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.

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.

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 Wagué Diakité. 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.

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.

From a 1989 Oregonian article about the then-new murals:

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.

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 Senén Angón, 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.