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.