Make is Now

Spotted this morning taped to light poles in downtown Portland:




Dear Portland,

Thank you for saving the Made in Oregon sign. We heard you want to put your name on it. Before you do, consider an option that changes only one letter.

Make in Oregon.

Oregon is for makers. From food and beverages to bikes and clothing to art and music, Oregon makes. Oregon makes wool and cheese and berries and memories.

The sign should be a symbol of who we are, not just where we are. By changing its tense, we put Portland in the present while highlighting Oregon as the state that makes things.

Made is past. Make is now.

makeinoregon.com

This is how it might look:



Whaddya think? Is it better than the hideous neon rose that Commissioner Randy Leonard insisted be planted on top of the Oregon Visitor Center on the Waterfront?



I stole that photo from the Portland Mercury, but they won't care because they like all the attention.

You're going to feel a slight prick

I first wrote about this over a year ago, but the big, giant acupuncture needles that Adam Kuby has designed to bring attention to certain aspects of our fair city are about to be installed. Three Portland Acupuncture Project needles are being installed this weekend at Mt. Tabor Reservoir, Kelly Point Park, and Tom McCall Waterfront Park just south of the Hawthorne Bridge. (I've always loved that bridge.) They will remain for about two months before being moved to other locations.

No word on when the Voodoo Doll Project begins.

Missing in Action

I've been absent quite a bit from this blog lately, but that's not all. I completely missed both the TBA Festival and Wordstock. I have yet to take in Ragtime and China Design Now. And god only knows if I'll make it to the Emerald Retrospective or the Oregon Symphony anytime soon.

For what? A myriad of excuses. I haven't caught the swine flu but I think I coughed up part of my lung last weekend. I love the fall but who wants to go out in some of this weather? I'm not addicted to television but it sure is comfortable watching Glee and Mad Men from my La-z-boy recliner.

We've also been hard at work raising Work for Art dollars and overhauling the RACC website, which was no small task. Suffice it to say that spending this much time in front of the computer at work makes it really hard to spend any time in front of the computer at home, blogging or otherwise. And although this isn't the ultimate purpose of this post I would be remiss if I didn't use this paragraph to acknowledge the fine work of the design team at Davison/Blackheart, CultureShock commenter Shobiz, and the great staff at RACC for producing such a handsome site with volumes of valuable content for the arts community. Blogger's prerogative, no matter how infrequently he writes.

My related arts observation for today comes from Hilary Pfeifer, whose temporary installation "Vertical Garden" is currently featured on our homepage. She wrote to let us know that the piece, which was originally created for the Portland Building Installation Series several years ago, was recently sold to a Pixar executive in Marin. I thought you might enjoy her blog entry on installing the piece in his home, as I did. Congratulations, Hilary!

If you know any artists who are looking to get a temporary installation gig for themselves, RACC is accepting proposals through November 16.

Love Ridiculous

We Report, You Decide

In case you missed it, Willamette Week has launched a new Q&A section called "Dr. Know." The good doctor kicked off his inaugural edition on Wednesday by addressing several of our citizens' most burning questions, including one addressing the phallic appearance of many of Portland's public artworks.

In his investigative response, Dr. Know collected some salient input from an unidentified source at RACC -- and no, I'm not the Deep Throat in question. I can't say as I have ever thought of public art in that way, but we do want to give you the opportunity to see for yourself what all the excitement is about.



Pod


Friendship Circle


Tikitotmoniki


Stack Stalk


Baobab


Araminta

Here at Culture Shock, we believe in equal opportunity, so perhaps next week we could focus on the other end of the anatomical spectrum, beginning with Big Pipe Portal which was dedicated just yesterday.

Big Pipe Portal

That big pipe that they’ve been digging underneath us for years still remains a bit of a mystery to most of us. How big is this big pipe anyway? Where does it run, exactly? And what’s with the news that it might not be big enough after all to keep all of the poop out of our rivers?

To help answer some of these questions (2 out of 3 ain’t bad), Environmental Services and RACC invested the percent-for-art funds that were generated by this project into an educational public sculpture and mini-interpretive center on Swan Island. Rhiza, whose other works you have seen on the Eastbank Esplanade, was commissioned to bring the pipe above ground in an artful way, and it all gets dedicated in a public ceremony on Thursday, September 24th from 4:30 to 6:30. Should you decide to come and have a look, you’ll be invited to travel 165 feet underground to see the inner workings of the Big Pipe from inside the Swan Island Pump Station. The Bristlecones will make music and parade around above ground, and there might even be cookies and lemonade.

4299 N Port Cetner Way, just south of the FedEx truck parking lot.

The Writing on the Wall

My phones were ringing off the hook this morning with a major art incident going down at the corner of NE Broadway and MLK. My first art emergency! Even the mayor was called in to survey the scene: apparently the mural at the former site of Rhythm Traders was about to be painted over by the building's new tenant, and several artists came to protest.



The whitewashing isn't as imminent as some had feared, and the new occupant isn't even finalized yet, but it's entirely possible that the mural's days are numbered for economic reasons described by Willamette Week about an hour ago. When that new tenant does sign their rental contract, you can bet that lots of folks will be lobbying them to leave the mural -- a tribute to our sister City of Mutare -- where it is. But a giant cell phone company isn't likely going to keep an artwork like this on their corporate facade, so RACC is also looking at the possibility of simply covering up the mural with plywood, to be painted over temporarily and hopefully uncovered again years from now when a more funky tenant occupies the space once again.

Update 7/26: Jennifer Yocom, the Mayor's Arts and Culture Director, reported on KGW last night that the new tenant, T Mobile, has enthusiastically agreed to leave the mural intact and on display. Congratulations to all who intervened as advocates for this beloved community mural.

Seattle Report #5

Some of the most interesting discussions at the AFTA conventions each year take place within the Public Art track. AFTA is the coordinating body for a network of 350 public art programs across the country, convening and coordinating them to stimulate dialogue, discuss critical issues, and develop public art products and services. Although this conference does not tend to appeal to most discipline-based arts organizations and individual artists, it does have a strong following of artists who are involved in public art every year. (“But please,” they beg of me, “don’t call us ‘public artists.’”)

The Seattle press – in the form of The Mercury’s sister newspaper, The Stranger – took notice that we were all here in town with an interesting commentary on the city’s own public art collection, asking whether it might perhaps be overrated. Among the complaints herein is that the growing trend toward sculpturally integrated artwork (''interwoven into terrazzo lobby floors, for instance") generates a whole lot of art that lacks interest and innovation.

How fortuitous that I should read this article over breakfast the very morning of AFTA’s annual celebration of public art projects across the country. Being aware of this criticism gave me an interesting lens for considering the awards that AFTA was bestowing to 40 excellent public art projects completed in the past year. Among the works honored were some real beauties, including:

"Verdant Walk," a temporary art and landscape installation in Cleveland, beautifully illuminated at night by solar fabric panels.




"Synchronicity of Color" shows what happens when a good artist (Margo Sawyer) decorates the entrance to an underground parking garage in Houston with 1,500 aluminum boxes in 65 colors.



"The Ziz" is one of the more interesting sports-related public art projects I’ve seen in a while, by Donald Lipski



The panelists also gave awards to our own Horatio Law for his "Gilded Bowl Column" for the Asian Counseling and Referral Service in Seattle, painted with help from clients of the facility…



....and Caldera for “Hello Neighbor,” Julie Keefe’s and Tyler Kohlhoff’s writing and photography collaboration with middle school students, resulting in several dozen 7x5 banners you’ve probably seen hung on buildings around North Portland and other neighborhoods. These seem to be fine examples of the kind of “ephemeral” public art project that The Stranger was calling for.

After seeing so many interesting projects – not all of which I felt were award-winning caliber – I wondered how I myself would adjudicate the 350+ projects that were completed and submitted this past year, and find myself asking, what makes public art good? One of the panelists, Janet Echelman, said that to her a successful public art project provokes “a desire to look at it,” and perhaps more importantly, “it satisfies that desire.” This is as good a litmus test for public art as I have heard, but I am curious to hear what others think.

Bikes and Ballet

Tonight I was going to blog about the new Zoobomb sculpture that is scheduled to be unveiled dedicated late Friday afternoon at the corner of SW 13th and Burnside. Art, Stark Street, and happy hour... three of my favorite things, right? But I see that the Portland Mercury is doing an excellent job of covering this, and (Spoiler Alert!) the BikePortland.org even has a sneak peek at the new piece, so please just click through to see their coverage. You might even be enticed to take the Zoobombers up on their invitation to don one of those animal costumes you've got laying around and come join the festivities.

But speaking of The Mercury's good coverage. Is it just me, or are the arts like the center of the media universe lately? Juicy little cross-over stories of late have helped, like the Arts Mayor Scandal and the great Coliseum debate. But also, in general, interest in the arts seems on an uptick, and dozens of fantastic arts-centric blogs are certainly contributing to the phenomenon. But I'm not just talking not just about the authors of these stories, it's also about the readers.

Oh, the readers. Have you seen the batshit crazy going on in the comments section of Barry Johnson's OBT story?!? Wow. People are really into this. Even Lars Larson is monitoring the situation, lord help us all. And even though half or more of the public's online comments are regrettable, I think they are actually helping motivate folks who might have otherwise stayed detached, stirring them to stand with the ballet and fight for all things symbolic of art and artistic excellence in our community.

The rising sentiment on the street and in the blogosphere seems to be that if we can just save the ballet now, we/they can fix it to be a better business in the fall. And I'm beginning to think there's enough willpower brewing to pull it all off.

E(art)h Day

Happy Earth Day!

News today that a local sustainability engineering firm, Glumac, is putting up cash and leading a community fundraising effort to establish an annual "Earth Day Art" celebration. Each year, a new piece of public art with links to sustainability will be dedicated in honor of someone who has helped pioneer the sustainability movement in Portland.

The inaugural sculpture in this effort is entitled "Bows to Blows -- Sentinels for Peace and Sustainability," commissioned of Seattle artist Buster Simpson, whose most noteworthy piece of Portland public art is the "Host Analog" outside of the Oregon Convention Center. Buster's new sculpture, to be installed along the South Waterfront Greenway, will feature two salvaged (dare I say "repurposed?") WWII Liberty Ship bow remnants. From the artist's statement:

Sculpturally, these elements represent the transfer and acceptance of gravity and the embrace of mass and suggest shipyard inventory either during their making or their dismantling along the Willamette River. To inspire an ethic of environmental responsibility, a hand operated “stewardship bilge pump” offers reclaimed water to the adjacent river habitat. The pair of bows and the bilge pump stand to remind us of the utility and grace of transforming “swords into plowshares” for the healing of the earth.

Portland City Commissioner Nick Fish will dedicate the artwork and reveal this year's honoree at a public ceremony in SoWa this evening at 5PM. Just take the streetcar to the SW Bond & Lane stop and stroll down the bike path to the river. The piece is still being created but there is an artistic rending of the sculpture at the site.



While you're there, stay for the launch of U of O's South Waterfront artist in residence program, 6 to 8PM at the John Ross Plaza Studio.

24/7: 24 Concerts in One Day to Mark Seven Years of War

For a few moments, let's step away from the savaging of the Oregon Cultural Trust and the gloom of the coming budget battles. I just learned of an event which is as timely as it is important. The following is from the organizer's press release:

By mid-March, the United States will have been at war in Afghanistan and Iraq for seven years, yet one hardly hears that fact mentioned. To mark this important, if tragic, anniversary, over 150 of the Portland area's best classical musicians are uniting to make a giant musical gift to the city and region. Event curators Bill Crane and Thomas Lauderdale have recruited an amazing roster of performers. The public is invited.

Titled simply "24/7," it will be a series of 24 dramatic concerts, each starting upon the hour, from 7:00 p.m. Saturday, March 21, and continuing through to 7:00 p.m., Sunday, March 22.

All 24 concerts are free and will take place in the auditorium of the Wieden+Kennedy building, 224 Northwest 13th Avenue, between Davis and Everett Streets, in Portland's Pearl District. Wieden+Kennedy join the performing artists to invite sincerely all area residents of good will to these concerts. No tickets are required.

Neither a protest nor a memorial, "24/7" nonetheless is a profound calling by its performers to their fellow citizens to remember that we are a nation at war. The musicians creating 24/7 hope to move their neighbors by their music to "do what must be done" as our city, region, and nation face many challenges. This will be music of encouragement as well as entertainment.

To add to the conviviality of this big occasion, the popular and award-winning restaurant Bluehour, next door to the concert venue, will be open all night and the following day. Restaurateur Bruce Carey and chef de cuisine Kenny Giambalvo are planning a special bar menu just for 24/7 performers and audience members.

"It will be an honor to have these music lovers join us for refreshments before, after, or between the concerts. We are having so much fun planning a menu to go with that much music!," said says Bruce Carey as he considered what it will mean for his restaurant team.

And, what of the planned music itself? --

"I am heartened, thrilled, and humbled by the unparalleled enthusiasm of my musical colleagues to create this musical gift. What a 'Portland' thing to do! Everyone is working so hard and being so creative in their programming. Every program that our audience friends attends will be great" said Bill Crane as he headed off to yet another rehearsal.

Some of the 24/7 performances will be broadcast on Wieden+Kennedy’s new Global Internet radio station, WK Radio, at www.wk.com/radio. The radio station launched in January 2009 and exists to inspire provocative conversations, interviews, and artistic expressions relating to the arts, culture, music and media.

Final scheduling is still somewhat in the works and will be posted in www.wk.com/radio when confirmed, but here are highlights that have been nailed down:

Saturday, March 21

The first program (Sat., 3/21, 7:00 p.m. sharp) A huge ensemble of brass and percussion players opens with Aaron Copland's famous "Fanfare for the Common Man" and continues with music of Gabrieli, Richard Strauss, and others.

Second up (Sat., 3/21, 8:00 p.m.) is the astonishing 17-year year-old virtuoso pianist Rosa Li, most recently heard in Portland in Mendelssohn's First Concerto with the Portland Columbia Symphony Orchestra. Her solo program will include works of Ginastera, Prokofiev, and Chopin.

At 9:00 p.m., the Portland Gay Men's Chorus, Bob Mensel, music director, will take the stage to present the critically acclaimed extended work "BraveSouls and Dreamers" of composer Robert Seeley.

Other highlights include three hours of particularly adventuresome programming by area new-music ensembles playing in succession:

11:00 p.m., Fear No Music

12:00 midnight, Melegari Chamber Music Ensemble

1:00 a.m., Third Angle New Music Ensemble

Programs in the middle of the night will range from wild to mild:

3:00 a.m., . Thomas Lauderdale of "Pink Martini" in a special, extravagant program;

6:00 a.m., Pianist Ron Potts in an exceptional recital of Scarlatti, Schumann, Ravel, and Bartok.

7:00 a.m., Obo Addy, world beat drummer, in a solo frenzy and Gregory Dubay, cellist, and Bill Crane, pianist, in music of Brahms and Schubert.

And, as the day (Sunday) goes on:

8:00 a.m., Tamara Still, pianist, with Bach's "Goldberg Variations."

11:00 a.m., Pianist Jeffrey Payne of Fear No Music with ten movements from Olivier Messiaen's monumental "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant Jésus."

12:00 noon, Vancouver tenor Les Green in a recital of French art song, including little- known works of Saint-Saëns and Fauré.

1:00 p.m., Soprano Lisa Mooyman and Mezzo-soprano Sherry Olson with Clarinetist David Hattner in a varied program, including the famous "Lakme" duet and Schubert's "Shepherd on the Rock."

4:00 p.m., Alto Angela Niederloh, pianist Janet Coleman, and violinist Julie Coleman in a wide-ranging program best described as "rip-roaring."

5:00 p.m., Violinist Carol Sindell and pianist Janet Guggenheim (two-thirds of The Florestan Trio) in a recital to include both the Franck and Debussy sonatas.

6:00 p.m. All 24/7 artists and other invited musicians will join in the final program to present the last movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, the "Ode to Joy." David Hattner, the new music director of the Portland Youth Philharmonic, will conduct the assembled forces, including many singers from the Portland Symphonic Choir and instrumentalists from the Oregon Symphony and other ensembles.

Still shaking out just "who will be when" are these splendid acts to be scheduled:

Portland Taiko, thunderous Japanese drumming;
Cellists Justin Kagan, Adriene Welch, Irving Levin, Gregory Dubay, and Lizzie Adelsheim
Flutist Abby Mages
Violinists Paloma Griffin, Sara Watts, Ron Blessinger, Greg Ewer, Julie Coleman, and Nick Crosa
Sopranos Ida Rae Cahana, Lisa Mooyman, Peggie Schwarz, and Marie Fiorillo
Trombonists John Walling and Robert Taylor
Pianists Carol Rich, Jon Stuber, Jeffrey Payne, Chad Heltzel, Susan Chan, Mike and Elizabeth Strickland, Janet Coleman, Jerry Deckelbaum, Win Hall, and Thomas Mark

I'll post schedule updates as the event approaches.

Urgent Art Issues

While we wait for the House vote on a budget that includes $1.8 million in funds stolen from the Oregon Cultural Trust -- with narry a word from the Trust itself -- a small diversion.

The Oregonian penned a curious editorial this morning, pointing out that Randy Leonard used campaign funds to purchase a $750 Gwenn Seemel portrait of himself. The narrative (by Mary Kitch, I believe) pours on the sarcasm, with phrases like:

Only a few grouchy old souls would be literal-minded enough to think that "campaign funds" should actually be spent on campaigns.

And,

Popes do it. Kings do it. Presidents do it. Now, a city commissioner acquires a portrait.

But we love Gwenn Seemel portraits! Right, Mead? Right, RACC?



A couple Gwenn Seemel portraits


Anyway. THIS is what the editorial board writes about while the funds are being stolen from the Trust? I just don't get it.

Mea Culpa

I need to apologize to our readers, to artists and to all who support the inclusion of arts funding in the economic stimulus package. Like you, I’ve been reading about how the “batshit crazy” rightwing anti-culturalists have been maligning arts funding as non-stimulative pork. I was just as disappointed as you to learn that Senators Wyden and Merkley voted for a stimulus bill that included this egregious amendment from Senator Coburn:

None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, arts center, or highway beautification project, including renovation, remodeling, construction, salaries, furniture, zero-gravity chairs, big screen televisions, beautification, rotating pastel lights, and dry heat saunas.

I was dismayed to learn that a recent editorial in the National Review sarcastically opined that increased funding for the NEA would mean that "the unemployed can fill their days attending abstract-film festivals and sitar concerts."

Then it all started to sound vaguely familiar. I got a sinking feeling that I may have inadvertently contributed to the problem. A quick scan of my files brought the memory back and verified my complicity: Just last year I wrote a grant proposal to the NEA on behalf of a regional arts organization. (Professional ethics and common decency bar me from revealing the client's name). The proposal must have been leaked to the Republicans by a disgruntled grant panelist! Since the project is unlikely to be funded, I will share a synopsis of the proposal:

Describe the Project: [NAME REDACTED], Oregon’s leading collective of multidisciplinary dance, theater and abstract film artists, seeks NEA funding for a project through which it will engage the community in dialogue that will inform a co-creative process of examining, exploring and explicating the multidimensional intersections and interstices between consumer culture, Wall Street fraud and organized religion. The site-specific, time-based performative project will draw upon influences as diverse as Andres Serrano, Karen Finley and Robert Mapplethorpe. Seminal materials will be used. We mean urine.

The project’s artistic collaborators will construct a temporary public art installation on the eighteenth hole of the Bandon Springs Golf Resort. This site was selected to provide opportunities for broad-based cultural access to underserved rural communities. The installation will consist of two vitrines to be fabricated, in situ, by 48 glass artists using recycled wine bottles melted in massive anagama kilns. Each vitrine will measure 20’ x 20’ x 20’ (8,000 cubic feet) and will be filled with liquid.

The first vitrine will represent the primeval ocean from which all life evolved. It will be filled with sweat collected from 800 dance artists commissioned to perform an extended choreographic masterwork in a giant dry heat sauna to be constructed in the abandoned warehouses of Laika Studios. At risk youth from inner-city neighborhoods will be employed to scrape the sweat from the dancer’s bodies over the course of the 18-month dance performance.

Once the vitrine is filled with the salty fluid, hundreds of chinook salmon will be released into it. Their futile attempts to migrate and spawn will be accompanied by a techno-industrial score performed by a 32 piece sitar orchestra and four dozen unemployed construction workers with jackhammers. The salmon will then be slaughtered by marauding sea lions in a bloody orgy of classist oppression.

A live video feed will be sent by fiber optic cable to a state-of-the art Imax theater to be constructed at a remodeled Oregon Aquarium (Newport). Simultaneous video feeds will be sent to Spirit Mountain Casino (Grand Ronde) and Chinook Winds Casino (Lincoln City), where spectators will view the salmon slaughter on big screen televisions while placing bets on which fish will be the last to survive. To highlight the interconnectedness between the project sites, Highway 101 (Newport to Lincoln City) and Highway 18 (Lincoln City to Grand Ronde) will be beautified by a nighttime display of rotating pastel lights as well as abstract film.

The second vitrine will be filled with urine. Members of Portland’s burgeoning creative class will be invited to a three-day outdoor concert at which free PBR and Stumptown coffee will be served. Participants will then urinate into special holding tanks. (Many participants may choose to kiss each other while doing so). They will also be encouraged to ride bicycles to the concert site.

Once this vitrine is filled, a figure of Jesus Christ suspended in a zero-gravity chair will be smeared with dung and chocolate and submerged. The vitrine will be lit by more rotating pastel lights (or perhaps primary colors this time). The artistic co-creators will initiate intra-, extra- and inter-community dialoguing sessions to find, create and shape meaning.

The proposed project budget of $2.75 million will leverage an estimated $18.7 million in direct spending in the region, as well as an additional bunch of fiscal stimulus through the economic multiplier effect we’re always talking about. The project will create at least 1,500 family-wage jobs for artists, as well as employing construction workers and teenagers who would just as soon cut you. The long-term infrastructural improvements to roads, fiber optic networks, casinos and art centers (did we mention art centers?) are incalculable, but are sure to be sustainable. Letters of support from the big screen television, rotating light and zero-gravity chair industries are attached.

Too much?

Using streetcars as a canvas: you likey or no likey?

Art & Acupuncture

If you stuck a pin in the City's metaphorical kidney, could it improve the water quality of the Willamette River? Adam Kuby's Acupuncture Project, a proposed "treatment" for the City of Portland, suggests as much -- and he's gaining interest from even the most pragmatic of Portland's city planners.

Simply described on Kuby's own website, the Acupuncture Project explores the interface between art, regional planning, traditional Chinese medicine and the health of a city. Using acupuncture as a metaphor, Kuby presents the city as a physical body that also has a parallel system of energy that flows in distinct pathways called meridians. Each meridian has particular acupuncture points where that energy can be accessed and adjusted. For optimal well-being, this energy, or Qi, wants to be in balance.

In acupuncture, if a person's Qi is out of balance, disease can set in. So Kuby asks, could the same be true for a city?

Kuby began developing this notion as an artist in residence at South Waterfront in March 2008 (a residency program which, by the way, is worthy of an entire discussion itself; I'm interested in assessing whether infusing artists into that neighborhood has helped make it more interesting and livable). There, in the shadow of the tram, Kuby brainstormed the concept with acupuncturists & acupuncture students, city planners, ecologists, artists, writers, public art professionals and the general public.

The result is a map of Portland's metaphorical body. For example: the heart (which acupuncture specialists typically associate with spirituality, higher reality and ancestry) represents the mayor, religious institutions, cultural institutions, art, places for ritual, music and celebration, and native American & colonial history.

If the City were struggling with how to vitalize a cultural center that should be rich with art, heritage, history (example: Chinatown's migration to NE 82nd Avenue), Kuby proposes that sticking a giant 35' needle on the sight (literally) could raise enough awareness to ultimately lead to improvements for this vital "organ."

Kuby has since received a grant from the Oregon Arts Commission to develop his prototype needle, and you should have a look at it along with his series of proposed acupuncture points throughout the City. Check it out and then let me know what you think -- not only of the concept but also the physical manifestation of such a public art project.

Quick, before I stick a needle in you.

Moving Portlandia?

Although she's nestled perfectly into the pedestal of The Portland Building, I was surprised that our beloved Portlandia didn't make an appearance on The Amazing Race finale a couple weeks ago. After an hour-long cab ride from the Bridge of the Gods, taxi drivers appeared discombobulated with all of the downtown transit mall construction, and when competitors were finally dropped off at the Portland Building, they were instructed to find a 3-foot dinosaur in the lobby of The Standard Building across the street. (Huh? Can someone please explain the significance? It would have been much cooler if they had to find their next clue in the temporary art installation in the lobby.)

Peek-a-boo: Portlandia, you're on national TV but we can't see you...

But throughout this entire downtown Portland adventure -- maybe 60 seconds of content outside of the building -- there was not so much as a hint of our copper goddess. Maybe there were copyright issues in filming the Statue of Liberty's little sister. Or maybe the camera angles were deemed unworkable, and the trees legitimately obstructed her visage. But it all served as a reminder that ever since she was positioned just above the treetops on 5th Avenue, several folks have been working diligently to re-site Portlandia someplace where she'd be much more visible. And now Ron Paul thinks he has the perfect location: the Public Market that's now targeting the West end of the Morrison Bridge.

Here's the entire concept that popped up on www.portlandpublicmarket.com yesterday:

Picture two graceful pavilions nestled into the arcs of the cloverleaf ramps, connected by a market hall under the bridge; the design will allow for a large number of permanent vendor stalls as well as seasonal day tables. Our private development partner, Melvin Mark Development Company, proposes constructing an iconic high rise that will create the Market's front door on SW Second Avenue. The ground floor arcade, filled with fresh food and flowers, will beckon guests toward a covered pedestrian bridge crossing the MAX tracks and leading to a grand entrance between the two pavilions. We'll even have a place for Portlandia where she'll be visible from all sides, reaching toward the river.

I was having trouble picturing all of this too, so I was glad they included a preliminary design -- one of several, I'm told. If you look real closely you can indeed see Portlandia perched on the lower pedestal of the building that splits the street in two.

As many of you know, it's been a long process for Ron Paul and the Market supporters, as many coveted sites over the past few years have fallen through. First there was the opportunity at the fire station near Saturday Market, but when the fire department decided to actually stay in that building, organizers turned their sights on the Federal Building at 511 NW Broadway. This was the site of a long-fought battle between the Market and PNCA, with the art school ultimately receiving the prized building from the feds earlier this year.

In honor of Portland's own native son and late culinary master, the market -- if it ever gets built -- will be officially named for James Beard, which is an appropriate tribute for a project that dreams of upstaging Portland's living room and becoming Portland's kitchen. It certainly is a grand vision but I'm going to take a little while to digest it before offering my opinions.

Piss Off

A couple months ago we were talking here about the relevance of newspapers and the shift to online content. Since that conversation I have come to realize how little I turn to The Portland Tribune anymore, even though they "publish" an online daily. Well, there's something I just hate about the online version, and it's the same thing I dislike about most online news sites: no matter how hard I try, I can't help but get sucked in and summarily pissed off by the "comments" section of any given article.

I recognize this is a strange sentiment for a blogger such as myself (however infrequent) to express -- on his blog of all places. As authors on the interweb, our egos rely upon feedback from readers (how else are we to know that you're out there?), and when a young blog like ours hits 5 comments or more we feel like we've hit the motherload of topics. (Not that we want to fall into the trap of posting topics for the sole purpose of accumulating responses.)

But here's the thing. The comments posted on Culture Shock, like most blogs I read, are wonderfully constructive and genuinely collaborative in nature. Blog commentators (commentors?) tend to lend unique insights to the topic at hand, ask wonderful follow-up questions, and can move a blogger's "article" into a wonderful conversation. On news sites like the Tribune, however, the comment section is invariably saturated with poorly crafted rhetorical statements against whatever the author has just written about. For the Trib, which tends to write more about the goings-on at City Hall than even The Oregonian, the online version tends to go something like this:

Tribune: City Commissioners enact ______________.

42 Comments: City Commissioners are stupid tax-and-spend liberals. I'm so glad I live in ________ instead of Portland.

At first these comments can be enjoyed for the humor and irony they provide, and there is one person in particular who has the unique ability to turn the focus of any article on any subject (for example: the mental health care crisis) into a diatribe against public art. Over time, however, these relentless commentaries become tiresome enough so as to discourage me from visiting what would otherwise be a decent reporting of City Hall activities. For me it's become like watching Fox news -- you can only laugh it off until you realize that these people are serious.

For this reason alone, I haven't turned to www.portlandtribune.com for several weeks, but today I was looking for something else and stumbled upon another perfect example. One of today's articles is about Randy Leonard's new loo, with some well-quoted humorous banter (albeit still slightly awkward) back and forth between he and Mayor-Elect Sam Adams, who had the honor of the first flush. Anyway. Plenty of opportunity to have intelligent conversation about whether or not the City of Portland should be investing $100-$140K per public toilet, and to speculate whether they'll be maintained satisfactorily -- right? But soon enough the comments devolve into the same old refrain.

Sam Adams has just spent the equivalent of an Intel executive's base salary on a public urinal. What does he care? It's not his money.

and

You have got to love this! Portland City Hall is a laugh a day. Now I see why the citizens of Portland keep electing jokers, they are too funny! First Portland goes Green, now it's GO Brown! As an added benefit Portland can fill the pot holes in the roads with the sludge.

Then someone says they kinda like the loos, and so now THEY become the target.

By the way there Dale, what do you do? 1. A bobblehead city hall staffer, 2. a teacher, giving little skulls of mush a better way, 3. An "local artist," 4. A rich snobby lawyer are my guess's. [all sic]

Kinda funny, right? And yet not really, as it reveals the frightening thought process of people around us, and reminds us how easy it is to insult people when you cannot think of a more intelligent way to disagree with them. And as I'm reading these comments, I'm thinking to myself, "wait for it..." and sure enough:

Did this loo come equipped with some public art? That could be a follow-up story.

Alright. I'm just going to tackle that one head on, and give you the follow-up story right now: No, the loo did not come with public art. As if that were the stupidest idea ever. I wish there were public art associated with these toilets -- 2% of $140K would give us $2,800 to work with, which is a decent amount for starters. Let me show you some toilet-inspired works of art to get your creative juices flowing.







(This last photo was a temporary installation that appeared in the Portland Building in 2001, "Inheritance VII" by Heidi Fletcher. Click here for the artist's statement.)

And with that, I hope that some will comment on the pros and cons of the "comment" button, and/or the practicality of public art associated with public restrooms. Of course we welcome (and even seek out) comments from those who disagree, because Culture Shock readers and other blogging practitioners know how to disagree intelligently.

Public Art Interactions

When the folks at The Portland Mercury wanted to dress up local public sculptures to help celebrate Portland Fashion Week, there was a little consternation at RACC. On one hand, public interaction with artworks is something to be celebrated, like the way we uniquely interact with our fountains. Some public artworks explicitly invite this kind of participation (think Pod or Dog Bowl) while others have a more shadowy history of public manipulation (Joan of Ark, or the Elk).


Portland Mercury

On the other hand, some of the city's more historical sculptures were, unfortunately, not built with interaction in mind. Rebecca At the Well, in the park blocks behind the Schnitz, is a good example. Situated within Shemanski Fountain, people who reach to touch the solid bronze figure often damage the more fragile sandstone surroundings. Thousands of dollars have been spent on repairs to the fountain, including several acts of deliberate vandalism, over the past ten years. In fact, RACC has a backlog of more than $100,000 in maintenance and repair that is needed for public artworks throughout the county.

Meanwhile, what should be RACC's role in maintaining the artistic integrity and/or physical condition of these artworks that are owned by you, the public? If it's out there on the street, does that mean it should be open to public manipulation? With what limits? Taken to the extreme, do we celebrate sillies who put a Hawaiian shirt on Allow Me, or a bedsheet over Abraham Lincoln, or do we try to preserve some level of decorum? Where do you draw the line?

Mausoleum Makeover

If you've ever jogged, sauntered, biked or bladed down that glorious OMSI-to-Springwater Trail, you've surely noticed the mausoleum that rises from the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. That structure features an old, faded mural of a blue heron that's about to get some company. In fact, it's about to become the largest hand-painted mural in the United States.

Before:


After:


Painting is just underway and organizers hope to complete the mural by November 3. Read more in today's Sellwood Bee. (Sorry, there are no anchors, you'll have to scroll down to the mural story.)

Dragon? What Dragon?

Surely you remember the brouhaha that ensued when a "culturally offensive" public artwork was unveiled in Old Town/Chinatown in the winter of ought-seven. If not, you can take this trip down memory lane and also here.

But right now, as I type this, artist Brian Goldbloom and a crew from RACC are installing some of the additional “Illumination” sculptures that were commissioned for the PDC festival street improvements on NW 3rd and 4th Avenue years ago, but have gone unfinished while a remedy was sought. Today's installation includes a more generic topstone replacement for the original carved granite dragon, which had offended many with its improper downfacing position and collared appearance. The original carving was returned to the artist.


One of these two "lanterns" used to have a dragon head in it. Now they're plain "topstones."

Two final components will be installed in the fall, along with interpretive plaques that help describe the 8 different granite base blocks representing the many ethnic communities that have concentrated in this neighborhood over the years. Check out Blogtown PDX for some good additional information, and photos.