Starving Artist’s Guide to First Thursday

Posted by David Vanadia on Thu, Aug 7 at 11:32 AM in the Portland Mercury

Apparently there were twenty thousand people at Last Thursday on Alberta. With rainy season just around the corner, it’s no doubt this week’s First Thursday in the Pearl District will be equally as busy. Since First Thursday is like heaven on earth for starving artists (because it’s the only day we can look at art and eat out in the Pearl District) below are my recommendations for scoring a bite.

Downtown

Mark Wooley Gallery - Always good for a handful of peanuts but not worth the walk to downtown. Stay in the Pearl. 817 SW 2nd

Chambers Gallery - I have no idea what they serve because it’s so far out of the Pearl that I rarely ever go there. But wait! Chambers is moving into that (used to be) dilapidated storefront across the street from PDX Contemporary. You know, the one with the big windows that you’ve walked by many times and thought, “That would make a nice gallery.” 205 SW Pine

Pearl District

Albina Bank - Best food, hands down. They used to put stuff out like it was a European wedding but have gotten a little conservative lately. Olives, chips and salsa, cheese and crackers, grapes, strawberries, salami, candy, hummus, carrots, and broccoli are all standard fare. Plus they have that art market in the garage area where - if you stand in front of the sensor in the doorway - you can make the alarm go off and watch everyone freak out. 430 NW 10th

Elizabeth Leach Gallery - If you like hummus, broccoli, carrots, bread and Brie, this is the place for you. They usually have wine as well and sometimes they even show art. 417 NW 9th

Black Fish Gallery - Pretzels. Always pretzels. 420 NW 9th

PDX Contemporary - Doesn’t serve food but probably has lots of leftovers from last month’s show Kind of Like a Buffet. 925 NW Flanders

Everett Station Lofts - I haven’t had good food at the ES lofts since Starling Gallery closed. To quote Double J, “Come on people, let’s step up.” 625 NW Everett

Blue Sky Gallery - Behind the front desk you’ll find a bowl of broken up cookies to get you through the otherwise non-existent offering of food in the Desoto building. 122 NW 8th

Quality Pictures - When they first opened they had mad catered chocolate festivals. These days you can still count on Q.P. for something unpredictable, like quiche. 916 NW Hoyt

Powells Books - Portland’s premiere velcro-monster-design art gallery (in the Pearl room) often has a decent veggie tray that goes unravaged if you hit it early. 1005 W Burnside

Icebreaker - This is a clothing store but they’re having an event with refreshments. Worth checking into since it’s just across the street from Powells. 1109 W Burnside

Lizard Lounge - Another clothing store featuring art, live music, beer, wine and Stumptown coffee. It’s on the art walk just blocks from PNCA. 1323 NW Irving

Enjoy!

 

David Rothman - Chopin Recital

The Old Church Recital Series presents David Rothman, pianist playing Frederic Chopin

The Old Church, Portland Oregon
1422 SW 11th Avenue, Portland 97201
Wednesday 30 July 2008, 12:00 Noon - FREE

Frederic Chopin Program

Piano Sonata no. 2 in B-Flat minor, Opus 35
(Funeral March)
Grave; Doppio movimento
Scherzo
Marche funebre: Lento
Finale: Presto

Two Nocturnes, Opus 27
No. 1: Larghetto
No. 2: Lento sostenuto

Two Waltzes, Opus 64
No. 1: Molto vivace
No. 3: Moderato

Mazurka, Opus 33, No. 2
Vivace

David Rothman was born in Toronto, Canada in 1962. When he was ten years old he was awarded a piano scholarship, in open competition, to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School, Surrey, England. Members of the jury included Yehudi Menuhin and Nadia Boulanger. Among his teachers at the Menuhin School were Louis Kentner and Vlado Perlemuter. At age seventeen he won a piano scholarship to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he was a student of Mieczyslaw Horszowski and Seymour Lipkin. David Rothman presently lives in Portland, Oregon.

This recital is dedicated to the memory of Dr. George Saslow

 

Downtown art holes up during Transit Mall work

from the Portland Tribune, July 15 2008

TriMet plans to move some of the pieces around once construction is completed

Renovation of the downtown Transit Mall prompts a parade of questions from many Portlanders: Which streets will be closed today? Who is paying for all of this? When will the downtown traffic nightmare end?

Others may wonder what’s happened to the 12 works of public art that lined the streets before the construction started. They include “Cat in Repose” by Kathleen McCollough, a favorite with children, and “Kvinneakt,” the nude sculpture made famous by a pre-Mayor Bud Clark in the widely circulated “Expose Yourself to Art” poster.

Mary Priester, TriMet’s public art manager, said the existing public art sculptures have been temporarily removed during construction, but will return when the work is completed next year.

“The artwork will be coming back to the area after some of the construction is finished,” Priester said.

But not necessarily to their original locations. Instead, some of the sculptures will be relocated at sites TriMet believes will provide the best public viewing.

Before they return, the art will be cleaned and refurbished. But just where the sculptures are currently being stored is a secret.

The removals were necessary because of the extensive work needed to run a new light-rail line along Southwest Fifth and Sixth avenues from Union Station to Portland State University. In some places, the sidewalks where certain works sat have been narrowed.

Security concerns kept Priester from revealing where the art was being stored, and the Regional Arts and Culture Council – the Portland-Multnomah County agency, which is responsible for the temporary storage – also was tightlipped about the location.

Kristin Calhoun, RACC’s public art manager, said the art would be on display again downtown in the fall.

“We’ve been through a pretty long process of deciding where the art will be returned,” she said. “A lot of it won’t be in the same location that it was removed from, but we are trying to find the best area where it will live for the next 30 years or so.”

New spots for art

New public art will also be introduced next spring, closer to the mall’s proposed completion of September 2009.

About $750,000 of the project’s funding has been allocated to the Mall art program, which will feature about 25 new pieces. The sculptures will be distributed among the north, central and south areas of the mall.

“We have a lot going on,” Priester said. “We have three separate programs relating to the different parts of the mall. The North Mall is more historic, the Central Mall sculptures will focus on the Northwest and the South Mall by Portland State University will have an emphasis on education and sustainability.”

One piece is already back. “Driver’s Seat” by Don Merkt was simply moved from the east side of Northwest Fifth Avenue at Irving Street to the west side.

There are two pieces that will not be returning to the transit mall area, however. “Tri-Met,” by Robert Maki, will be reinstalled at Standard Plaza on Southwest Fifth Avenue between Madison and Main streets, without its water feature.

And due to space constraints, the privately owned “Soaring Stones” by John Young that was on the west side of Pioneer Place will be returned to its owner.

 

Vic Atiyeh @ PDX

We found a lonely former governor Victor Atiyeh (1979-1986) patiently waiting for a commuter flight at the Portland International Airport’s Governor Victor G. Atiyeh International Concourse.

Several barriers to viewing this artwork. It’s inside of concourse C, so only ticket buyers and airport employees can see the artwork; and there were no scheduled flights for that section of the concourse, so unless you’re wandering beyond your ticket counter the sculpture is easy to miss or overlook. Finally, it’s mundanity, it’s general ordinariness is disconcerting.

Full size bronze by Bill Bane, the sculpture was commissioned by his business partners and is adjoined by a small presentation of Atiyeh’s achievements.

EXTRA - Bill Bane - Vera Katz - unimpressive sculpture
EXTRA - Bill Bane - Upon Landing in Vancouver

 

Puppetry: An Out of Body Experience

Oregon Historical Society bends it’s mission slightly to present the art and puppetry of Michael Curry Design, June 26 through October 19.

Michael Curry, a resident of Scappoose, has achieved an international reputation as a master of puppetry and kinetic theatrical design. He creates iconic, exhilarating, profoundly moving performance experiences for such global entertainment brands as The Walt Disney Company, Cirque Du Soleil, Universal Studios and The Olympics, as well as many international opera and stage companies.

The exhibit will show Curry’s pieces seen in Julie Taymor’s The Lion King.

EXTRA - Portland Public Art reviews The Magic Flute with Michael Curry Design

 

Despair leads to death of music man

from the Gresham Outlook, June 20, 2008

Police have recovered the body from the Willamette River of a missing local man who committed suicide.

Jason R. Ogan, 32, of Gresham was reported missing by his mother on Tuesday, June 17. He’d last been seen at about 11:30 p.m. Monday, June 16, at his parent’s southwest Gresham home where he lived. On Tuesday morning police towed his abandoned Ford Escort from the Marquam Bridge in Portland. His wallet also was found in Scappoose minus his driver’s license and a credit card.

Ogan, a talented musician, suffered from depression and other mental illnesses but stopped taking his medicine, his family told police.

Multnomah County River Patrol discovered Ogan’s body at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 18, in the Willamette River not far from the bridge where his car was found, said Deputy Travis Gullberg, sheriff’s office spokesman.

The medical examiner ruled Ogan’s death a suicide and suspects Ogan’s wallet floated downstream, where it was found in Scappoose, Gullberg said.

Ogan graduated from Centennial High School in 1992 and was director of choirs at Mt. Hood Community College in Gresham. He graduated from Portland State University in 1998 and earned his master’s degree in music from the University of Houston, where he also sang with the Houston Grand Opera.

In 2004, he returned home to Gresham and co-founded the Oregon Lyric Opera with the hope of bringing music theater and opera to East Multnomah County.

His professional credits also include Chautauqua Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, the Seattle Symphony and the Oregon Symphony.

A service of remembrance will be at 1 p.m. Friday, June 27, at Greater Gresham Baptist Church, 3848 N.E. Division St.

Bateman Carroll Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

Also, friends and family can log on to www.mem.com to share memories and sign an online guestbook. Memorial contributions can be made at any branch of MBank in the name of Jason Ogan.

EXTRA - Remembering Jason Ogan: tenor, conductor, impresario on the ascendant

 

Brophy in Seattle

The large oil paintings Michael Brophy was working on last year before a nighttime fire blasted through his house and studio seem oddly prophetic now. Brophy’s vision of the Northwest landscape has always tended toward the subtly cataclysmic: forest clear-cuts, burned-out shells of buildings, ominous skies, the log-strewn aftermath of unspecified disaster. In Brophy’s current show “Here — There” at G. Gibson Gallery, the darker aspect of his paintings gets more personal. Five big oils were among those salvaged from the studio after the September fire. One, called “Pallet Fire,” depicts a vertical sweep of flames that has little effect on the surrounding night.

The artist restored the paintings, which were marred by smoke and water. Fortunately, the work had been photographed before the fire. You can see them as they were in a new catalog, “Here There Nowhere,” available at the gallery.

Read the rest by Sheila Farr @ the Seattle Times, June 13

 

Free musicians’ dental clinic

From The Oregonian - Hey musicians! Those pearly whites looking pearly gray, but you don’t have the dental insurance to fix that? Have no fear:

Free Dental Clinic Portland Friday, June 27, 2008 MusiCares, in conjunction with Dr. Patrick Sherrard, will be offering comprehensive dental exams and consultations to low-income music professionals without insurance. Exams (include complete x-rays and cleaning) will be provided free of charge to pre-screened, pre-approved music professionals*, upon establishing eligibility. Appointments will be assigned in one hour increments, from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm.

Space is limited! Contact MusiCares at 800-687-4227 (toll-free) to schedule an appointment. * Minimum of 5 years documented career history or credits on 5 recorded tracks/videos

 

Everybody’s Art

Hmm. Watch OPB Thursday May 22 at 8pm and Sunday, May 25 at 6pm to see “Everybody’s Art,” an Oregon Art Beat special. Join the public art conversation on Think Out Loud, Friday May 23 at 9am.

See the web site - OPB’s Everybody’s Art

More than 30 years ago Oregon was one of the first states to commit consistent funding to public art. Thanks to our Percent for Art program Oregon is home to a collection of more than 2,500 pieces of art funded by us, the public. Add to that the thousands of works that have been privately funded and it’s hard to go through a day without passing a fountain, mural, sculpture or some other piece of public art. But who’s creating public art and caring for it once it’s been installed? What impact does public art have on communities, on you? Start to answer these questions for yourself by watching Everybody’s Art, join the conversation about public art with Think Out Loud on OPB Radio. Then get out and explore public art in your neighborhood and around the state using our public art map

 

Oregon Experience: Lola Greene Baldwin

Lola Greene Baldwin was one of Portland’s few great heroes, and it’s most important police officer - the first woman police officer in the nation.

Her story plays tonight on Oregon Experience, 9 PM on OPB.

On April 1, 1908 Lola G. Baldwin was sworn in “to perform police service” for Portland, Oregon and became the nation’s first policewoman. As Superintendent of the new Women’s Protective Division, Detective Baldwin crusaded for the moral and physical welfare of young, single working women. Her goal was to prevent them from being lured into lives of prostitution and crime by offering positive alternatives and by making the city safe.

But early 20th century Portland was rampant with vice and corruption, and ragtime America was shaking traditional values apart. Baldwin and her officers policed environments they believed bred corruption including the many amusement parks, dance halls and saloons around town.

Other cities around the country, including Tacoma and Seattle, were watching Portland’s experiment with women police and invited Baldwin to help them organize their own women’s protective divisions.

Policewoman Baldwin was instrumental in developing new preventive strategies in the community that influence policing policies to this day. Even after she retired in 1922, she continued to lobby for equal benefits for women police officers everywhere.

There is an exhibit about Lola Baldwin at the Portland Police Museum, part of the Portland Police Historical Society.

EXTRA - Lola Greene Baldwin Foundation - prostitution recovery

EXTRA - America’s first policewoman, from Mike Bailey at The Columbian