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.
Sunday, May 29, 2016
La Sirenita mural
Mural outside the La Sirenita taqueria on NE Alberta, by Portland artist Pablo Garcia. He was actually busy painting it when I wandered by (which kind of tells you how long this has been floating around in my drafts folder). I suppose I could have stopped and said hi and asked a few questions or something, but I admit I'm not really in the interviewing business here at this humble blog. I've gone over a decade without ever doing one, and I don't think I'd be very good at it if I tried to start now. Even if I wanted to, which I don't, because antisocial.
Port City Gallery mural
Next up, a large mural outside the Albertina Kerr Center's Port City Gallery at N. Williams & Thompson. I managed to locate someone's Instagram photo of it that lists the artists who created the mural. It turns out several of them also worked on the Keep Our Rivers Clean mural on SE Powell.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
World's Greatest
Continuing with the current theme of MAX line public art, here are a few photos of World's Greatest, Bill Will's giant trophy thing at the Fair Complex/Hillsboro Airport MAX station.
I cut MAX art a lot of slack, possibly too much, but this one has always reminded me of a cheesy 1990s home decor knickknack grown to enormous size. This must have seemed like a good idea back in 1998 when the MAX line went in. I suppose the trophy fits because of the whole county fair thing (though I think the fair gives out ribbons, not trophies), but if you're really going for a giant 90s look, a 20 foot tall copy of one of those winged cat gargoyles would have been a lot cooler. Relatively speaking.
Heart Beacon
The next installment of our ongoing public art project is Heart Beacon, by Joe O'Connell and Blessing Hancock, located at the Emergency Services building next to Ed Benedict Park. The artists' description of the piece:
Heart Beacon is an interactive enclosure of light, color and sound that senses and artistically displays the heartbeats of visitors who lay their hands on the piece. This highly interactive sculpture takes the literal and metaphoric ‘pulse’ of the Portland community. The sculpture takes inspiration from the life-saving mission of the Emergency Coordination Center.
The heartbeat widgetry just made a weird banging noise when I tried it, and I didn't notice any sort of light show. But I didn't know what the device was for at the time, and I didn't see any instructions, so it's entirely possible I was doing it all wrong. Either that or I was doing it right but the machine got confused by my heartbeat and was trying to warn passersby that an alien walks among them. At least the heartbeat thing shows I'm probably not a vampire, so there's that, I guess.
Three Creeks One Will
Next thing we're looking at today is Three Creeks One Will, the giant blue cylinder in front of Beaverton's new City Hall building, next to the Beaverton Central MAX station. The city's Public Art Tour Map describes it:
The art of Devin Laurence Field brings together universal and archetypal symbolism, the vernacular of a given site or culture, and natural forms to communicate ideas about the evolution of the complex relationship between the built environment and the natural world.
The name sort of weirds me out, for some reason, even if the One Will isn't doing any triumphing. Anyway, the current City Hall building was once home to Open Source Development Labs, which was meant to become the center of the Linux operating system universe, putting Beaverton on the map next to Microsoft's Redmond and Apple's Cupertino. It turned out the Linux universe didn't really need or want a center, so that effort eventually fell by the wayside. And many years before that, the Beaverton Central area was home to a municipal sewer plant. The city eventually concluded that a centrally located sewer plant wasn't popular among people with noses (a key voting demographic), so they moved it and the land sat empty for a few decades until the long-troubled Beaverton Central project came along.
Intersection
Next up is Intersection, a sculpture by Michael Passmore located at the SE Clinton/12th Ave. MAX station. TriMet's Orange Line art guide describes it: "Landmark sculpture constructed of repurposed freight rail references the historic impact of transportation infrastructure on the neighborhood."
Aril
A few photos of Aril, the tall red sculpture at the new PSU/OHSU lab building next to the South Waterfront MAX stop. Aril was created by German artist Christian Moeller, whose website describes it thusly:
The idea that served as inspiration for this sculpture on the grounds of the new Life Science Building of Portland’s State University was the highly geometrical and abstract visual representations of molecular structures. Like a tree, the sculpture will consist of a trunk and branches made of cylindrical tubes holding one hundred colored spheres.
A quick note for pedants: I've tagged this post "orangeline" since it's next to the new MAX line, but the sculpture was actually funded as part of the university building, not the MAX line. So it's not MAX art in the strictest sense, but I figured people should be able to find this post even if they don't know who paid for the art. I just thought I should point this out before anyone complains & tries to out-pedant me. Which does occasionally happen, never successfully.
.PSU Art Annex mural
Next up is a mural on the back of Portland State's Art Annex building, facing 4th Avenue near Lincoln. There doesn't seem to be anything about this one on the interwebs, unfortunately; the temporary art for the MAX Orange Line opening included a mural, but it was a different one located in the vacant lot behind the main art building.
Questions for Humans: Curiosity Wall
Next mural up is titled Questions for Humans: Curiosity Wall, one of a series of four "Questions for Humans" murals by Gary Hirsch located around SE Portland (I have yet to locate the other three). This is an RACC-sponsored project, and their info page for the mural includes a set of user instructions:
Hello humans! We are Bots from a distant galaxy that have arrived with wonder and curiosity about your species. To help us understand humans, we have posed a series of questions throughout your city. Operating Instructions:
- Stand in front of a Bot and ask someone to take your picture (or take a “selfie”).
- Think about your answer to the question being asked by the Bot that you are posing with. when you have your answer, post it along with the photo of you in front of the Bot to your human social media platform of your choice (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter) include #qs4humans and #botjoy. Check in online to see how the resulting community portrait is forming.
I'm afraid I kind of disobeyed the instructions, and just took photos of the mural instead of taking selfies, because that's just how I roll. The intergalactic bots are just going to have to deal.
Naked Bike Ride mural, 2500 se 8th
Next up is a gigantic mural on a warehouse at SE 7th & Division Place (though the street address says 8th). This was created last year by New Zealand artists BMD, in honor of the annual World Naked Bike Ride, which has become a huge event in Portland in recent years. I realize you didn't ask, but I've never participated in said ride. It's not that I'm squeamish or embarrassed or anything; it's just that I'd be too afraid of crashing -- road rash, stuff getting caught in gears, that sort of thing.
mural, 1005 sw park ave.
Mural at SW Park & Salmon, by Rustam QBic. Incidentally, the other side of this building is home to the sole US location of a Japanese izakaya (pub) chain. It's pretty good.
mural, 412 sw 12th
Mural at SW 12th & Stark, by by Troy Lovegates & Paige Wright. Wright also created one of the murals at SE 23rd & Morrison for the 2014 edition of the festival. I had this one confused with the nearby mural at 12th & Washington and had the artists backwards, but I think I've got the credits right now, & I've corrected the other post.
mural, 524 se ash
Mural at SE Ash & MLK, by Peruvian artist Jade Rivera, near the "Nothing Good Comes Easy" mural we looked at a couple of posts ago.
mural, 417 se 11th
Mural at SE 11th & Oak by Blaine Fontana & David Rice, on the same building as a couple of other murals we've looked at before. Similar to how some people can't stop with just the one tattoo, I guess. Though I imagine these buildings will be torn out and replaced with luxury condos in a few years, and the analogy sort of breaks down at that point.
Nothing Good Comes Easy
Next up is a giant mural of the words "Nothing Good Comes Easy", on the upper stories of a building at SE Grand & Pine. This was created for the 2015 Forest for the Trees event by Ola Volo & Zach Yarrington. I'm not a huge fan of the "ginormous motivational affirmation" style of mural, but they've been proliferating across the city in recent years, so obviously someone likes them.
mural, 706 se mlk
A 2015 Forest for the Trees mural by Aaron Glasson & Celeste Byers, located at SE MLK & Alder, outside the River City Bicycles store.
mural, 1129 sw washington
A large mural at SW 12th & Washington, created for the 2015 Forest for the Trees event by Michael Reeder.
The Journey Itself is Home
Next up is a 2015 Forest for the Trees mural by Josh Doll, located way out at SE 50th & Franklin, a couple of blocks north of the Foster & Powell intersection. I'm not usually a big fan of murals that feature big sorta-inspirational sayings, but this one gets partial credit for including a dog. This area isn't exactly suburbia, but the intersection does feature a Taco Bell, a Taco Time, and a Burger King -- and I have to admit I ran across the mural by accident while making a drive-thru taco run. I realize Real Portlanders are supposed to eat nothing but artisanal kale-quinoa nuggets, washed down with artisanal kombuchatinis. Corporate tacos are just so downscale and inauthentic, after all. But hey, this is a pseudonymous blog, I can admit it here and nobody can pin it on me.
mural, 2505 se 11th
A 2015 Forest for the Trees mural by Insa, John Gourley, & Zach Johnsen, located on the back side of the Ford Building at SE 11th & Alder. The building was originally a Ford car factory (albeit a rather small one), believe it or not.
Saturday, April 30, 2016
april keepalive
This is another one of those periodic "I need to post at least once in this calendar month" posts. I actually haven't posted anything since early March, and it's May tomorrow, so this is close to the maximum possible time gap without breaking the decade-long run. I actually have a slightly different alibi this time; I was on vacation for a couple of weeks in March (and I've barely sorted the photos from that, so there'll be a few Hawaii photosets to post whenever I get around to it). Then I got sidetracked working on a fun open source project that I'd love to link to if I wasn't trying to keep blogging/social media and professional stuff separate. Suffice it to say it was fun, and it took up a lot of spare time that might've otherwise been spent here. Maybe I'll get back into this thing again in May.
To be honest I'm sort of trying to decide whether to just bulk post the contents of my drafts folder as-is, just so I can stop stressing over it.
To be honest I'm sort of trying to decide whether to just bulk post the contents of my drafts folder as-is, just so I can stop stressing over it.
Sunday, March 06, 2016
sunflower mural, se 9th & ankeny
Next mural up is a large sunflower design on SE 9th, between Ash & Ankeny, outside an educational carpet company (which is something that exists, turns out). This was created in July 2013 by Jose Solis (the FB post's external photo embed looks dead, unfortunately). Solis's work has appeared here once before: He also created the murals at SE Portland's Andy & Bax store.
Saturday, March 05, 2016
mural, 2424 n mississippi
Here's a mural I ran across recently on Mississippi Ave. just north of Interstate, at the end of a fenced lot on the Widmer Brewing campus. I haven't been able to find out anything about this one. The internet has failed me yet again. Maybe nobody else has noticed it?
SE 130th Place & Ramona
Yet another painted intersection, this one wayyyy out at SE 130th Place & Ramona, a bit west of Powell Butte. Unfortunately this one's a bit worse for wear, so I only took this one photo. An artist involved in the project has a page up about it, with photos from when the book-and-butterfly design was first painted in May 2013.
SE 37th & Bybee
Another painted intersection, this time a fish-and-rainbow design at SE 37th & Bybee. 37th is not really a street here, rather just a stretch of unused city right-of-way. So the intersection is basically a weird wide spot in the road with an island in the middle. The 2015 City Repair guide explains they've been slowly transforming the unused stretch of 37th into a "food forest and garden" over the last few years. I didn't really notice anything that looked like a food forest or garden when I was there, but gardens are never very photogenic in late winter anyway.
SE 86th & Glenwood
Painted intersection with a flowers-and-bees pattern at SE 86th & Glenwood, a couple of blocks south of Duke St. This is another new painted intersection, first painted in June 2015, sponsored by a couple of local community groups.
SE 28th Pl. & Pardee
Painted intersection at SE 28th Place & Pardee, next to a small private school. This one looks quite old and beat up, but apparently it was just painted in July 2015. So I suppose the winter hasn't been kind to it. The link goes to the neighborhood association's painting project & shows what the design is supposed to be: A woman riding a bike, with buildings and trees in the background.
rhino mural, 1308 se morrison
Rhinoceros mural on SE Morrison, outside a trendy cocktail place a bit e. of SE 12th. This was painted in August 2015 by Josh Keyes, for the annual Forest for the Trees mural event.
Monday, February 29, 2016
keepalive
This is another of those posts in which I complain I've been way too busy at $REAL_JOB this month to put together any real blog posts. And so, once again, I'm doing a placeholder in order to not mess up my unbroken at-least-one-post-per-month streak that dates back to December 2005. Which is important because of reasons. In retrospect I probably ought to have skipped a month early on so it wouldn't matter later, but how was I to know? On a more positive note, this is the very first time I've ever posted anything here on February 29th. It's true. I went back and checked and everything.
Sunday, January 24, 2016
Alumni Fountain, OHSU
Here are a few photos of OHSU's Alumni Fountain, located in the plaza in front of Mackenzie Hall. A plaque at the base explains that it was a gift from the alumni association for the school's 75th anniversary in 1962, and it was designed by architect Lewis Crutcher. The fountain wasn't actually installed until August 1963, though; an Oregonian article about the new fountain proudly noted it was the first new public fountain in the city for over 40 years (and what the previous one might have been doesn't come to mind immediately). The article continues:
Pumps will send a 25-foot gusher into the air, then the water will flow back into the basin through 10 cuts in the upper side of the fountain, so there will be a dual sound. Colored lights will play upon the fountain at night.
The fountain is clearly not sending a 25-foot gusher into the air in these photos. OHSU has some vintage photos of the fountain online, and it was obviously spraying higher in 1968 than it is now. So they must have dialed it back at some point. Looking at the old photos, I suspect you wouldn't have wanted to walk past it on a windy day. I haven't visited the fountain at night, so I have no idea whether the colored lights are still there or not.
I wasn't familiar with Crutcher's work, but the interwebs have a few interesting tidbits. His 2000 obit in the Daily Journal of Commerce is largely devoted to his 1950s campaign against garish billboards and neon signs, cluttered sidewalks, and other civic ugliness. As this was decades before PowerPoint was invented, Crutcher illustrated his campaign with watercolors of European landmarks blanketed with the commercial clutter of 1950s Portland. The February-March 1959 issue of Old Oregon (the UO alumni magazine) [PDF] included an editorial by Crutcher about the many ills of the modern city, illustrated with a few more of these paintings. (Incidentally, his complaint about utility companies' hack-and-slash tree pruning practices is something that hasn't really improved over the last 60-odd years.) The city sign code largely adopted his ideas after a few years, although as fate would have it the few neon signs that survived are now seen as civic treasures to be protected at all costs.
Another aspect of his anti-ugliness campaign has survived the test of time a bit better: At some point, decades earlier, the city had decided that all Portland bridges must be painted black, no exceptions. The Broadway Bridge was black, the Ross Island was black, along with the Hawthorne and all the others. Crutcher had the bright idea that maybe a little variety wouldn't kill us, which led to the range of colors we see today. Except the Steel Bridge, which is owned by a railroad and not the city, and frankly looks like it hasn't been repainted since before the current color scheme went into effect.
Other projects Crutcher was involved in included restoration work at Skidmore Fountain Plaza and the Railway Exchange Block (which is currently being transmogrified into yet another boutique hotel), and the design of Memorial Coliseum. As an architecture student in the 1940s, he designed the houses for an early desegregated subdivision in Claremont, CA, which are now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Colonial Soldier, SW Barbur & Huber
Next stop on our public art tour takes us a bit off the beaten path. If you're heading out of Portland on SW Barbur, right after the tangled intersection with Capitol Highway and I-5 you might catch a quick glimpse of a statue of a Colonial minuteman, bravely guarding the low-rise brick offices of a local mortgage company. I noticed this a couple of times on rare trips out to the 'burbs and made a note to check it out, which I did on a subsequent rare trip. (It's at SW Barbur & Huber St.; the geotag for this post points at the exact location.) The statue's base includes an inscription "Carlton Bell 1976", along with the names of a few assistants, which I can't quite make out in my photos, unfortunately.
The only info I've found about this statue comes from an almost decade-old Portland Public Art post. Or rather, from the comments to the post. Several comments are by people who had known Bell in years past and had googled around trying to figure out what ever became of him. Go read the whole thread. It's kind of fascinating. And be sure to look at the dates: The post is from April 2006, but comments keep trickling in; the most recent one (as of right now) is dated July 2015.
I wish internet comment sections worked like that more often. I still get occasional (and generally interesting) comments to my original Kelly Butte post (which also dates to 2006), but that's pretty much the only example I've got here. Alhough to be honest this humble blog often goes months without a single comment, even to the most recent posts. I prefer to think that's because I've done such a thorough job that nobody has anything more to add. That may even be true sometimes...
Saturday, January 23, 2016
The Bearer
Our next art stop is on the OHSU campus again: This time we're looking at The Bearer, a small James Lee Hansen sculpture lurking in the shrubbery outside Baird Hall. The Maryhill Museum did a retrospective of his work in 2014, including a study for The Bearer dated 1974. Which I imagine gives us a rough date for the final product too.
I've probably said this before, but Hansen's style somehow always reminds me of a 1960s science fiction paperback cover. It's not fashionable contemporary art in 2016, by any stretch of the imagination, but I've sort of warmed up to this look over time. In any case, I think we can all agree the location's doing it no favors. An old Portland Public Art post noted it and assumed it was somebody's little vanity project:
This little thing peeks out of the bushes in front of Baird. No tag, no nothing. I bet a dollar it’s a Arts & Crafts Society project a beloved Dean or Director made while in mid-life crisis. Prove me wrong. About two and a half feet high, bronze, late 1970’s by the style. Hmm. A cubist mother pushing a futurist baby stroller.
A commenter took the bet and explained that it was actually by a (locally) famous artist. No word on whether the promised dollar actually changed hands.
Scribner II
For the past year and change, new posts here have been about Portland murals to the near-exclusion of everything else. I think it's gotten a little monotonous, frankly, so I think I'm going to switch gears and work through some of the non-mural stuff I've had lying around for a while. I'd been planning on doing those after I got to zero mural posts in Drafts, but I think I could use a little variety right about now.
The previous big project here (if you remember back that far) involved tracking down public art around the Portland area (specifically excluding murals, at first, on the grounds that there are a whole lot of them around, and more all the time). As part of that project, I made a trip up to the OHSU campus on Marquam Hill, since the state's medical school has a ginormous art collection, including a few outdoor sculptures scattered around here and there.
The example we're looking at this time is Scribner II, a rusty Lee Kelly whatzit from the 70s in his usual chunky style, at a bus stop across the street from the Nursing School. This one reminds me of Kelly's Arlie outside the Portland Art Museum, which looks kind of like Scribner II up on stilts. I couldn't find a lot on the interwebs about this one; it only merited a brief mention in an old Portland Public Art post about OHSU art: "There’s an old rusty Lee Kelly in front of the nursing school, and another shiny one in front of the VA. Both hideous." (The one at the VA Hospital is Aeolian Columns, seen here last April.) That mention wasn't much of a clue, but I eventually located it in Street View, and later tracked it down in person. And here it is, in all its semi-groovy 70s glory. On the plus side, if you're waiting for a bus here and happen to cut or scrape yourself on Scribner II, you can just pop across the street for your tetanus shot. I dunno, maybe the whole reason it's here is to help drive demand for tetanus shots.
The only other mention of this sculpture I've seen anywhere on the net is a vintage photo from the Pacific Northwest College of Art, with Scribner II squatting in a snowy field, and that page contains no further information about the thing. So I can't explain the title, I'm afraid. I imagine it either refers to Charles Scribner II, the 19th Century publishing magnate, or there's a Scribner I lurking out there somewhere.
Cherry Trees @ NW 19th & Lovejoy (2016 Edition)
Every January, I pay a visit to the two cherry trees at NW 19th & Lovejoy, just as they're starting to bloom. These two trees bloom absurdly early for a cherry tree here; it'll be weeks before the usual early-spring flowers like daffodils and crocuses appear, and normal cherry trees don't do their thing until April or so.
At first I couldn't explain this phenomenon. Then I blamed it on global warming. Then I noticed a maple tree on the same block that doesn't lose its leaves over the winter, and blamed it on some combination of global warming and a weird one-block microclimate. When I posted this year's photos on Twitter right after taking them, someone pointed out that there's an oddball variety of cherry tree from Japan that normally blooms around now. Which is a disappointingly un-magical sort of explanation, if you ask me, though I suspect it may be the correct one. Though that still doesn't explain the weird maple tree down the block. So I have two competing hypotheses now:
- We're seeing the combination of three independent factors: Early-blooming variety, weird microclimate, and global warming.
- The maple tree is an oddball cold-climate variety that barely notices Pacific Northwest winters, there's no weird one-block microclimate after all, and whoever planted the trees here may have done it to troll people.
I have no idea which of the two is more likely.
Thursday, January 07, 2016
Ristretto Bound
Back when I was taking photos of the Scrap Mural and Machinery for this humble blog's ongoing mural project, I noticed a cool painting of racing bicycles hanging outside a building at N. Williams & Shaver. I took a couple of photos of it since I was in the area anyway, and filed them away in case I ever ran across any info about it. Later, while I was researching a different post, I ran across a 2012 BikePortland article that mentioned it in passing. So this is called Ristretto Bound, and it's by artist Amanda Houston. I like it a lot.
The BikePortland article was about a proposed mural honoring Major Taylor, an early 20th Century African-American bike racer. The proposal hasn't moved forward yet as of early 2016.
Tuesday, January 05, 2016
El Pajaro Cantor
Next up is El Pajaro Cantor ("The Songbird"), on the side of a building in the 2900 block of NE Alberta. The old Murals of Portland site said this was created by Judee Moonbeam and Dave England in 1998, around the time "Alberta Arts District" first became a real thing. (It's just a luxury condo marketing term these days, but that's a whole other story.)
Elsewhere on the interwebs, a Waymarking page for the mural has a less obstructed view of it than my photos, from a better angle. I'm not sure what the mural's original context was, but as of 2015 it faced the outdoor patio of an Iraqi restaurant.
Peace Mural, SE Belmont
Next up, we're visiting the Peace Mural at SE 30th & Belmont, outside Two Rivers Aikikai (an aikido studio). This was created by artist Christa Grimm; her website has a copyright notice of 2012, but I'm not sure whether that's for the mural or the website itself.
Monday, January 04, 2016
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.
ripples, airport way bridge, columbia slough
Since it's cold and icy outside right now, I thought I'd dig out something a little more summery to post. Here are a couple of Vine videos from the Columbia Slough Natural Area. At one point along the trail, a concrete bridge carries NE Airport Way over the Columbia Slough, and the trail goes underneath it. When the sun's at the right angle, ripples on the placid slough are reflected up onto the underside of the bridge, and voila.
Musicians Union Local 99 mural
Our next Portland mural is the Musicians Union Local 99 mural, on the union's building at NE 20th & Sandy. The RACC description:
This project was designed to bring higher visibility to the artistic community and foster dialogue across boundaries. Within the mural, images of jazz, European, classical, bluegrass, rock ‘n roll, hard rock, hip hop, rhythm and blues, reggae, Asian, Latino, and African influences, provide opportunities for dynamic composition.
This was created in 2006 by artists Isaka Shamsud-Din, Joe Cotter, Hector Hernandez, & Baba WaguƩ DiakitƩ. Shamsud-Din also created Now is the Time, the Time is Now (which we visited a couple of posts ago), and we looked at Cotter's Buckman Community Mural back in August 2014, as this ongoing project was just getting underway.
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.
Now is the Time, the Time is Now
Next up on the mural tour is Now is the Time, the Time is Now, at the Irvington Covenant Church at NE MLK & Shaver. This was created back in 1989 by artists Isaka Shamsud-Din, Paul Odighizuwa, Charlotte Lewis, and Kathy Pennington. The RACC description:
This mural was created as part of a neighborhood mural project designed to train and employ promising young artists, enhance the cityscape, foster a sense of community pride and aid in revitalization efforts in the area. ‘Now is the Time, the Time is Now’ is about education, the importance of history, the identity of the African American community and knowledge of where they came from.From a 1989 Oregonian article about the then-new murals:
The mural was created with a second companion mural on the south side of the building that was regrettably removed in fall 2009 due to necessary repair of the building.
The first two of what Shamsud-Din hopes will be more than a dozen murals along King Boulevard were dedicated Dec. 18. They grace the north and south walls of the American Contractors Center owned by Bruce Broussard, who was the first "to take a chance on us," Shamsud-Din says.
The north-facing mural was designed and painted by Shamsud-Din. It features a large portrait of Martin Luther King Jr. surrounded by other faces, among them Nelson and Winnie Mandela, South African expatriate playwright Selaelo Maredi, and muslim leader Elijah Muhammad.
The south mural was painted by artists Kathy Pennington, Charlotte Lewis, and Paul Odighizuwa and depicts the progression of African heritage from ancient Egypt to contemporary children using computers.
Shamsud-Din hopes the project will become self-sufficient and eventually expand to other parts of the city. Similar projects in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Philadelphia have caused a reduction in graffiti and initiated a visible increase in civic pride in the neighborhoods.
"I wanted to start something that would give African-American artists in Portland some exposure," he says. "It would be a lot more fun here if it wasn't such a whites-only art club."
Note that Nelson Mandela was still imprisoned by South Africa's apartheid government when these murals went up, and many Western politicians still insisted he was some sort of scary Communist.
As of 2015 the south wall of the building was home to a simple blue sky design instead.
He is Watching
Here's another mural in the vicinity of NE 15th & Burnside, which I happened to notice while looking for Metal Mole Movement and a couple of others I haven't posted yet. This one's on a pair of doors facing 15th, is signed "GTM", and bears the words "He is Watching". That's all I know about this one. It's located right between a couple of Ashley Montague murals (i.e. the ones I haven't posted about yet), and it looks kind of, how should I put it, 8th-grade-art-class in comparison. But I figured I might as well take some photos of it since I was in the area anyway, and here they are. Enjoy!
Metal Mole Movement
The next stop on the mural tour is on SE 15th, just south of Burnside, where a large mural lurks down an alley/driveway between two houses, on the back of a commercial building. Wiredforsound23 on Flickr calls this "Metal Mole Movement" (whatever that is) and notes it's by local artist Klutch, who did a couple of other murals I've covered here, including the huge one at Buckman Field.
Watershed mural, N. Lombard & Charleston
Next up on the continuing mural tour is a small design on an empty building at N. Lombard & Charleston, which I happened to notice while looking for the Peninsula Station mural across the street. The building housed the Weir's Cyclery bike shop for a number of years; you can sort of make out the mural in the photos of an April 2007 Waymarking page about the store. That's all I know about this one, I'm afraid. Well, that and the fact that it might not be around for much longer. A St. Johns Review issue from last July talks about a proposed 4 story upscale apartment complex to be built on this spot. Because it's mid-2010's Portland and that's what always happens. I think the idea is to build as many upscale goodies as possible as quickly as we can, to cash in before our media-driven hipness bubble bursts.
Sunday, January 03, 2016
Taqueria y Panaderia Santa Cruz mural, St. Johns
Next mural we're looking at is in St. Johns again, this time outside Taqueria y Panaderia Santa Cruz at N. Lombard & Alta. The mural's by Portland artist SenĆ©n AngĆ³n, who was the subject of an interesting Oregonian profile back in 2007. I also ran across a 2009 Walla Walla Union Bulletin article about a mural he did there, for another Mexican restaurant.
We ♥︎ St. Johns mural
Next stop for the ongoing mural project is the We ♥︎ St. Johns mural outside the Tulip Pastry Shop on N. Lombard, literally right next door to the Peninsula Station mural we looked at yesterday. No luck searching the interwebs about this one, so this is going to be a rather short post.
Incidentally, I had a bit of trouble adding the heart to the title of this post, since a lot of fonts (OSX Futura among them) don't include a full set of emoji. So technically what you see here is a playing card heart and not an I-wuv-this heart, since the Unicode committee insists they have to be separate characters, and fonts are more likely to contain the playing card one, I think because it's been a defined character for a lot longer.
24 Hour Fitness mural, Pearl District
Next up we're checking out the murals outside the Pearl District's 24 Hour Fitness at NW 12th & Johnson, in which a bunch of handlebar-mustached Victorian gentlemen show off their boxing and weightlifting skills. The artist also co-created the Roseway neighborhood's Neighborhood in Motion mural at NE 72nd, Sandy, & Fremont.
People's History of Hawthorne
Next up on the continuing mural tour is People's History of Hawthorne, on the Eagles lodge at SE 49th & Hawthorne. Regular readers with good memories might recall the similarly-named People's Bike Library of Portland on W. Burnside; you probably can't go wrong with an obvious Howard Zinn reference here in Portland. Anyway, here's the RACC description:
“The History of Hawthorne”—or “the peoples’ history”—is a direct dedication to the surrounding neighborhood and community, showing not only the “known” history, but the personal mythos, characters (past and present, alive and dead) who have shaped SE Portland and this core region. This part of Portland is known for great neighborhoods, food, bars, churches, houses, parks, retail, and a general place to “hang out.” Hawthorne is a busy community all year round. Artist Chris Haberman wanted to show Hawthorne’s history and vibrancy, from hipster to hippy, from early farmer to brewmaster, and from homeless to home owner. During this exploration he canvassed the neighborhood, talking with dozens of citizens. Haberman sought to embody an “oral” tradition by weaving these stories and experiences into the history of the Hawthorne neighborhood.
For some reason this design makes me think "Dr. Bronner's soap label", even though the two things actually look nothing alike. Maybe it's the jumble of disordered words along the top, I'm not really sure. In any event, it was painted in 2012-13 by Chris Haberman, who also did the much smaller mural at O'Malleys, a bar at SE 66th & Foster.
Peninsula Station mural
The ongoing mural tour visits St. Johns again, for a peek at the Peninsula Station mural at N. Lombard & Charleston, outside the shipping & printing shop of the same name. The RACC description:
The Peninsula Station mural is a colorful celebration of life in the St. Johns neighborhood. It commemorates residents, both young and old, doing what makes St. Johns great—talking, playing, laughing, eating, dancing, cycling, and being with one another.
This was created in 2010 by Bruce Orr, who also did the Scrap Mural on Williams Avenue.
Friday, January 01, 2016
Women Making History in Portland
Women Making History in Portland at N. Interstate Avenue & Harding St., not far from the Widmer brewery. The RACC blurb about it:
In Other Words Women’s Books and Resources were the organizers of this mural. The mural represents a women’s history of Portland, and was made to promote the mission of empowering women through art and education. The mural portrays women from all walks of life within the Portland community.
Links:
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ShNOxn-TqY
This was created in 2007 by Robin Corbo, who also did the mural at the Community Cycling Center on NE Alberta, and the large BARK Mural on SE Powell, among other things. She posted a Facebook photoset about the mural, with brief bios for many of the women depicted here.
Albina Yard mural
Next stop on our continuing mural tour is the gigantic Albina Yard Maintenance Building Mural, on the eponymous building on Mississippi Avenue near the Interstate 5 underpass. It's another of the "history of this neighborhood" murals that Portland loves so much, and it has a rather wordy RACC description:
The west side of the Albina Maintenance Building features a mural embracing a theme of “perpetual collaboration” similar to a Rube Goldberg machine in city scale and through time. Community practices and industries that affected the local Portland-Albina neighborhood over the last several eras represent the mechanical components of the city-Goldberg-machine. The driving force behind this mural was the community engagement where the nearby communities and maintenance workers contributed their voices to develop the mural.
As the Maintenance building tapers out of the hillside, from left to right the image shows our Native American landscape migrating into historic Oregonian industries of lumber, railroad, and steel, moving into representations of the diversity of people and activities characteristic of Portland. Throughout the image are several series of local mountains, bridges, gardens, parks, icons of communities, and city workers behind the scenes to keep the city-Goldberg-machine functioning. Included are symbols of the neighborhoods’ transitions of communities from the Native American, Volga Germans, Finnish, Chinese, and African American. Out of the neighborhood flows a procession of all communities, some are playing instruments, creating a lively jazz display in the foreground. As the maintenance building’s height rises vertically the mural shows a culmination of the community united in celebration, incorporating elements of diversity throughout the image.
Links:
Article: http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/07/albina_yard_maintenance_buildi.html
In the interest of historical accuracy, I just have to point out that a lot of these transitions (like, say, Native American tribes to pioneers, or from an African-American neighborhood to upscale white hipster playland) were rather less happy and orderly than the mural indicates. I mean, we all know this already, yes? But I still feel like I can't let this pass unremarked-upon.
All That Is Gold
The next stop on the mural tour takes us to NE 33rd & Sandy, where All That Is Gold is hidden down a gated alley next to the Laurelhurst Studios building. The mural was created in 2014 by Gage Hamilton and Zach Yarrington, whose names you might recognize from innumerable Forest For The Trees murals over the last few years.
The title's painted up toward the top of the building and is hard to see from street level; I'm not sure where it's meant to be viewed from. The iceberg theme around the alley entrance made me think the title said "Cold" rather than "Gold". Luckily I ran across some photos and making-of videos that cleared this up before I hit Publish. That would have been sort of embarrassing. Not as bad as the New York Times spinning lurid tales of Iraqi WMDs that, um, never existed, but embarrassing by this humble blog's usual standards.
Fight for Your Dreams
Next mural up is Fight for Your Dreams, created by artist Maryanna Hoggatt for the 2014 Forest for the Trees event. It's located out at NE 59th & Sandy, on the side of BTU Brasserie, a newish brewpub/Chinese place I haven't gotten around to trying yet.
Share the Road
Next mural up is Share the Road, a mural about bikes on the side of an auto shop at SE 43rd & Hawthorne. It has a brief RACC description:
The mural graphically registers the pulse of a neighborhood in motion and integrates the auto into the grander scheme of alternative transportation, environmental sustainability, and the need for harmonious safe traffic through an urban neighborhood.
This was painted in 2006 by artist Sara Stout, and was the subject of (at least) three BikePortland posts as well as (at least) one at Portland Transport, because bikes.
Children and Youth Bill of Rights
The next mural on our ever-continuing tour Children and Youth Bill of Rights, a big and busy 2 story design on the south side of Killingsworth at Maryland Ave. The RACC description:
This mural by Jesus Kobe Garcia and Margret Harburg was inspired by The Bill of Rights for the Children and Youth of the City of Portland and Multnomah County. Adopted by both City and County in 2006, the document was created with help from more than 3,000 youth and seeks to serve as a constant reminder of the vital role children and youth play in shaping the future of their communities. Garcia and Harburg worked with students from five schools throughout North Portland to design the mural which honors the academic dreams and successes of youth as well as the history of African-Americans and Native Americans in North Portland. Extending beyond the immediate community, the mural also displays painted flags representing countries where natural disasters and conflicts have disrupted their people (Japan, Libya, El Salvador). The artists worked with youth from Blue Faith Youth, a faith based youth group from North Portland’s Holy Cross Parish, and students from Trillium’s 3rd and 4th grade art class to paint the mural.
NE 30th & Killingsworth
Ok, the next painted intersection we're visiting is a bit different from the last few; rather than placing a big design in the middle of the intersection, the one at NE 30th & Killingsworth has designs on the four streetcorners instead. A circa-2006 City Repair description of the then-new progject (via archive.org) indicates that the intersection was too busy for the traditional sort of street design, and the city wouldn't let them close it off for a day of painting:
This community project will include painting creative crosswalks and building kiosk-type structures along Killingsworth approaching the intersection from both directions to catch driver’s eyes and slow traffic, transforming a dangerous intersection into an attractive expression of community co-creation and safe space. Despite the flood warnings and evacuation routes that must be kept unperturbed, the residents are tired of it all passing by unnoticed. Can’t we just close the street for one day to paint? Many thanks to this community for braving the “higher ups” and doing something anyway. Keep the dream alive and keep the designs a’comin. Strong community prevails.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
2015 in Instagram cat photos
So there's a year-end tradition here (by which I mean the last couple of years) in which the year's final post is just a batch of Instagram cat photos from the previous 12 months. I figured I'd go ahead and do that again for 2015, since people never really get tired of cute cat photos. Incidentally, this post also brings me up to 186 posts for the year, which isn't a lot by recent standards, but it moves 2015 into an exact tie with 2012 and 2009. Apparently this is pattern that repeats every third year, for whatever reason. *shrugs* Anyway, Happy New Year!
Compass Junction
The next painted intersection we're visiting is "Compass Junction", in St. Johns at N. Edison & St. Louis. This one was first painted in 2011; a recent City Repair project guide describes it:
Compass Junction, three berry-lined blocks from Cathedral Park, was first painted in 2009. Our Mariner's Mandala is a navigational aid, directing our gaze outward from the central compass to an Escher-like outer ring from which we see the Baltimore Woods Connectivity Corridor, the sparkling river that separates us from Forest Park, the titanic vessels that ply the working waters of the Willamette's North Reach, and the iconic green gothic arches of our beloved St. Johns Bridge, from which we can glimpse downtown, Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens on a clear day. This is The Crossroads.
We are on the Edge of Everything, and the edge is where the action is. Come look through our special window on the world for the day!
That description really captures why I have a soft spot for the whole painted intersection phenomenon. I'm an inveterate cynic (in case you hadn't noticed already), but there's a sense of goofy unironic optimism about the whole business that I just can't bring myself to sneer at; it would be like sneering at a box of puppies or something.
Jarrett Grove
Next up on the painted intersection tour is "Jarrett Grove", at NE 28th & Jarrett. Like a number of the others I'm posting today, this is a recent one, first painted in summer 2015. The project description:
The Jarrett Grove intersection painting is the first of many natural building projects planned by the neighborhood. The community named the project Jarrett Grove as it is a celebration to pay homage to the amazing Douglas Fir trees, among many other evergreens, that fill the neighborhood. The trees are pointed in four different directions with faith houses at each base. The trees all stem from the same potent, lovely, and sacred geometry.
I'm no expert on "sacred geometry", but this design does look kind of familiar, as if we've seen a very similar design at some other intersection. I can't put my finger on which one, but it definitely rings a bell. In an early post in this series, I offered a few free ideas for intersection paintings, and I'd just like to toss them back out there for anyone who's got a city permit but needs a design. It's been almost 2 years and as far as I know nobody's used any of them so far, so you -- yes, you -- could be the first:
It's a shame there's nowhere to put one in my downtown neighborhood. All the streets around here are way too busy, and most of them have MAX or streetcar tracks running through them. It's a shame because I think I'd be pretty good at brainstorming designs. The moon, maybe, or a giant octopus, or a Deep Space Nine wormhole, or Pac-Man, or a crop circle, or maybe a Sarlacc pit, or a surreal Escher design to confuse passing motorists. Some of these might be a bit tough for amateur street painters to pull off in a weekend, though, and others might have trademark issues. Feel free to swipe any of these notions for your local intersection if you like though.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Rainbow Dragon
The next painted intersection on our tour is the Rainbow Dragon at NE 32nd & Sumner. This is another new one, first painted in summer 2015. The brief project description:
Dragons symbolize strength in many cultures. Slide down the Rainbow Dragon and feel the force of neighborhood community. Rainbow Dragon honors the strength of our friend and neighbor, Brook Irwin, who lost a five-year battle to cancer. Rainbow Dragon infuses a playfulness into the intersection. Forget the crosswalk, just skip across the street on the stepping stones and admire the brook below.
The design kind of takes me back to junior high in the early 1980s, when roughly half of all school supplies were plastered with some combination of rainbows, unicorns, and dragons. I say half because anything with a rainbow was strictly a girls' item for whatever reason, and I recall a lot of my school supplies having an epic space battle theme instead. I didn't mind that at the time, but in retrospect it's weird that I missed out on a lot of dragons because of a few rainbows and the anxieties of a strange decade.
Community Blooming, NE 85th & Beech
Some time ago, I did a post about the "Community Blooming" painted intersection at NE 85th & Milton, near Rocky Butte. While putting the post together I discovered it was the southern half of a pair of intersections, so I put an item on my big todo list to visit the one at 85th & Beech the next time I was in the area. So I finally got around to it, but ended up with a couple of subpar photos. Someone was having a house party right next to the intersection, and people kept arriving, and I didn't want to be mistaken for an uninvited guest and either confronted or (maybe even worse) invited in. It sounds silly now as I try to explain it, but it felt like a reasonable concern at the time. It's an introvert thing, I guess.
Jade's Jewel
The next painted intersection on our tour is "Jade's Jewel", at NE 61st & Tillamook. The project description has a weirdly downbeat tone:
Jade's Jewel reinvigorated the vibrant community around NE Tillamook and 61st Ave. The neighborhood used to have block parties, Christmas parties, Easter egg hunts, and a plethora of gatherings annually. However, the community has dwindled in the past few years and there have been illnesses and deaths impeding upon community building. So, the community was brought back together by painting the streets rockin' colors! The drawing is Sponge Bob Squarepants inspired!
Identifying the SpongeBob Squarepants connection is left as an exercise for the reader. Mostly because I don't see it. I've watched an embarrassingly large number of SpongeBob episodes thanks to the magic of Netflix, and I don't recall seeing this in any of them.
North Tabor Mandala
Ok, it's been a while since we've visited any of Portland's ever-increasing number of artsy painted intersections. I have a few more in Drafts, though, so I think I'll run through those and post them as a change of pace from all the murals. I suppose it's not a huge change of pace, but at least we'll be looking at horizontal painted surfaces instead of vertical ones for the next few posts.
Anyway, the next stop on the ongoing "intersection repair" tour is the North Tabor Mandala at NE 53rd & Everett. This is one of the newest ones, first painted in summer 2015. The City Repair page about it describes it:
North Tabor Neighborhood Association in conjunction with South East Uplift was overjoyed to bring an intersection mandala into the heart of the neighborhood. In the spirit of their long term goals to bring life, culture, and vibrancy to the community, they worked with the local Portland Montessori School, whose upper elementary school children produced a design of geometric shapes, angles, and patterns. With the help of a generous grant from South East Uplift, partnerships with neighborhood icons Folktime and Community of Christ Church, and - most importantly - the help of volunteers who call North Tabor home, something unique and beautiful was created to be enjoyed and celebrated by all for years to come.
For what it's worth, I tend to quote from City Repair pages instead of just linking because these pages have a nasty habit of vanishing when the next year's crop of projects rolls around.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
X
Just a quick note that today is this humble blog's tenth birthday. I don't really have any remarks prepared; for various reasons it's been kind of an off year, blogwise, and I honestly hadn't given the big anniversary a lot of thought. As it turns out, this is also the 25th anniversary of the very first web page going online, so this blog's been around for 40% of the modern interwebs.
At this point I'm probably supposed to have nuggets of wisdom to share or something, but I can't think of anything off the top of my head. It certainly doesn't feel like it's been a decade, although when I first started this thing I still had dialup, had just bought my very first digital camera, and had just moved into downtown Portland from the wilds of westside suburbia. So I'm forced to admit this has been going on for a while now.
I'm not going to venture any predictions about a possible twentieth birthday. It would surprise me if Blogger and Flickr both exist in their current form a decade from now, since one's an increasingly neglected backwater of the vast Google empire, and the other currently belongs to Yahoo. It's also possible (even probable) that I might lose interest at some point without my hand being forced, or I might just get hit by a bus or something. So no promises on that point.
If I have time and get around to it, I may put together a list of personal favorite posts from the last decade. Seems like the least I can do, in lieu of having any pearls of wit or wisdom to pass along. It's just that there are close to 3000 posts to sort through, so this is going to take a bit of thought. I'll try to have something put together before New Years, unless work intervenes again.
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