by Celeste Noche

Almost five years ago, I moved to Portland because it was renown for its creative community (and it’s cute af, but that’s neither here nor there). I wanted to brave a career in photography, and after years of failing to connect with other artists in San Francisco, I thought Portland would be a better way to go about it. On my visits thus far, everyone had been so welcoming and nice. Seeing alternative art and flourishes of creativity throughout the city made it feel smaller in a more intimate, inspiring way. Maybe Portland could be a place to grow and learn within a community of artists.

Two years later, I found myself with endless acquaintances but no friends or mentors within the arts. I learned that while everyone was nice, not everyone was open. The creative communities I’d touched upon were limited to friendly greetings and nothing deeper— tight-knit also meant tight-lipped.

The isolation I felt in navigating this career was compounded as a person of color— not only was I sending cold emails looking for any connections, I was also usually the only person of color at the events I went to. I was isolated both on and offline, until I happened upon an online group dedicated to artists of color.

The immediate acceptance and support was astounding. Perhaps the community is strong because we need each other so much, but the contrasts within this community and outside were striking. Where small, white-owned businesses were eager to collaborate on pro bono or “for exposure” projects, this POC community regularly discussed the necessity of compensating artists for their work. Where local shops were quick to capitalize off “#feminist” and “the future is female” merchandise, this POC community was hosting fundraisers to support groups that benefit marginalized communities and artists with chronic illnesses. Where other artists were secretive about their contacts and workflows, this POC community shared their leads and resources, hosted regular meetups and workshops, and stressed the importance of showing up physically and/or with monetary support— the key to sustaining safe spaces for artists of color.

Today I wonder how Portland can still be known for its creativity and progressive ideals when there has been such limited support and investment in these communities. Beyond the secretive, tight-lipped competition I experienced during my first few years, I wonder about the monetary and accountability investment to guarantee that diverse art has a future here.

The current climate means that we’re narrowing gaps on representation, but representation is just the beginning. Now that people of color are the token melanin on magazine covers and brown bodies in ad campaigns, Portland needs to go deeper in supporting artists of color financially.

Systemically, institutions are overdue to follow through on the values they claim to guide them. In a recent event sponsored by multiple Portland-based organizations whose websites state their commitment to arts accessibility (RACC included), this event boasted Asian-inspired themes, required $100+ tickets to attend, and included no people of color as featured artists or organizers. When community members expressed their concern about the lack of POC and the inaccessible pricing, the organizers deleted their comments then blocked the people who left them. This situation exemplifies the systemic dismissal and inequity for the marginalized to not only participate in the arts, but Portland’s continued habit of silencing the people they’re profiting from.

It wasn’t just the cost of the tickets, or that the organizers erased the voices of people of color, but that a very specific demographic of artists are continually given the platform and funding to engage in the arts without accountability. When will artists of color receive the same funding, the same platform, the same opportunities as those profiting from their culture? This event and the situation that unfolded is the perpetuation of classism, racism, and the idea that the arts are only a safe space for a select few. Furthermore, its proof that organizations who declare their commitments to “diversity” and “inclusivity” are not thorough in ensuring these values are reflected in the artists and art they sponsor.

For everyday Portlanders, investing in artists of color means buying their art and not just sharing it. This means hiring outside of your social circle and making opportunities accessible and equitable for artists of all backgrounds. This means paying the models/poster people for your campaigns and hiring artists of color to create the work. This means paying artists for magazine features and speaking events, because sharing our experiences is still grossly underpaid labor. Investing in artists of color isn’t simply giving them your money (though that’s a huge part); it’s also knowing where your financial support goes. Who else is benefiting from your spending, and are those people doing their part to ensure safe and equitable spaces for other artists of color? We are long overdue for Portland— institutionally and personally— to follow through on their performative speeches. It’s time to dedicate both our time and money to support marginalized artists and organizations because without these investments, we fail to invest in the best version of Portland.

This article was written as part of our State of the Arts series, where we asked artists, arts administrators, and creatives to share their thoughts on the “state of the arts” in Portland. What is their experience? What makes them anxious? What makes them hopeful? What issues do they and/or their communities face as the city continues to change? What is their vision for the future? Read more 2018 State of the Arts articles here

Celeste Noche is a Filipino American food, travel, and portrait photographer (and sometimes writer). She advocates for diversity and inclusivity, seeking to share stories of underrepresented communities. She is a regular contributor to Street Roots and a 2018 RACC-grant recipient for Portland in Color, a series dedicated to highlighting artists of color in Portland.

by Roya Amirsoleymani

To be asked to address the “state of the arts” in Portland is a welcome invitation, and at the same time an arguably flawed frame of reference and impossible task. No single individual can be in comprehensive or equal relationship to the breadth of formal and informal organizations, institutions, cultures, and communities that produce, engage in, and contribute to arts and culture in our region. Nevertheless, articulating one’s perspective on the present and future of our arts ecosystem is a valuable exercise in remembering why we do what we do, and in evaluating what’s working, what isn’t, and where we go from here. In turn, those of us active at the cross-section of arts and other social spheres–including education, policy and advocacy, neighborhood involvement, community organizing, and justice movements–have a stake in art’s inextricable connections to civic life, and part of our job is to advocate for the value of arts and culture to the public and to those with influence over the distribution of shared resources.

It goes without saying that Portland’s rapid growth and skyrocketing cost of living pose an unprecedented challenge for the city, its residents, and its electeds–an ideological challenge, in that it forces us to take a position, make a stand, declare and demonstrate what matters to us socially, politically, economically, and in perpetuity. At a time when the security of so many communities in our city is precarious or vulnerable, it would be easy to dismiss the arts and culture as an add-on, supplemental rather an integral to community well-being. Indeed, we are frequently paid lip service through proclamations of support with no public funding to back them.

Yet these days, complaining about a lack of investment in arts and culture feels desperate, tiresome, like a broken record for those both repeating and receiving it–not because it isn’t warranted, but rather because it might finally be time for new arguments, tactics, and outlooks.

Thus, rather than calling, asking, or appealing for sustained or increased arts and culture support as a form of validation, I am instead going to remind myself and all of us that culture and creative expression cannot be “provided” by a city or arts council as a human service. Arts and culture precede government. They are inherent to communal living. The people make culture, the people are the culture, and the people will continue to produce art, its spaces, and its methods of distribution in the absence of national cultural policy or substantial public funding. And yet, the democratization of arts access, the capacity of arts and culture to support and advance other civic goals, and the extent to which arts and culture thrive do depend upon healthy and robust public recognition and resources, something we still lack in Portland.

Artists and creative communities are remarkably responsive and resilient. They have created their own interdependent structures of support, survival and mutual care despite being perpetually undereconomized and faced with both internal and external systemic injustices and invisibilities, including deeply ingrained inequities within the established “art world” itself that mimic and mirror those calculatedly upheld by social systems at large. In short, artists and most arts nonprofits and cultural spaces have learned how to persist despite a lack of public resources–especially those by, for, and of historically marginalized communities, who have long had their own strategies for support and survival counter to the mainstream.

As someone whose professional practice, commitments, and interests span artistic disciplines as well as legacy, alternative, and grassroots realms of the sector, I do a lot of code-switching. I work closely with a diverse spectrum of artists, peer organizations, community partners, Black and Brown youth, students and faculty in higher education, and advocates for racial equity in the arts. This intersectional movement in the field both demands and provides a multifaceted perspective on our arts and culture landscape, one that reveals its depth, breadth, and immaterial richness, as well as its deep exclusions, inequities, and homogeneities. From this viewpoint, I am confident that Portland is experiencing the most vibrant, dynamic, responsive, relevant and vital “state of the arts” of our time as Black and Brown, Indigenous, queer and trans, non-binary, Disabled, poor, womxn and femme, immigrant, and youth artists, audiences and communities–who have always been active–claim and create alternative economies and spaces for cultural production and presentation. It is devastating to think of a future Portland that neglects the expansiveness of arts and culture in our city, and equally heartening to imagine a city that begins to commit to it.

This article was written as part of our State of the Arts series, where we asked artists, arts administrators, and creatives to share their thoughts on the “state of the arts” in Portland. What is their experience? What makes them anxious? What makes them hopeful? What issues do they and/or their communities face as the city continues to change? What is their vision for the future? Read more 2018 State of the Arts articles here

Roya Amirsoleymani is an arts administrator, educator, and Artistic Director & Curator of Public Engagement with the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA). At PICA, she concentrates on critical, contextual, discursive, educational, community-based and socially engaged programming in connection with, and independent of, exhibitions and performances, as well as access, equity, and inclusion for contemporary and experimental art and its institutions. She is a founding member of Arts Workers for Equity (AWE), which works to advance racial equity in the local arts and culture sector. She is also a faculty member in the Art & Social Practice MFA Program at Portland State University. She has been invited to speak at multiple conferences in the arts and culture field nationally and locally, and has participated in numerous national, regional, and local grant panel and award selection committees. Roya holds a B.A. in Contemporary Visual Culture & Gender Studies (Johnston Center for Integrative Studies, Redlands, CA) and a Masters’s in Arts Management (University of Oregon). She is most inspired by the inquiries and possibilities that arise when artists, audiences, activists, and academics come together to critically and collaboratively explore our current cultural moment.