RACC Blog

Artists and youth strengthen community connections within East Portland

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Mario De León is a local artist whose playful, detailed murals and paintings can be found throughout East Portland and Gresham. Passionate about his art and sharing it with the community, De León is bringing his talent to a new project engaging youth from the nonprofit Play Grow Learn. In May, these young artists brightened the intersection of 148th Avenue and East Burnside by transforming this traffic signal box into a larger-than-life vintage boombox. Coming up next, they plan to transform the TriMet service building across the street with a large new mural featuring human rights leader Malcolm X. The public art project seeks to connect the City of Portland to the City of Gresham in an area where predominantly Black communities reside and where public resources remain under-invested and under-prioritized.

Muralist Mario De León and youth from Play, Grow, Learn turned this signal box into a work of art.

The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) has teamed up with Portland’s Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) supporting local Black-led art projects around the city with financial and technical support and a streamlined permitting process. Locations vary but are focused in North and Northeast Portland’s Historic Albina Area and East Portland, neighborhoods with strong community and cultural connections.

Six community-based organizations are leading or partnering in this initiative including:

  • Play Grow Learn
  • Somali Council of Oregon
  • African Youth Community Organization
  • Albina Vision Trust
  • Self Enhancement Inc.
  • Soul District Business Association

The nonprofit City Repair Project is providing technical assistance and partnership facilitation.

Project Partners
Play Grow Learn strives to help community members feel a sense of positivity, pride, and belonging in public space and to uplift Black and East Portland community spiritually, mentally, and physically during the converging crises of the pandemic, systemic racism, and climate chaos.  Find out more.

The Regional Arts & Culture Council is an independent nonprofit 501(c)3 organization supporting greater Portland’s creative economy by providing equitable funding and services to artists and art organizations; managing and growing our diverse, nationally acclaimed public art program; and developing long-lasting public and private partnerships. For more information visit racc.org. 

The Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT) is a community partner in shaping a livable city. PBOT plans, builds, manages, and maintains an effective and safe transportation system that provides people and businesses access and mobility. Find out more.

City Repair facilitates artistic and ecologically-oriented placemaking through projects that honor the interconnection of human communities and the natural world. City Repair has accomplished many projects through a mostly volunteer staff and thousands of volunteer citizen activists. They provide support, resources, and opportunities to help diverse communities reclaim their culture, power, and joy. Find out more.

National Endowment for the Arts awards grant to create East Portland Cultural Corridor

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$75,000 NEA grant to connect people, culture, and transportation; strengthen the sense of community in East Portland

The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC), in partnership with TriMet, the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), APANO, Division Midway Alliance, and Slavic Community Center of NW, will receive a $75,000 Our Town grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Our Town is NEA’s creative placemaking grants program that supports the integration of arts, culture, and design to strengthen people’s connection within their community. The NEA grant funds will be matched locally by $50,000 from RACC (with funding from PBOT’s percent-for-art program) and $25,000 from TriMet.

“The Division Transit Project is not only about bringing better, faster, more reliable bus service to the neighborhoods along Division Street, it is also about community,” said TriMet interim General Manager Sam Desue, Jr. “We appreciate the National Endowment for the Arts recognizing the heart of Portland, a feeling that all belong and are welcome, whether on transit or elsewhere in our community.”

The NEA grant will launch the East Portland Cultural Corridor, a project aimed at generating a cohesive sense of place and cultural presence in East Portland along Southeast Division Street from SE 82nd Avenue to SE 175th Avenue. The project will leverage TriMet’s Division Transit Project, currently more than halfway through construction, as a geographic backbone and future travel option that will become a part of the daily life of many East Portland residents.

“It’s exciting to see a transit project that celebrates creativity and recognizes the role artists and the creative process can have in achieving a community vision,” said Kristin Calhoun, RACC’s Public Art Director. “Arts and cultural activities bring people together to strengthen connections to each other and the places we care about.”

Artists and community-based organizations will lead the following initiatives throughout the corridor:

  • An artist in residence to engage community members and project partners in creating a cohesive district identity.
  • APANO Art + Justice Lab Fellows Project will provide fellowship pairings of one established and one emerging artist that will design a public project or performance.
  • Division-Midway Alliance will initiate cultural district planning for a cultural center.
  • Slavic Community Center of NW will produce an International Children’s Festival and participate in cultural district planning.

TriMet initiated the grant application as a means to address current federal transit funding restrictions on public art on the Division Transit Project. As the grant recipient, RACC will oversee and administer the funding to the community-based organizations and artists, with project management by TriMet. This is a first of its kind collaboration between the City of Portland, PBOT, RACC, and TriMet to provide direct support to non-profit organizations to support some of the cultural needs identified by the community.

Capturing the Moment artist – Terrance Burton

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Writer, poet, multi-media artist, and educator, Terrance Burton, breaks it down like this, “If I can inspire someone – another artist – not to give up, that would be it. My art is what inspired me as a survivor.”

Watercolor painting of people holding signs protesting the killing of George Floyd, systemic racism and supporting the movement for Black Lives.

Terrance Burton, Black Lives Matter, watercolor, 2020

Terrance Burton credits being an artist to his parents, the ways that they expressed themselves in dance, music, and clothing design. “Who I am starts from my parents,” he says. “My mother made clothing. She would draw her dress patterns freehand. I got the bug about 8 years old.” He cofounded Bum-Rush Productions while still a teen living in LA, for years playing house parties, MCing, working with friends in rap or hip hop groups. Like so many artists, Terrance Burton adapts to thrive, survive, and make a living. “I lost my father at a young age,” he explains. “Writing poetry, making music, drawing, dance – especially dance – was how I got through.”

Black and white photo of artist Terrance Burton

Writer, poet, multi-media artist, and educator Terrance Burton

Today, he works his pop-up in the Lents neighborhood in Southeast Portland. An independently owned cannabis dispensary, The Dime Store, has given him the space to sustain himself as an artist. He first set up in their parking lot at Southeast 82nd and Holgate, until being adopted last year as their “resident artist”. “Like a lot of folks, I took a hit with this pandemic,” he said. “The Lents community has supported me through the tough times we’ve all been through this past year. It’s changed my life. I don’t know where I’d be without that community support. It makes me want to keep fighting.” Much of the art Terrance produces he makes with an eye for what sells. The pieces he shared for Capturing the Moment were different. “This was actually art that I created for me.”

At 35, Terrance decided he needed to pursue a college degree because he continued to hit “the glass ceiling” in his professional career. Am I Next, came from his experience of being assaulted on the MAX on the way home by TriMet’s Transit Police. On his way home to East Portland from class at PCC’s Sylvania Campus, another black man with an open container got on the train and rode in his car for a bit. The man left the train and, a few stops later, a TriMet officer boarded and ordered Terrance to get off. On the platform, he was met by four police cars – and pulled guns. “I was distraught. They proceeded to go through my bag. All they found were my school papers,” he said. “The worst thing of all, it (an open container) wasn’t worth the threat on my life. Going to college was a stress. Just trying to get home.”

 

Black and white watercolor painting of a teen-aged black youth standing behind a sign that says

Terrance Burton, Am I Next, 2020

The artworks Terrance submitted for Capturing the Moment were inspired by movements of the past that he saw in person today.  “When I think back to those pieces….same imagery, still the same thing. We fought for civil rights but we’re still a commodity. Our humanity is still on the line. I wanted to capture what so many are facing at the time, including now.” This moment, he says, makes him hopeful. “What’s happening, the movement, has changed my life. This is finally time that people, not just African Americans, are saying ‘we’re with you, we support,’” he says.

Watercolor painting of people holding protest signs saying

Terrance Burton, Untitled, Watercolor, Acrylic, 2020

Capturing the Moment – Selected Artists April 2021

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Just over a year ago, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown issued her executive order putting our state into lockdown due to the COVID-19 virus. Last fall the Regional Arts & Culture Council asked artists to submit works of all media “Capturing the Moment,” reflecting their artistic response to the economic and health crisis in our communities. It was an effort to reflect and record our collective experiences of change, uncertainty, loss, and hope. Submissions flooded in–sculpture, illustrations, video, photography, painting, and more.

In addition to sharing their work “Capturing the Moment,” artists also shared the ways they were impacted by lost opportunities for funding or revenue due to COVID-19. Some were laid off from regular employment, many lost freelance gigs, canceled tours, postponed debuts of new works, and other productions. Some used makeshift spaces to continue working; painting on a friend’s porch or editing in a loaned studio after being evacuated by summer wildfires. Despite the challenges, they demonstrated their resilience and creativity. They adapted, adjusting projects that were canceled or delayed because of the pandemic. They found new life – and continued living – as artists and creatives.

A community curatorial team composed of four Black artists and creatives reviewed the submissions and made selections. The curatorial team included: Christine Miller, visual artist; Bobby Fouther, visual and performing artist; Ambush, Creative Consultant/DJ;  and Stacey Drake Edwards, textile artist.

Artworks from 34 Black artists, Indigenous artists, and artists of color were selected by the curators for Capturing the Moment. This new public art collection showcases work in a wide scope of media, created by emerging artists and creatives across the region in response to this particular moment in time.

See and hear the works of seven of these local artists (details and links attached). The featured artwork includes the timely and moving video, Sayonara Mata Ashita, conceived and directed by Michelle Fujii in collaboration with Unit Souzou Ensemble; Somya Singh’s “memoir comics” which capture the isolation and familiar scenes of the quarantine including social distancing, protests, and the disconnection experienced through screens and social media. An elegant collection of natural dyed meditation seats and altars, ceramic hand-thrown planters, and vessels from multimedia artist janessa bautista were included along with a short thriller, Vent, by filmmaker Ashley Mellinger. Julian Saporiti’s multi-media No-No Boy media project, Orient Oregon, and May Maylisa Cat’s video Farang Kee Nok (Bird Sh!t Foreigner) confront both the invisible stories of early Japanese American immigrants and today’s appropriation of food culture and racialized labor. Finally, Waves 1-5, a series painted in acrylic on 8” x 8” canvases by Valerie Yeo uses this metaphor to suggest how the rhythmic, steady power of moving water creates permanent change.

Read their stories. Learn more.

 

#PDXCARES Supported Capturing the Moment

This initiative of the Regional Arts & Culture Council was intended to further and support Portland-based artists making work during the 2020 COVID-19 crisis. The call for submissions aimed to reflect and record this time of change, uncertainty, loss, and hope. It will continue to serve and showcase some of the work emerging from artists and creatives during this historic moment. Artist submissions selected for Capturing the Moment will be shared via RACC and the City of Portland’s communication channels including digital formats and social media accounts.

Funding for Capturing the Moment came from the City of Portland’s federal allocation of CARES funding (#PDXCARES). It was specifically dedicated by the city to Asian, Black, Indigenous artists, and all artists of color who reside in the City of Portland.

 

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Capturing the Moment artist – Michelle Fujii

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Fourth-generation Japanese-American Michelle Fujii creates contemporary work centered in the Japanese art forms of taiko (drums) and folk dance. “The work I create is rooted in my cultural identity and lived experiences,” she explains. “It responds to current events, community conversations and societal issues. Being personal and authentic is the foundation of my work, investigating notions of identity, otherness, and home against an American landscape.”

Her submission, Sayonara Mata Ashita, debuted May 16, 2020. She explains, “Fifty-two people sang along that are a significant and inspirational part of our taiko lives – our mentors, our Unit Souzou taiko family, our Women & Taiko community connections, our Warabi-za family, our organizational partners. It was such a beautiful and overwhelming journey. As our communities face duress, self-isolation, social distancing, this song was written with the hope that the narrative of this time is not of more othering, but of more togetherness.”

Credits: Conceived and directed by Michelle Fujii in collaboration with Unit Souzou Ensemble – Ian Berve, Toru Watanabe, David Wells, Vicky Zhang. Special Thanks to: Amy Naylor – Video Editing, David Wells – Sound Editing, Michelle Fujii – Video Project Manager, Koto-Izumi Kuroki, Shakuhachi-Tsuyoshi Ozawa.

 

#PDXCARES Supported Capturing the Moment

Funding for Capturing the Moment came from the City of Portland’s federal allocation of CARES funding (#PDXCARES). It was specifically dedicated to Asian, Black, Indigenous artists, and all artists of color who reside in the City of Portland.

Capturing the Moment artist – janessa bautista

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Multimedia artist janessa bautista’s artistic practice involves natural dyeing with plant material, some of which she harvested or grew herself. “I dye natural fibers in the form of fabric and rope.” she explains. “The work I create is about everyday needs and the energy that is put into the making process. I do my best to always have compassion for myself and for others, with this comes healing and growth. The energy I put into my artistic process creates a healing vibration, as it is a healing experience. My objects carry the vibration into your home and life by embodying the healing work in the experience. I create healing offerings using ritual, handmade vessels and a beautiful altar to honor the five senses, four elements and the four directions. Let us explore our relationship to the objects, their relationship to each other and how their use supports our healing process and all those around us.”

janessa bautista, Tea Ceremony, 2020. Set includes includes: Indigo meditation seat, woven planter, hibachi grill, altar yoni spoon.

 

Fiber art sculpture. Natural dyed indigo cotton rope woven on walnut wood. Rope, natural dyes, wood, clay.

janessa bautista, Hanging Altar Indigo detail, 2020.

Find out more about artist janessa bautista.

 

#PDXCARES Supported Capturing the Moment

This RACC initiative was intended to further and support Portland-based artists making work during the 2020 COVID-19 crisis. The call for submissions aimed to reflect and record this time of change, uncertainty, loss and hope. It will continue to serve and showcase some of the work emerging from artists and creatives during this historic moment. Artist submissions selected for Capturing the Moment will be shared via RACC and the City of Portland’s communication channels including digital formats and social media accounts.

Funding for Capturing the Moment came from the City of Portland’s federal allocation of CARES funding (#PDXCARES). It was specifically dedicated to Asian, Black, Indigenous artists, and all artists of color who reside in the City of Portland.

Capturing the Moment artist – May Maylisa Cat

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May Maylisa Cat is a multidisciplinary artist whose work lies at the intersection of food culture, racialized labor, and identity. Her work spans new media, painting, glass, and performance.

Multidisciplinary artist May Maylisa Cat

 

The panel of curators selected two of May Maylisa Cat’s works for Capturing the Moment.

The first, a video titled Farang Kee Nok (Bird Sh!t Foreigner), she describes as an “absurdist video artwork that touches on the hypocrisy of ex-pats who fetishize the cultures of the countries they move to.” She explains that the video purposely utilizes ADR (Automated Dialog Replacement) to add a surreal dissonance to the piece. It was created during a mentor workshop with visual artist Kalup Linzy at Chautauqua Visual Arts residency. Play the video here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIfdl3pm0Q8

The second, titled Across, Whom? was constructed of found materials including nylon fabric, rice bag, and hardware. Made in collaboration with Sean Brady.

Nylon fabric, rice bag, and hardware Ricebag conformed to a luggage / migration prop.

May Maylissa Cat, Across, Whom?, 2020

Follow May Maylissa Cat on Instagram @maymaylisacatz or Twitter @maymaylisacat.

 

#PDXCARES Supported Capturing the Moment

This RACC initiative was intended to further and support Portland-based artists making work during the 2020 COVID-19 crisis. The call for submissions aimed to reflect and record this time of change, uncertainty, loss and hope. It will continue to serve and showcase some of the work emerging from artists and creatives during this historic moment. Artist submissions selected for Capturing the Moment will be shared via RACC and the City of Portland’s communication channels including digital formats and social media accounts.

Funding for Capturing the Moment came from the City of Portland’s federal allocation of CARES funding (#PDXCARES). It was specifically dedicated to Black artists, Indigenous artists, and all artists of color who reside in the City of Portland.

Capturing the Moment – Stories from a Pandemic

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Just over a year ago, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown issued her executive order putting our state into lockdown due to the COVID-19 virus. Last fall we asked artists to submit works of all media “Capturing the Moment,” reflecting their artistic response to the economic and health crisis in our communities. Submissions flooded in–sculpture, illustrations, video, photography, painting, and more.

See and hear their art. Read their stories. Learn more.

Sayonara Mata Ashita

Michelle Fujii, creates contemporary work centered in the Japanese art forms of taiko (drums) and folk dance. She describes how, as a fourth generation Japanese-American, her art “navigates the multifaceted complexity of identity in our communities, and reveals my journey to claim my own identity story.” Her submission, Sayonara Mata Ashita  debuted May 16, 2020. “Fifty-two people sang along that are a significant and inspirational part of our taiko lives,” she explains. “Our mentors, our Unit Souzou taiko family, our Women & Taiko community connections, our Warabi-za family, our organizational partners. It was such a beautiful and overwhelming journey. As our communities face duress, self-isolation, social distancing, this song was written with the hope that the narrative of this time is not of more othering, but of more togetherness.”

We think you will agree. Have a listen. (Play button located lower left hand corner of the image below).

Credits: Conceived and directed by Michelle Fujii in collaboration with Unit Souzou Ensemble: Ian Berve, Toru Watanabe, David Wells, Vicky Zhang. Special Thanks to: Amy Naylor – Video Editing; David Wells – Sound Editing; Michelle Fujii – Video Project Manager; Koto-Izumi Kuroki, Shakuhachi-Tsuyoshi Ozawa.

Artists tell their stories

In addition to sharing their work for “Capturing the Moment,” artists also shared the ways they personally were impacted by lost opportunities for funding or revenue due to COVID-19. Some were laid off from regular employment, many lost freelance gigs, canceled tours, postponed debuts of new works, and other productions. Some used makeshift spaces to continue working; painting on a friend’s porch or editing in a loaned studio after being evacuated by summer wildfires. Despite the challenges, they demonstrated their resilience and creativity. They adapted, adjusting projects that were canceled or delayed because of the pandemic. They found new life – and continued living – as artists and creatives.

See and hear the works of these local artists and their response to the moment.

Terrance Burton

janessa bautista

Julian Saporiti

May Maylisa Cat

Ashley Mellinger

Valerie Yeo

Somya Singh

Michelle Fujii

Funding for Capturing the Moment came from the City of Portland’s federal CARES money (#PDXCARES). It was specifically dedicated to Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, multiracial, and Pacific Islander artists living in the City of Portland.