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.

Adorn mural

The next mural up is this crowd of space pigs in front of the Adorn tattoo place in the 2500 block of SE Belmont. I ran across this one in an early 2013 post at Kay-Kay's Bird Club, although the design's been changed out since then.

Mt. Hood mural, SE 9th & Belmont

The next stop on the mural tour is at SE 9th & Belmont, where this faded picture of Mt. Hood graces a vacant auto shop building. It's painted on panels instead of directly on the wall, and at least one of the panels has gone missing in the last year or so. I kind of suspect this whole block will be torn out in the near future, and replaced by another cookie-cutter apartment block, with an artisanal goat yoga studio on the ground floor. I suspect that because it's what always happens.

Decker

The ongoing public art tour takes us back to the Portland State campus yet again. This time we're taking a look at Decker, the large ceramic wall sculpture at the entrance to PSU's Millar Library. It was created by Geoffrey Pagen for the library's early 1990s expansion. The Public Art Archive description (which I doubt is an artist statement, given that the author wasn't sure if it's ceramic or not):

This piece is comprised of rectangular sections of flat, perhaps ceramic material that has been painted in deep blue, red, turquoise, and black. A pattern seems to emerge from their painted surfaces. Pieces vary in height, and they are arranged in such a way that they resemble a xylophone that stretches a significant length down the curved wall upon which they are mounted.

On a semi-related note, I probably ought to stop thinking of the expansion as the "new" part of the library. It was under construction while I was in school (and the existing library was loud and kind of dusty as a result), but at this point it's older than most of the students studying there. So "new" is probably not the right word anymore.

"Retail Birthplace of U-Haul" marker

For our next adventure, we're tracking down one of Portland's more unusual historical markers. In front of the U-Haul dealership at SE 88th & Foster is a sign proclaiming the spot as the "Retail Birthplace of U-Haul". The 'Retail' qualifier is there because the company itself was founded in Ridgefield, WA (a small town north of Vancouver) in 1945. But this location was the first actual dealership, apparently. The company's history page goes on in more detail, if you're curious; there's even an official book, if you're that curious. In any case, corporate headquarters moved to Phoenix many years ago in search of a more favorable regulatory environment.

In the unlikely event you've been following this humble blog since the mid-2000s, you might remember I mentioned this marker once before, in a post from September 2006. Which in turn points to a Roadside America page that describes the marker, and I have no idea where I found that page anymore. Probably on the late, lamented ORBlogs aggregator, or in someone's RSS feed, because 2006. I never actually promised I was going to go find this marker, but it did spend close to 9 years at the bottom of various todo lists before I got around to it, which might be a record (so far). But then again, I've never once claimed to be in the breaking news business.

SE 28th Pl. & Powell mural

The next stop on our mural tour takes us to SE 28th Place at Powell, where a long retaining wall holds up the parking lot for a Wendy's fast food place. At some point, the wall was painted in bright primary colors, and it was either done by kids or designed to look that way. Since then it's been tagged extensively, so in parts it's impossible to tell what the original design might have been. Which is sort of unusual; there's a popular theory that murals deter tagging, out of professional courtesy or something. That's the entire rationale behind Weston roses, for instance. So maybe this was a popular graffiti wall before the mural went in, and it gets tagged now out of force of habit. Or maybe the cutesy aspect offended enough people, sort of the way Star Wars fans hate Jar-Jar Binks, so the usual unwritten code doesn't apply here.

Pambiche mural

The next mural on our ongoing tour is Pambiche, on the east side of the Cuban restaurant of the same name at NE 28th & Glisan. The RACC description:

“Pambiche” is a cultural depiction of Cuba, inspired by its history, people and traditions. It blends Cuba’s unique music, dance, architecture, historical figures, and natural beauty. The mural gives visibility to the historically misconstrued people and culture of Cuba, and provides an educational opportunity for the community at large.

The mural is painted on the Apambichao Building, which has unique architecture identical to that of central Havana. The area in which it is located is frequented by Cuban refugees and the mural seeks to aid the tough transition they undertake when relocating.

McDonalds mural, NW 18th & Burnside

Here are a few photos of the faded sorta-Mediterranean mural at the NW 18th & Burnside McDonalds, next to the drive-thru. A mention of it in Sybilla Avery Cook's Walking Portland indicates it's been there since at least 1998. A 1991 Oregonian article refers to a mural at a McDonalds on W. Burnside, and this is the only McDonalds I know of on W. Burnside. So assuming it's the same store, and the same mural, this was painted by Mark Bennett, who's best known for creating the gigantic blue heron mural that towers over Oaks Bottom in Sellwood. A CNN interview with Bennett mentions that he's been creating murals since 1984, so it's newer than that; the "Open 24/7" part of the mural looks like it was maybe part of the "Mac Tonight" ad campaign that ran 1986-90. It's entirely possible it hasn't been repainted since then. I suppose it could use a touch up, but I actually kind of like the faded look in this case.

Wheel Series I

The next installment in our ongoing public art tour takes us back to Vancouver WA's little municipal sculpture garden, at E. 9th & Broadway. This collection focuses heavily on Portland-area artists circa 1960-1980, and we've already looked at their Manuel Izquierdo and James Lee Hansen sculptures. Today's installment is about Don Wilson's Wheel Series I. Wilson was/is an art professor at Portland State, and he also created Holon on the South Park Blocks, and the massive Interlocking Forms along Portland's downtown transit mall. Both of those date to the late 1970s (although the date situation with Holon is complicated, for reasons I don't understand). I'm pretty sure the "1998" on the sign here is when Wheel Series I was donated, not when it was created. If I had to guess, I'd say this dates to the late 70s as well. Family resemblance and all that.