RACC Blog

PORTLAND, ORE – Inspired by the 1966 sci-fi movie Fantastic Voyage, in which miniaturized scientists enter a living human body on a medical rescue mission, artist Alanna Risse has created an installation that invites viewers to make believe they are inside a whimsical reconstruction of the human heart. While still remaining roughly anatomically correct, the overall form and use of everyday re-purposed materials, such as recycled cardboard, rivets, old curtains and fabric remnants, miscellaneous nuts and bolts, etc., also allows the work will to function like a kid’s fort.  

“As a latch-key kid, growing up in the Silicon Valley in the 1970s and 80s, with no personal sense of cultural identity, my identity was formed from a saturation of imagery from the technology and media that pervaded my life. As my surrogate parent, television, music, and movies shaped aspects of my personality indelibly. My current body of work explores this relationship by drawing inspiration from the electronic sources that inspired me.”

-Alanna Risse

The interior of the heart forms a cave-like refuge bathed in red light and filled with red and white blood platelets—in the form of appropriately shaped red and white floor pillows. Risse also takes advantage of the existing architecture of the Portland Building by incorporating round apertures (or “arterial entry points”) into the roof and side of the heart’s exterior that offer a sneak-peek inside as one ascends the staircase adjacent to the exhibition space. While the installation is playful and invites young and old to enter and investigate, it also offers a deeper level of engagement that asks visitors to examine their perceptions of body, mortality, and fragility.

About the Artist: Alanna Risse is a graduate candidate at Pacific Northwest Collage of Art’s MFA in Visual Studies program.  She completed her BFA in Painting and Drawing at California College of the Arts in San Francisco and has shown at multiple venues in Portland and in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Viewing Hours & Location: The Portland Building is located at 1120 SW 5th Avenue in downtown Portland and is open 8 am to 5 pm, Monday – Friday. Lub Dub opens June 8th and runs through July 10th, 2015.

For more information on the Portland Building Installation Space, including images, proposals, and statements for all projects dating back to 1994, go to www.racc.org/installationspace.
 
 

PORTLAND, ORE — The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) will present “Painting BIG,” two hands-on mural painting workshops on Sunday, May 3 and Saturday, May 9. The May 3rd workshop will focus on using brushes, grids and projectors, while the May 9th workshop will cover spray paint, stencils and projection. Both workshops are from 1:00-4:00 p.m. at the Rosewood Initiative, 16126 SE Stark Avenue in Portland.

Local artists Robin Corbo and The Lost Cause will lead the workshops and share their knowledge, techniques and insights for creating large scale paintings. Each workshop costs $30, or individuals can sign up for both for $50. All painting materials will be provided. For more information, visit www.racc.org.   

Since 2005, the Public Art Murals Program, administered by the RACC, has provided matching funds for over fifty mural projects. Artists, curators, neighborhood associations, citizen-based groups, and private developers are eligible to apply. Guidelines and application forms can be downloaded at racc.org/public-art/mural-program.

In 2009, a second process for approving murals was implemented by the City: artists can obtain a $50 Original Art Mural Permit from the City of Portland without having their mural reviewed by RACC. No funding is available through this permitting process. Visit http://www.portlandoregon.gov/bds/50737  for more information.

Since the establishment of these programs, the city has seen a resurgence of murals around the city. These workshops provide an opportunity to learn practical skills to execute murals indoors and outdoors.

Robin Corbo painted her first mural in Portland for the Community Cycling Center on Alberta Street in 2006 with the assistance of nearly fifty volunteers.  Through her experience, she has learned “best practices” and “worst mistakes” and spoken to schools, organizations and individuals about ways to create murals. In 2011, she wrote “One Million Brush Strokes: The Making of a Mural,” the story behind the conception and creation of the Bark mural at SE 46th and Powell.

The Lost Cause loves to paint on things. Details and line work define his style which is riddled with hidden messages and patterns inspired by day to day life. Cartoons have also been an inspiration for his work and have influenced him since childhood.  Locally, his work can be seen at Music Millennium at 31st and Burnside.  He also has worked in cities throughout the U.S.

For more information, contact Peggy Kendellen, Public Art Manager, at 503.823.4196, pkendellen@racc.org.
 
 

PORTLAND, ORE – While she was on vacation a while back, artist Brittany Powell lost her camera. Her husband said, “You should just paint all of our photos.” He was kidding, but she did—80 of them. In doing so she noticed something interesting about the process:

“Through painting the scenes, I became actively involved in the memory and gave the images more weight and value—two snow cones became a beautiful exploration of color, a jungle scene turned abstract, and a cityscape transformed into a study of shapes and patterns. Since then I began offering my services to paint other people’s vacations; I use their photos as source material, but the paintings are my interpretation of their experiences.”

-Brittany Powell

For her project at the Portland Building Powell will push this idea further and offer to paint photos from the cell phones of building users and passers-by. Our lives are now more documented than ever, but most of us rarely do more than transfer our cell phone photos to a hard-drive somewhere, or post them on social media, but these are the images that illustrate our daily existence, some of them deserve that extra weight and value Powell speaks of.

After setting up a small, table-sized work station in the Installation Space, the artist will hold “studio hours” (Monday – Thursday between 2pm & 5pm) when visitors can stop by to request a painting. Once selected, the photo will be texted from the participant’s phone to the artist’s phone and painting will commence. Each completed painting will be placed on display for the duration of the project. Participants can retrieve their photos during the final days of the exhibition, hopefully with a new appreciation for the images we take daily without a second thought.

About the Artist: Brittany Powell lives and works in Portland, Oregon. She has an MFA from California College of the Arts, San Francisco, and a BFA from Oregon State University, Corvallis. She has shown widely in the western U.S., completed a Caldera Residency in Sisters, Oregon in 2011, a Djerassi Residency in Woodside, California in 2013, and was awarded a Ford Family Foundation Fellowship in 2013.

Viewing Hours & Location: The Portland Building is located at 1120 SW 5th Avenue in downtown Portland and is open 8 am to 5 pm, Monday – Friday.  Cell Phone Photo Paintings: Free opens May 4th and runs through May 29th, 2015. Studio hours will be held by the artists 2 pm to 5 pm, Monday – Thursday (excluding Memorial Day).

For more information on the Portland Building Installation Space, including images, proposals, and statements for all projects dating back to 1994, go to www.racc.org/installationspace.
 
 

PORTLAND, ORE – Artists Lou Watson and Michele McCall Wallace are taking over the Portland Building Installation Space with an exhibition called In Celebration of Pigpens; The “Sties” the Limit? The installation is in response to the oft reprinted quote by Portland Building architect Michael Graves. When Graves was asked recently what changes he’d like to see implemented at the Portland Building his suggestion, alongside adding clear glass and retail units, was “clean out the lobby, make it a great deal smarter than it is now. It’s a pigpen in there now.”

Watson and McCall Wallace are making a literal (and absurd) response to this with an “all things pigpen” themed show. Apart from the obvious perennially scruffy Peanuts character, and the slightly less ubiquitous, but still scruffy musician “Pigpen” (a.k.a. Ron McKernan) of The Grateful Dead, there will be pigpens only a few will have heard of, but the artists promise that, by thinking outside the sty, our knowledge of pigpens will be pleasantly increased. There will even be a comfy straw bale to sit on whilst contemplating the show.

About the Artists: Lou Watson is currently completing her BFA at the Pacific Northwest College of Art (where she is the three time recipient of the Intermedia Merit Scholarship and Interdisciplinary Artist Merit Awards). Last year Watson was a fellow with the Oregon Heritage Society producing the artist-as-researcher project; Roadside Attraction: Situational Aesthetics and Place-Identity of NE Sandy Boulevard (57th to 82nd), Portland, Oregon, and her film of NE Sandy Boulevard, commute, won the “John Cage Award for Synesthesia” at the 41st NW Filmmakers Festival. Watson’s work is about transposing the everyday environment by bringing attention to simple moments and prosaic functions. Previous to returning to school she was raising 3 children, working as registrar at a clown college in California, and playing in a band with fellow artist Michele McCall Wallace. 

Michele McCall Wallace is both an artist and educator. She has a BFA in Painting and Sculpture from The Academy of Art College in San Francisco and a MA in Sculpture from Humboldt State University. Currently she teaches at Humboldt State University and manages the Reese Bullen Gallery and the Goudi’ni Native American Art Gallery. Motivated by memory of personal experience; how it is formed, catalogued, and subconsciously acts upon our conscious choices, McCall Wallace’s current work is primarily in mixed media sculpture, installation, and conceptual play. She uses traditional art media combined and manipulated with chosen non-traditional objects, words, and textures in the finished piece to evoke thought. McCall Wallace is also the mayor of Blue Lake, California.

Viewing Hours & Location: The Portland Building is located at 1120 SW 5th Avenue in downtown Portland and is open 8 am to 5 pm, Monday – Friday.  In Celebration of Pigpens; The “Sties” the Limit? opens March 30th and runs through April 24th, 2015.

For more information on the Portland Building Installation Space, including images, proposals, and statements for all projects dating back to 1994, go to www.racc.org/installationspace.

Kicking off the 21st Season at the Installation Space:  As the Regional Arts & Culture Council enters its 21stseason of presenting installations at the Portland Building we are pleased to announce a line-up of seven new intriguing installations to follow In Celebration of Pigpens. Over the next twelve months artists representing a wide range of approaches to art making will be featured in month-long installments. Since 1994 RACC has presented some of Portland’s best conceptual, interactive and experimental media installations at the Portland Building. An independent selection panel of artists, curators, and City employee representatives reviews proposal submissions each fall with an eye towards selecting projects that are site-specific, challenging, topical and diverse.  A calendar and a synopsis of projects scheduled for the new season follows:

Portland Building Installation Space — New season schedule and project descriptions:

A preliminary mock-up of the Ephemeral Portland map artists Erinn Kathryn & Tyler Corbett will create for the Portland Building Installation Space. Their installation, along with seven others, is part of the new season of exhibitions at the Portland Building.

Lou Watson & Michele McCall Wallace  March 30 – April 24, 2015

In Celebration of Pigpens; The “Sties” the Limit? – See description above.

Brittany Powell   May 4 – May, 29, 2015
I’ll Paint your Cell Phone Photo – While on vacation Brittany Powell lost her camera; jokingly her husband said, “You should just paint all our photos.” So she did—80 of them. For the Portland Building Powell will push this idea further and offer to paint photos from the cell your pharmacies phones of passers-by. A small table-sized studio will be set up in the space and “studio hours” will be held each afternoon when visitors can request their painting.

Alanna Risse (PNCA-MFA program)  June 8 – July 10, 2015

Untitled (Fantastic Voyage) – Inspired by the 1966 movie Fantastic Voyage in which miniaturized scientists enter a human body on a medical rescue mission, Alanna Risse has created an installation that invites viewers to make believe they are inside a human heart. While still remaining anatomically correct, the overall form and use of everyday materials like cardboard, rivets, and curtains allows the work to function like a kid’s fort. While the installation is playful and invites young and old viewers alike to enter and investigate, it also offers a deeper level of engagement that asks us to examine our perceptions of body, mortality, and fragility.

Joshua Pew & Molly Eno (OCAC-BFA program)  July 20 – August 14, 2015

Bored with Power – Joshua Pew and Molly Eno believe that the construct of human organization is built upon a rather evolved sense of importance and power. As a wry comment on such, they propose to create a single large sculpture that engages the exhibition space—a handmade, life sized, stuffed gorilla sitting on an ornate guided throne. The title of the piece relates to the feeling the pair have towards governments, corporations, and the general state of the Western world.

Andy Behrle  August 24 – September 18, 2015

from there to here – Andy Behrle employs video to capture light and texture from nature, most often from bodies of water. For this installation he will draw on the history and geography of the complex system that delivers water from Bull Run Lake to Portland. Color, texture, and movement of light on the surface of the lake will serve as source material for a set of dual, overlapping projections aimed at the main wall of the space. As the projections filter through scrims Behrle has hung in the space, air currents will flutter the fabric and add shimmer to the images on the wall. Behrle’s goal is to poetically illustrate how our constructed infrastructure is inherently interconnected with, and dependent on, the natural world.

Deanna Pindell  September 28 – October 23, 2015

Apothecary for the Anthropocene – To help illustrate and explore where we stand as a species—in, or out of harmony with the environment that sustains us—this allegorical apothecary presents the viewer with a set of riddles held within 108 mason jars. The jars contain the relics of some of the small decisions our society has decided to make, a jar full of GMO corn seeds, a tiny bird skull, coupons from Walmart. As it provides additional background for each of the enigmatic specimens, the installation also offers us clues that lead towards possible answers.

Travis Neel & Erin Charpentier  January 11 – February 5, 2016

Accounting for Public Interest – An installation centered on a playful poll that examines the relationship between Portland residents and their ideal city. The project engages visitors in a game of critical thinking as it guides participants through a series of questions which compare and contrast Portland of the past, the present, and the future. Voting booths and ballot boxes populate the installation during off-hours, the artists “perform” as pollsters and conduct surveys in person during on-hours. Through the process of voting, participants will be prompted to reexamine their impression of the city they live in and consider the city they’d like to see in the future. At the end of the installation the poll results will be compiled and printed on the wall of the space.

Tyler Corbett and Erinn Kathryn  February 16 – March 11, 2016

Ephemeral Portland – Picture a large scale map-based installation (with the Portland Building as the focal point) made entirely from tiny scraps of inorganic matter collected from the sidewalks of Portland. In advance of the installation the artists will systematically scour local sidewalks to gather this material. The brightly colored plastic detritus they collect, meticulously cataloged with regard to exactly where it was picked up, will then be assembled into a massive composite map with the “trash” pieces used to form a network of meandering trails that cover the walls. The location the trash populates on the map will match the actual location that material was found on the street. The project is designed to heighten our innate desire to explore our surroundings and to unveil the universe of overlooked content, clues, and souvenirs the pathways beneath our feet contain. 

PORTLAND, ORE – On Saturday, March 14, 2015, RACC will host a free information session to help local artists and other community members learn how to organize, fund and navigate two different approaches to creating murals in the City of Portland.

Presenters include Gage Hamilton, an organizer of Forest for the Trees Northwest—a public art mural project that brought twenty artists together in August to paint murals—and Robin Corbo, a local artist known for her skill at organizing and creating community murals. Peggy Kendellen, Manager of RACC’s Public Art Murals Program, and Doug Strickler from the City’s Bureau of Development Services will also be on hand to help participants navigate the two options available for creating an exterior mural on a wall in Portland.  

The workshop is free and open to artists, property owners, business owners, and community and neighborhood association members. To sign up, email publicartmurals@racc.org with the subject heading “Public Murals Workshop” and include contact information in the text of the email.

Date:  Saturday, March 14, 2015

Time: 10:00 AM – 12:00 Noon

Place: RACC, 411 NW Park Avenue, Suite 101

Coffee and light snacks provided

PORTLAND, ORE – Artist Peg Butler’s latest project,People Blind/Prospect & Refuge, will be staged in the exhibition space adjacent to the lobby of the Portland Building. With this installation comes an opportunity for Portland Building visitors to observe and consider their fellow humans from multiple physical and intellectual perspectives, subjectively and objectively. The installation is designed to elicit questions and ideas about humans as a culture, as a species, as individuals, and also draws on the theory of “prospect and refuge.” As defined by Butler, “it is a theory that people have instinctual preferences for places that have a clear view of the surroundings and that allow for concealment and escape.”

The main element of Butler’s installation is a “people blind,” something akin to a bird blind that would be used as cover for wildlife observers. Behind the blind there is refuge and prospect—visitors feel hidden and protected, yet can look through ‘blind spots’ to observe human nature, even as those in the lobby can look in on them.  From the lobby perspective there is also a sense of prospect and refuge as passers-by are hidden in the anonymity of busyness and are caught up in the prospects of the day.

“Ideas of prospect and refuge bring in aspects of our social and physical natures and that which makes us feel safe, comfortable and hopeful. The blind gives us windows to observe ourselves as megafauna, connected to nature and each other.” – Peg Butler.

The installation will include a weekly program series called Human-Nature Field Notes to include writing, sketching, and discussion oriented events. Please check the People Blind blog for more details:www.peopleblind.wordpress.com.  Peg Butler will also be on-site on Thursday, February 19^th from 3:00pm – 5:00pm to answer questions, greet visitors and discuss her installation.

About the Artist: Peg Butler is an interdisciplinary artist whose work often involves integrating elements of culture, ecology and placemaking. She has a master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Oregon and has been collaborating on public art installations since 2006.  Peg is currently eco-director of Black Dog Art Ensemble in Portland, Oregon.

Viewing Hours & Location: The Portland Building is located at 1120 SW 5^th Avenue in downtown Portland and is open 8 am to 5 pm, Monday – Friday. People Blind/Prospect & Refuge runs through March 20^th.

For more information on the Portland Building Installation Space, including images, proposals, and statements for all projects dating back to 1994, go to www.racc.org/installationspace.

PORTLAND, ORE – Artists Garrick Imatani & Kaia Sand have been in residence at the City of Portland Archives and Records Center (PARC) since 2013. In October 2014 they presented selections of their work at the North Portland Library. Now, in the final exhibition of their residency, they have installed artworks in the lobby of the Portland State University Academic and Student Recreation Center (ASRC) with additional works on the fifth floor adjacent to the PARC. The ARSC is open Monday through Thursday, 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.; Fridays from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.; Saturdays from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.; and Sundays from 10:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.

In addition, the artists will speak about their work and residency on Wednesday, February 25 at 7:00 p.m. in ASRC Room 001. Admission is free.

Working with PARC files known as “The Watcher Files,” a set of police surveillance files of activists and civic groups from the 1960s through the 1980s, Imatani and Sand created a series of artistic and literary interventions that serve as an addendum to the original files. They responded not only to the documents, but also to the archival materials themselves, such as cabinets, binders, folders, and index cards, which inform the sculptural objects and printed matter in this exhibit. Pull out cabinet drawers to discover framed photography and graphite drawings. Thumb through copper index cards to read a poem. The artists’ residency is a City of Portland Percent for Art Project funded through the building of PARC, administered by the Regional Arts & Culture Council. City Archivist Diana Banning suggested the residency as a way to expand the public’s knowledge of the archives. “We know how historians and academics tend to use the Archives and were interested in how artists might approach them.”

The artists’ work emerged from two threads of inquiry, “Where is anonymity within a public document?” and “Passing It On.” 

• Where is anonymity within a public document? Surveillance creates a bright threat of attention on private lives. But how is this attention blurred? How might someone’s identity masquerade inside these files? Imatani explored the paradox of anonymity within public documents through photography and graphite drawings housed in a sculptural cabinet inscribed with language. Sand’s exploration took the form of poems embroidered into black textile panels. 
• Passing it On. Working with several people who participated in decades of activism and civic engagement, Imatani and Sand considered some of what they continue to pass along—programs created, destruction prevented, enduring concerns, and in particular, books they read. In particular, this exhibit launches an ongoing activist bookshelf project, presenting sculptural bookshelves comprised of book selections by Kent Ford, Lloyd Marbet and Joanne Oleksiak. We borrowed the title from Ford’s description of sharing books: “I kept passing it on, passing it on to all my friends.”

Links:

About the project: http://looseleafservices.us/about

City of Portland Archives & Records Center:  http://www.portlandonline.com/auditor/index.cfm?c=26978

PORTLAND, ORE – In 1957 iconic Bauhaus weaver Anni Albers wrote a piece titled The Pliable Plane; Textiles in Architecture. Her work begins, “If the nature of architecture is grounded, the fixed, the permanent, then textiles are its antithesis. If, however, we think of building and the process of weaving and compare the work involved, we will find similarities despite the vast difference in scale.”

Like Albers, artist Jessica Hickey sees a number of hidden parallels in textiles and architecture—both originated as a means to protect and insulate that which they enclose, both developed geometric and decorative designs for aesthetic and symbolic purposes (“fashion” and “style” are used to describe trends in both disciplines), both often rely on patterned grids and lines for their visual language. Capitalizing on this common ground, Hickey, a skilled weaver and textile designer, will present a scaled-down, quilted version of the Portland Building that will cover the entire entryway of that building’s lobby exhibition space. Her soft façade promises visitors a tactile and accessible environment that will bring the form and style of Portland’s famous post-modern landmark to a scale all can see and explore up close.

“A continuity resides within interior spaces of architecture throughout history from the small portable hide to the gigantic concrete structures of a city. These spaces, regardless of scale or material, protect and insulate the body. However, possibly more important than the direct physical defense, is the social function architecture provides. Interiors of built planes have housed and facilitated growth of families, communities, and cities shifting in scale with time. This installation depicts the direct relationship between textile and architecture as one in the same within the Portland Building Installation Space.

“A quilted version of the building’s facade will cover the entryway and side openings to the installation except for an opening and seating space. This will transform the interior room into the scale of a textile tent structure. Quilted from pliable materials from ancient to contemporary, in hide, woven, and printed form, the abstracted and shrunken facade recreates a new, small scale environment more readily associated with the protective and interactive social elements both architecture and textile can provide.” – Jessica Hickey

About the Artist: Jessica Hickey lives and works in Portland, Oregon. She received her MFA in Contemporary Art Practice from Portland State University and her BFA from the University of Oregon in fibers and ceramics. She is currently the Fibers Studio Manager at Oregon College of Art and Craft and has taught textile, ceramic, and mixed media courses for the University of Oregon Craft Center and the Eugene Metropolitan Parks District. Her work, which has been shown nationally and internationally, utilizes hand woven textiles in combination with a wide variety of sculptural methods.

Viewing Hours & Location: The Portland Building is located at 1120 SW 5^th Avenue in downtown Portland and is open 8 am to 5 pm, Monday – Friday. The exhibition runs through February 6.

For more information on the Portland Building Installation Space, including images, proposals, and statements for all projects dating back to 1994, go to www.racc.org/installationspace.