing mural tour takes us back to the Hollywood district again. A few weeks ago we visited the Velo Cult mural, which faces a parking lot near NE 41st & Hancock. The same parking lot is also home to the smaller mural shown here, on the back of the Nectar Cafe, an artsy/healthy neighborhood coffee place. The mural's signed "Notes", which is basically impossible to Google (or Bing, if you prefer). Luckily the cafe's Facebook page had a couple of photos of the mural being painted, back in October 2013, and the captions explain that it was painted by artist Derek "Notes" Leitch. If I was in a grumpy mood (which I'm not), I might complain about people choosing more distinctive artist nicknames, but hey, I managed to follow the breadcrumbs this time, and I actually kind of like a little detective work now and then.

Machinery

The next Portland mural on our tour is one of the oldest ones I'm aware of. Machinery, at N. Williams & Shaver, was painted wayyy back in 1989 by Tom Cramer, and restored in 2003 just as gentrification started to take hold along Williams. Cramer later painted a similar mural at Ciao Vito on NE Alberta. (I have a draft post about that one, so it'll show up here eventually, but I couldn't begin to guess when.) Somewhere around town there's also an 80s-era vintage BMW that Cramer painted to look like Machinery.

If I hadn't known the date, I would have guessed it was from the late 1980s, or more likely inspired by the 80s. There was a common aesthetic in the 80s that involved lots of jumbled angles and primary colors (think Keith Haring for example), and it's kind of fun to run across a surviving example in the wild.

A bit about the design, from the 2003 Tribune article about the restoration project:

[Cramer's] original vision was to make something bold and colorful that could stand up to the neighborhood, he says. In the 1980s the area was harder-edged, and there was a lot of gang activity.

What Cramer continues to like about the mural today is that it's not trying to sell anything, either commercially or politically. But it still has an 'upbeat edginess.'

'It's improvised. It's like jazz, and it just kind of goes for it,' he says, adding that given its absence of a larger message, the mural probably wouldn't stand a chance of being approved by an officially sanctioned public art committee today.

NE 28th & Davis mural

Ok, our next stop on the mural tour is on NE 28th near Davis. This abstract design is signed "Seak Joker Daim" for the trio of artists who created it. The RACC's defunct Murals of Portland website [archive.org link] says it was painted back in 2003. That was during the time when City Hall was paranoid about allowing murals anywhere, for fear of having to allow billboard ads everywhere. So I'm not sure how this one came about in that climate. Joker is a Portland-based artist (interviews at Graffuturism & Futurism 2.0), while Daim and Seak are German and I gather are fairly prominent in the street art world over there. So maybe that's our answer: I could easily see 2003 Portland bending the usual strict rules a little if an artist was famous enough, for fear of getting a bad reputation in the art world.

Community Cycling Center mural

The next mural on our tour is a large RACC-sponsored one on the Community Cycling Center at 17th & Alberta. The RACC description:

The main focus of the mural is a child-powered apparatus, accompanied by a range of locomotion machines for children of all ages and varying physical abilities. The machines form a parade that includes a tandem bicycle, wheelchair, reclining bicycle, tricycle, unicycle, and other various bicycles. The imagery in this mural is inspired by the Community Cycling Center’s dedication as a non-profit service organization that teaches bicycle safety and provides bicycles to those in need.

This was created in 2006 by Robin Corbo (who also created the MIKE and BARK murals elsewhere in Portland), and restored in 2008 after the building was rammed by a truck.

BARK Mural

Next up on the mural tour is the huge BARK Mural, the jam-packed nature scene at the Firestone store at 4601 SE Powell. I ran across this in a Kay's Bird Club post, though I'm sure I would have noticed it on my own eventually if I was on Powell more often. A 2011 Tribune article about it interviewed lead artist Robin Corbo (who also created the MIKE mural near Lloyd Center, and a couple of others I haven't posted yet). The article explains that the mural was created in conjunction with BARK, a nonprofit that works to protect the Mt. Hood National Forest, which explains the subject matter here. I imagine "created in conjunction with" means the group supplied volunteers to help paint it. Here and there you can kind of tell that community volunteers were involved, and the sorta-infamous 'Art Wall of Shame' Tumblr ranted about some of the mural's more uneven details. Ranting about well-meaning volunteers seems kind of meanspirited if you ask me. I suppose there's just no satisfying some people.

A tire store on Powell may sound like a weird location for a saving-the-world nature mural, but this was a deliberate symbolic choice; Powell doubles as highway US 26, which (eventually) is the main road to Mt. Hood and points east. (You could keep going on US 26 all the way to Ogallala, Nebraska, if you were so inclined.)

There Is Always Hope

The next stop on the mural tour is in Portland's Old Town, on NW Flanders near 6th. This large Art Nouveau-styled mural was painted in May 2015 -- I ran across it while it was being painted, in fact -- by artist Lydia Emily, as part of a national awareness campaign for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Lydia Emily (who has MS herself) painted similar murals in Los Angeles, Austin, and Louisville, KY as part of this campaign. A 2014 LA Weekly interview discusses some of her other work in the LA area.

Animal Crossing NW mural

A while ago, I drove out to SE 72nd & Harold to track down the Mt. Scott-Arleta neighborhood's community mural, and I happened to park near a small neighborhood pet supply store. The entire front of the store was painted with a design full of cute animals. I figured since I was there anyway, I might as well take a couple of photos, so here they are.

Cartopia mural

Next thing on the mural tour is this design on a wall at Cartopia, the food cart pod at SE 12th & Hawthorne (which is home to a fantastic poutine cart, among other things). This was painted sometime in early 2015 or late 2014 by artist Dominatah, replacing a previous "Cash For Your Banksy" sign. I have photos of the old sign too but haven't posted them yet; murals seem to come and go faster than I can post about them. I suppose there are worse problems to have, blogwise, but it certainly isn't helping with the size of my Drafts folder.

Shop Small mural, SE 25th & Clinton

The next stop on our ongoing mural tour is at SE 25th & Clinton, where a bike-themed mural graces the side of a small commercial building (which apparently is not a bike shop, oddly enough). This was painted in 2014 by artist Stefan Ways, who also created the Green Hammer mural at SE 6th & Madison. The "Shop Small" on the bike basket is the key detail here: This was painted as part of a national campaign to promote Small Business Saturday, the day after Black Friday when you're supposed to do some holiday shopping at local small businesses.

In 2013, Ways painted another mural for the Shop Small campaign in Baltimore; that article mentions that the national campaign is actually sponsored by American Express, the huge global credit card company. (Their corporate Tumblr (which exists) has more photos of the Baltimore mural.) This is probably a way for them to try to reach millennials, who (it's widely believed) have less of an interest in "prestige" credit cards and other traditional status symbols than their elders did. The small business thing probably also reflects a desire to get more small businesses to take their card. Many businesses don't accept AMEX due to the higher merchant fees compared to Visa & MasterCard.

Anyway, long story short, when I started this post I figured this was yet another mural promoting our fair city's bike-based smug superiority, and/or a hip local bike store. I had no idea it was part of a national marketing push.

International Meat & Sausage mural

Here are a few photos of the painted sign outside the International Meat & Sausage / Overseas Taste market at SE 64th & Foster, next to Laurelwood Park. Business signs usually aren't part of this ongoing mural project, but this one's cute, and includes a cute cat, so I bent the rules for it, just this once. Sadly, until they invent Smell-o-Vision you won't get to enjoy the full effect; the whole surrounding neighborhood smells like spicy Eastern European sausages. I maintain this smells amazing, and the scent is a valuable public service, freely provided at no charge. Though I can see how non-carnivores (or people on diets) might beg to differ.

Tropical mural, SE 72nd & Harold

I stopped at SE 72nd & Harold to locate the Mt. Scott-Arleta Community Mural and noticed this tropical design painted on a building across the street. I don't know anything else about it, but it's kind of pleasant and I thought it was worth sharing.

JOIN mural

The next mural up is at NE 81st & Halsey, outside the JOIN homeless services agency. The agency moved to this location in 2010, and the mural was painted shortly afterward by artist Rodolfo Serna, with help from a couple of local youth programs. (The RACC's now-defunct Murals of Portland site [via archive.org] lists the credits as: El Programa Hispano students from Madison High School p:ear youth, JOIN staff, and Jakub )

Serna also created a mural in the 4600 block of SE Hawthorne in 2009, but I'm afraid you won't be seeing it here; the entire block is now home to a shiny new apartment building, because gentrification

Buckman Field mural

The next mural we're checking out is at Portland's Buckman Field Park, or rather on the back of a warehouse facing the park. This was created in summer 2014 by mural artist Klutch. Despite its size, this mural is a bit hard to find. The warehouse it's on is at the SW corner of the park, and the mural's down a slope from the running track, located behind some trees. If I'm not mistaken, the same warehouse is home to two Weston roses on the NE 12th side of the building. So, business in the front, party in the back, I guess.

Emerson School mural

The next mural we're visiting is at the Emerson School on Portland's North Park Blocks, where a cartoon mural version of the park blocks faces the school's parking lot. This was painted in 2012 by Mofee123. I've seen it called Elephant in the Park before but I don't know if that's an official or not. One fun thing about this mural is that the lot's "reserved parking" signs were integrated into the design. There's a closeup in the slideshow that shows this a lot better than the first photo does. (You did know my posts always have slideshows, right?)

In any case, the elephant in the maybe-title is the Da Tung sculpture, which a Chinese businessman donated to the city back in the early 2000s. My post about the elephant went up in 2008, and looking at it now I think my photos were better back then. I'd just gotten a swanky DSLR and I took it everywhere and used it all the time, whereas in 2015 the vast majority of my posts are just Samsung phone photos, mostly because the convenience of Flickr auto-upload is hard to beat. The rest of the post is pretty much just a link dump, though. I posted it in November, so I suspect I was trying to get a bunch of posts done in bulk to get to zero drafts by year's end. Zero drafts on New Years is my goal again this year, but I have so many of them right now I have no idea whether I'll be able to hit that goal. You probably don't believe me. If I could show you my Drafts folder you probably still wouldn't believe me. It's not just murals, either; they're just the low hanging fruit, so I've been doing a lot of them, and saving the others for later.

Alley mural, SE 6th & Yamhill

So our next stop on the mural tour is a little unusual. The block bordered by SE 6th & 7th Ave., & Yamhill & Taylor Sts. is home to several older buildings, with narrow alleys between them. Alleys like this in Portland are almost always fenced off, but these aren't (at least not yet), and the one facing 6th contains the mural you see here. It doesn't appear to be signed, and I don't know anything about it; I just happened to notice it while walking by, so I stopped for a few photos. It kind of looks like a Mayan design to me, but I'm not an expert on pre-Columbian art, and it could just as easily be an Aztec or Olmec pattern, or something invented for this mural for all I know.

Mt. Scott - Arleta Community Mural

The next stop on the mural tour is another neighborhood community one, the Mt. Scott - Arleta Community Mural, on the side of a building at SE 72nd & Harold. The RACC blurb:

Artist Tiago DeJerk and local teens have created this vibrant design depicting local community members, including a gardener, a person reading a book, a motorcyclist, an athlete, a musician, a person holding an umbrella and another walking a dog, a bicyclist, and a painter. The mural’s purpose is to unite and improve the community as well as promote diversity.

DeJerk's blog has a few posts about the mural project as slowly it came together.

Woodstock Community Mural

The next mural on our ongoing tour is the Woodstock Community Mural at SE 45th & Woodstock. This is a bit more ambitious than your usual community mural, and I really wish construction hadn't prevented me from getting a better look at it. At least there's a long RACC blurb describing what's on it:

Located in the heart of the Woodstock neighborhood business district, the mural is divided into three sections representing different themes of its location. The figures featured in each section are adorned with symbols of Greek Gods representing each theme. The left side of the mural represents Commerce, depicting a business owner in his store. He is surrounded by symbols of Hermes, the Greek god of Commerce—he is bearded, has a crocus flower, a winged hat, and a tattoo of the Caduceus, Hermes’ staff. The center of the mural is Education, featuring a student in a classroom and symbols of the goddess Athena, including an owl, an olive branch necklace, and a tiger lily. One of the highlights of education in Woodstock is the acclaimed Mandarin Immersion Program, so the neighborhood motto is translated into Mandarin on the chalkboard behind the student. The right side of the mural is the Outdoors and features an urban farmer. The Greek goddess of the harvest, Demeter, is referenced with a poppy headdress that mimics a radiate crown, a tattoo of a sheaf of wheat, a cornucopia, and a lotus staff. This final section also includes images of the nearby farmer’s market and Woodstock Park.

Links:
Article: http://portlandtribune.com/sb/75-features/204786-woodstock-finally-gets-its-neighborhood-mural-on-the-boulevard
Press Release: http://www.racc.org/public-art/new-mural-woodstock-neighborhood
Artist Website: http://www.threeredheadstudios.com/
Artist Website: http://www.heidischultz.com

Note that these photos were taken several months ago. I'm not sure what was being built on the lot next door, but it's entirely possible the mural's now obscured by another cookie-cutter apartment building or something. I haven't gone back to check.

Velo Cult mural

The ongoing mural tour takes us back to the Hollywood District, where this large mural graces the back of the Velo Cult bike shop, facing NE 41st, north of Hancock. This is a fairly recent mural, painted in summer 2014 by Andy Phillips. And yes, the store does serve beer, and sometimes has live music at night. This may sound like a gag from a certain Portland-based IFC show (which Shall Not Be Named), but it's a thing that exists within Portland city limits. I kind of hope the 'burbs never find out about this combo, though, because they'll turn it into Jagermeister shots at the local BMW dealer, featuring a Nickelback cover band.

Turtle Place mural

A few days ago, I did a theme day here and posted about a bunch of murals around downtown Vancouver, WA. It turns out I had at least one more VanWa mural post in my ginormous Drafts folder, so I figured I ought to post it before the others scroll off the front page. Until fairly recently, downtown Vancouver had its own "transit mall" along 7th St., a smaller version of the one in downtown Portland. Like Portland's bus mall, it acquired a bad reputation for loitering, drug deals, homelessness, etc., and in 2007 C-Tran (the Clark County mass transit agency) closed the bus mall and sent the buses somewhere else (I'm not entirely sure where they went). So this left the city with an unused half-block parcel of land downtown, which they decided to turn into a tiny park called "Turtle Place". Apparently C-Tran still owns the land here, and the park is meant to be temporary, to be removed once a shiny new Bus Rapid Transit line comes to town Real Soon Now. In the interim, they've taken a few steps to spruce up the mini-part a bit: There are a couple of interpretive signs, some old not-quite-vintage signs left over from the bus mall, a big steampunk water feature, and the gigantic mural you see here. The mural's just called Turtle Place, and was painted in 2010 by Guy Drennan, who also created a couple of the other Vancouver murals we looked at the other day. At first sight I actually thought this was a billboard; it doesn't help that "Turtle Place" sounds like it might be an upscale subdivision, or maybe a nursing home or something. But no, it merely tells you where you are. I suppose this is still better than having an ugly blank wall to look at here.

Proving Ground of the Mad Overlord

If you've been following this humble blog's ongoing mural project, you might be wondering where I find all this stuff. Locating good sources is a fun part of any blog project, and I've found several over the course of this one: The RACC website lists many (but not all) of the ones that belong to their "public art easement" program. There's a Tumblr that covers Weston rose murals, and the Forest for the Trees website tends to list everything created for their annual festival. And then there's a guy whose Flickr handle is "wiredforsound23", who posts geotagged photos of all sorts of obscure stuff. The guy clearly knows a lot of people in the street art world, since he often includes a title and artist with his photos. Though I get the impression he sometimes invents a title on his own if a mural doesn't have one. In any case, the mural we're looking at now is one he says is called Proving Ground of the Mad Overlord, by Acid Wizard, on the second story of a building at NE 29th & Alberta. If the artist's name sounds familiar, he(?) also painted a similar wizard face next to the smoking cat mural on N. Mississippi. I have a feeling this wizard face may be on the no-permit side of the street art world, which is a fun legal distinction that only matters in Portland. These photos were taken a few months ago, and for all I know it's been painted over by now. For all I know, the entire building's been replaced with luxury apartments by now, because NE Alberta.

Canned Heat Glass mural

Next mural up is this giant robot battle at Canned Heat Glass, a glassblowing equipment shop at SE 10th & Taylor. The mural's clearly signed "OASIS", but my Google-fu isn't coming up with an artist website or Tumblr to point you at. It might be out there somewhere, swamped by spurious results for Oasis and Canned Heat, the bands. So if any artists out there are reading this, here's my occasional reminder that I'd love to link to you, but first I need to be able to find you. Adding a little URL or Twitter handle to a corner of your mural never hurt anyone, hint, hint.

442 mural

The next mural on the ongoing tour is this group of soccer players outside the 442 soccer bar / Bosnian restaurant at SE 18th & Hawthorne. I don't know anything else about this one, unfortunately.

Some might argue that it doesn't really count as a mural when a business decorates an outside wall. I tend to err on the side of including things in this ongoing project, unless something's just a logo or an ad. And I might include it even then, if it's interesting enough.

Vancouver Brewery History mural

The next stop on today's VanWa mural tour is Brewery History, on a wall at Main St. & Evergreen Blvd. This was created by local artist Tamra Davisson for Vancouver's 2012 Summer of Murals event. The mural shows a few historic beer bottles from the city's erstwhile branch of the Lucky Lager empire and its various local predecessors. The mural's info page goes into this history further than I care to, and tracks all the corporate mergers and renamings over the years, up to 1985 when the Vancouver brewery closed its doors. The one interesting bit is that Star Brewing (one of the predecessor companies) briefly employed brewer Henry Weinhard before he moved on and started his own operation in Portland. During the 1990s there was a short-lived revival of the "Star Brewing" name, but that company was unrelated to the original one other than the name. I imagine I would have tried their products once or twice, but I have no specific memory of it. I've never heard anyone claim to miss them, or even remember them. At last report, circa 1996, they'd concluded they were done for in Portland, and were pulling up stakes to move to Phoenix where beer drinkers didn't know any better, I guess.

Kaiser Shipyard mural

Today's VanWa mural tour continues with Kaiser Shipyard at E. 7th & Main St. This was created by Ellen Clark for Vancouver's 2013 Summer of Murals. That page describes the design briefly:

In 1941 a beautiful morning begins with employees efficiently working on various phases of ship assembly. scaffolding and cranes stand high to assist progress of the finest ships built on the Columbia river. The SS Joseph N. Teal awaits loading. Built in ten days, the 10,500 ton Liberty ship is proudly launched from the Henry J. Kaiser Shipyard. Reference materials provided by Pat Jollota.

A 2013 Columbian article interviewed several local residents who had worked at Vancouver's Kaiser shipyard during World War II. As the article points out, for much of the war the shipyard produced amphibious landing ships and even small aircraft carriers, rather than the Liberty ship depicted here.

After Degas’ "Practicing at the Barre”

The next VanWa mural on today's tour is After Degas’ "Practicing at the Barre”, outside the Columbia Dance school at E. 17th & Broadway. As the name indicates, this mural was inspired by a famous Degas painting (now owned by the Met museum in NYC). The mural was painted in 2009 by Guy Drennan. Its Clark County mural page describes it briefly: "Clients like the Degas piece, and this illustrates what the building offers to students of dance. Painted with Kelly Hytrek."

Vancouver Farmers Market mural

Our next VanWa mural is one at 6th & Main St honoring the Vancouver Farmers Market. The market itself is held at Esther Short Park, a few blocks further west, so I'm not sure why they needed a mural about it at this spot, but hey. Anyway, it was painted for Vancouver's 2013 Summer of Murals by Travis Czekalski of the Portland-area duo Rather Severe. Their work has appeared here once before, a mural on NE Sandy created for the 2014 Forest for the Trees event. You can kind of see a family resemblance, though Vancover's mural is a bit less psychedelic, aside from the walking ear of corn.

Chkalov's Landing mural

The next VanWa mural on today's tour honors an episode in Vancouver aviation history. In June 1937, Soviet pilot Valery Chkalov made the first nonstop intercontinental flight over the north pole, starting in Moscow and landing at Vancouver's Pearson Field. This flight is now often forgotten in the US (except for Vancouver), but Chkalov remains a national hero in Russia, along the lines of Charles Lindbergh here. Chkalov's flight wasn't just a publicity stunt, either; modern airline flights between Europe and North America generally follow near-polar "great circle" routes (this being the shortest distance between two points on a sphere), so this pioneering effort turned out to be of great practical importance.

Vancouver remembers the event with a few commemorations around town. There's monument to Chkalov next to the airport, and a major road nearby is named in his honor. And then there's this giant mural downtown, at Main St. & Evergreen Blvd, which was created in 2008 by Guy Drennan and Linda Stanton. Unusually, one wing of Chkalov's ANT-25 extends out over the windows of an adjacent building.

Fort Vancouver mural, Main St.

Today I'm going to post another batch of murals from downtown Vancouver, WA. VanWa has a lot of murals around its downtown core, thanks in part to a group called the Clark County Mural Society. Apparently one of the things they do is an annual Summer of Murals, in which several new ones are painted around town, and prizes are awarded. The mural we're looking at right now depicts historic Fort Vancouver (which is just east of downtown, on the other side of I-5), and was painted for the 2014 Summer of Murals by Michael Feliz. It took third place overall, as well as the "People's Choice" award. It's located on the wall of a financial planning firm at the corner of 12th & Main St.

Share-It Square

The next painted intersection on our ongoing tour is Share-It Square, at SE 9th & Sherrett in Sellwood. (The name's a pun, see?) This is Portland's first and oldest painted intersection, dating all the way back to the late '90s. I described a bit of its history in my first post on City Repair intersections, about the one at SE 15th & Alder. Here's the relevant passage, so I don't have to repeat myself:

The first one was Share-It Square, the intersection of SE 9th & Sherrett (hence the name), down in the Sellwood neighborhood. As this was a strange new thing back in 1997, the neighborhood first had to convince the city that painting a lightly used residential intersection wouldn't be the apocalypse. The apocalypse didn't happen, and street graphics have multiplied since then.

Piazza di Wilbur

The next painted intersection we're visiting is Piazza di Wilbur, at N. Holman St. & Wilbur Ave. This one was created in 2012, sponsored by the Overlook neighborhood association. This was around the same time Overlook Feng Shui went in at the N. Concord/Failing/Melrose/Overlook intersection. A May 2012 Oregonian article mentions both intersections, and includes a short video clip about Piazza di Wilbur.

Elsewhere on the interwebs, I found what seems to be a project website, though it's private and members-only, for whatever reason. The piazza is also listed on "World-Wide Labyrinth Locator", thanks to the little maze in the middle. And someone's Prezi presentation about City Repair intersections describes the design as "some kind of vortex". Cryptic private website, mysterious maze/vortex in the middle of an intersection, suspiciously foreign-sounding name... Obviously there's some sort of fnord intricate conspiracy going on. Aliens and bigfoot and fluoride are almost certainly involved, if you ask me.

Community Blooming, NE 85th & Milton

The next painted intersection on our (very occasional) tour is Community Blooming, at N. 85th & Milton, out near Rocky Butte. It turns out there's another painted intersection just one block north at 85th & Beech, but I didn't realize that at the time, and I don't have photos of it yet. In any case, the two intersections were first painted in May 2014 (which was the subject of a short film), and received their first annual repainting just a couple of weeks ago.

Urban Garden mural

The large mural shown here is on the back of a building on NE MLK, between Mason & Shaver. I've seen it called "Urban Garden", but that's really all I know about it. These photos were taken from Garfield Ave, behind the building.

Main St. Day Spa mural, Vancouver WA

The ongoing mural tour heads back to central Vancouver, WA, near W. 20th & Main St., where a gap between a couple of buildings has been transformed into a twee little garden spot. There are a few benches, some flowers, and a large mural on the side of the Main St. Day Spa building. The Clark County Mural Society's mural map doesn't list anything north of 19th, so I don't know the story behind this one.

I suppose the map ends where it does because this area isn't considered part of downtown Vancouver. My VanWa geography is kind of hazy, but I gather the business district along this stretch of Main St. is called "Uptown Village", and the city's neighborhood office says Main is the line between the Arnada and Hough neighborhoods. So now you know as much as I do.

I have a sorta-theory that Portland's next hip (and hyped) area is going to be around the historic mini-downtown of one of the 'burbs. People are increasingly being priced out of Portland itself, and demand is such that whenever a new part of the city becomes "trendy" it instantly fills up with cookie cutter luxury apartments. So maybe it's time to ask which suburb gets to be the Brooklyn to Portland's Manhattan. Vancouver has to be a leading candidate, although it loses points for the commute into downtown Portland.

Bird mural, N. Williams Ave.

The next mural on the tour is on rapidly gentrifying N. Williams Ave., near Shaver. This large bird mural is on an outside wall of the TreeHouse Childrens Boutique. I like the style of this one; it's too bad I can't find any info on who created it.

Mini-Mozarts mural

Next mural up is outside the Mini-Mozarts preschool on Main St. in downtown Vancouver, WA. Unusually, the mural was crowdfunded back in 2011 with an Indiegogo campaign. The Indiegogo page says the painting was done by The Space Art Collective, an arts organization based nearby. Sadly, going by the group's social media accounts, they lost their space and went defunct just a few months after painting this mural.

Expanse

The next mural on our ongoing tour is Expanse, on the Allport Editions building on NE Lawrence Ave., just south of Sandy. This mural was created by Seattle artist Mary Iverson for the 2014 Forest for the Trees event. The Allport Editions Facebook page includes a making-of video, if you're curious how something like this comes together.

(Regarding the weird address, Lawrence is a short diagonal street at the NW corner of the weird Laurelhurst street grid. It's more or less equivalent to 26th Ave, if you're trying to visualize where this is at.)

The Future Will Be Hairy

The next mural on our tour is The Future Will be Hairy, on the upper story of a building in the 2100 block of NE Sandy. It's another Forest for the Trees mural, from the inaugural 2013 festival. That Oregonian article has much better photos than mine; I wish I knew where they were taken from, since I couldn't find a better angle than what you see here. Anyway, the mural's a collaboration by three artists whose work has appeared here before: Zach Yarrington, who created the huge Everything is Everything in SE Portland; Gage Hamilton, who did the DeSoto Building mural for the 2014 Forest for the Trees; and Madsteez, who collaborated on the Clyde Drexler mural at SE 9th & Clay. A page at MadeByBand has the inevitable bunch of photos of the mural being painted. A thing I didn't realize until now is that the 2013 festival also featured a limited edition line of clothing & shoes. Apparently you could buy a "The Future Will Be Hairy" bow tie, or even custom Chuck Taylors. That sounds odd, but we're already putting our old airport carpet pattern on every imaginable consumer product, so it's a bit late to complain about some mural-themed high tops.

Rather Severe mural, NE Sandy

Next mural up is on the Pulse PDX building in the 3600 block of NE Sandy. This was painted by Portland duo Rather Severe for the 2014 Forest for the Trees event. It actually took me a while to find this one, despite the fact that it takes up a whole wall. I was walking from the west, and it's on an east-facing wall, so I didn't notice it at first. A couple of blocks further along, I decided it must've been painted over already & turned around, and there it was. This mural project's been going on for months now, and this still happens to me all the time.