Funding from the Oregon Cultural Trust will help RACC restore three significant sculptures in Portland’s public art collection
The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) has received a $5,000 Cultural Development Grant from the Oregon Cultural Trust to support general restoration of three key historic monuments in the City of Portland’s public art collection: George Washington (located at NE Sandy & Alameda), Sacajawea and Jean-Baptiste (Washington Park) and Portlandia (Portland Building).
The grant will help underwrite primary conservation treatments for George Washington and Sacajawea and Jean-Baptiste, including:
removal of built-up oxidation on their bronze surfaces;
hot-wax treatment to control future oxidation;
cleaning of monuments bases and pedestals.
Portlandia—the second largest hammered copper sculpture in the U.S. behind only the Statue of Liberty—will receive a complete condition assessment along with an inspection of its internal steel frame and mounts to assess the accumulation of guano and other grime due to bird infestation.
This project is supported in part by a grant from the Oregon Cultural Trust: Oregonians sustaining, developing and participating in our arts, heritage and humanities. Keith Lachowicz, RACC’s public art collections manager, thanked the Trust for their support. “Caring for these large scale works requires a significant investment each year, and maintenance funds were never set aside for older monuments that were grandfathered into the collection,” he said. “This year’s conservation grant from the Trust will help ensure that more expensive treatments are not required in the future.”
RACC will work with Robert Krueger, Object Conservator & Proprietor of Cascadia Art Conservation Center, to perform the restorations. The total cost of the maintenance work is expected to be $12,337, and the restorations will be completed by April of 2013.
The George Washington Monument in NE Portland. A grant from the Oregon Cultural Trust will help RACC restore areas where the elements worn away the statue’s protective wax coating.
Oxidation of Sacajawea’s bronze surface is beginning to take hold on the hand and face.
The last large scale cleaning of Portlandia was completed in 2006
Six large scale mural projects are recently completed or underway in Portland this summer – all recipients of grant funding from the Regional Arts & Culture Council. RACC’s public art mural program, financed by the City of Portland, provides funding for community murals that reflect diversity in style and media and encourages artists from diverse backgrounds and range of experience to apply. Murals approved through this program become part of the City’s public art collection. The new murals include:
Rosewood Initiative – Antwoine Thomas, Artist
16150 SE Stark St (south wall of Union 76 Gas Station); RACC Funding: $3,000; 14’H x 46’L
Photo: Courtesy of RACC
In developing this fantastical design for a mural in the Rosewood Neighborhood, Antwoine Thomas, with the assistance and support of Addie Boswell, began collaborating months ago with local residents through The Rosewood Initiative community meetings and activities like Youth Night to create a design that represents the positive change occurring in the neighborhood. Throughout the energetic mural one can identify recognizable elements from Rosewood including roses, community gardens, diversity, and local businesses. There are also elements that link the neighborhood to the greater Portland metro area, honoring some of the neighborhoods from which many residents have relocated. While the mural contains these true elements, the design is also highly detailed and fantastical, meant to entice the senses and invite the eye to linger and keep discovering.
A celebration is scheduled for Saturday, August 11th, 1:00-4:00PM.
Photo: Courtesy of RACC
Keller Auditorium – Una Kim and Students from Portland State University 222 SW Clay; RACC Funding: $3200; 18’H x 108’L
Over the last few weeks, Korean-American artist, Una Kim, has been feverishly working on a mural on the east wall of the Keller Auditorium with the assistance of students from Portland State University who enrolled in a class to specifically work on this project. The mural is located on the bottom half of the east facing wall of the Keller Auditorium along SW 2nd Street between SW Clay and SW Columbia. The design is influenced and inspired by such works as Degas’ ballerinas, Mary Cassatt’s At the Opera, and Dufy’s The Yellow Violin. Also included are a modern dancer, two musicians in an orchestra, and a jazz musician along with an acrobat to represent the large scope of the theater.
According to Kim, the mural serves three main goals: (1) as a Korean-American female artist, she wishes to be a role model to all students including those with different backgrounds; (2) the mural is a teaching tool on the creative process of designing and painting murals in the public sector while collaborating with other artists in the public sector; (3) providing a gift to the public. In Kim’s words, “It is clear to me that murals can inspire and uplift.”
A celebration is scheduled for Friday, August 17th, 6:00 – 8:00 PM (on SW 2nd)
Photo: Courtesy of SpaceCraft Mission to the Arts
Albina Maintenance Yard Building – Spacecraft Mission to the Arts 3150 N. Mississippi Ave.; RACC Funding: $10,000; 14’H x 177’L
Over the last several months, a mural has begun to take shape along the west side of the City’s Albina Yard Maintenance Building. Throughout the design development, community engagement has been the driving force—the Boise Neighborhood Association, community members, and the maintenance workers have all contributed their voices as to how they want themselves and their neighborhood depicted. More than a way to deter graffiti, it is a powerful, collaborative, self-reflective vision of the neighborhood created by those who live in it. The mural embraces a theme of “perpetual collaboration” through time. Community practices and industries that affected the local Portland-Albina neighborhood can be found among the local mountains, bridges, gardens, parks, icons of communities, and city workers behind the scenes that keep the city functioning. Included are symbols of the neighborhoods’ transitions of communities from the Native American, Volga German, Finn, Chinese, and African American communities. You can follow the project on https://www.facebook.com/spacecraft.missiontoarts.
Photo: Courtesy of RACC
The People’s History of Hawthorne – Artist, Chris Haberman Fraternal Order of Eagles, SE 50th & Hawthorne; RACC Funding $2,400; 10’H x 150’L
Work continues on this ambitious mural that extends along the north and west walls of the building that serves as the Portland headquarters for the Fraternal Order of Eagles. The mural’s theme, “The History of Hawthorne” – or the “people’s history” — celebrates this SE neighborhood, located between an extinct volcano (Mt. Tabor) and the 100 year old Hawthorne Bridge, both components of his design. Scattered throughout the mural are notable historical figures (such as Dr. Hawthorne), the asylum, pioneers, the street car line and the always changing figures that have been part of Hawthorne for 100 years. It is Haberman’s first mural grant and he is “very proud to have such a piece of art in public view and to have so much support for my crazy looking art in the city.” A celebration was held on July 1st. The west wall will be completed late summer/early fall.
Photo: Courtesy of artist (proposed mural)
Alberta Street Crossing – Loey Hargrove, Artist 4824 and 4905 NE 42nd Avenue; RACC Funding: $3,000; 11’H x 77’W and 13’H x 50’W
Finishing touches are underway on a pair of twin murals at NE 42nd & Alberta. Members of 42MSC began working on the project at the Alberta Court Crossing — one on the north-facing wall of the Morel Ink Building and another on the south-facing wall of Doggy Business. The murals aspire to invoke community through a “Tree of Life’ theme symbolizing process, change, the continuity and connectivity of life. Words submitted by members of the surrounding neighborhoods are being added to the mural and are intended to reinforce the symbiotic relationship between the commercial district and area residents.
Photo: Courtesy of artist (proposed mural)
Lutz Building – Mike Lawrence, Artist 4625-4639 SE Woodstock Blvd; RACC Funding: $6,000; 15’H x 60’L
This proposed mural is situated centrally in the Woodstock Neighborhood and is highly visible from the street. The mural aims to highlight the best of the neighborhood and instill a sense of community pride. Local artist Mike Lawrence designed a mural for the building’s west wall that celebrates commerce, education and the outdoors. The Lutz tavern wall that will host the mural is divided into three sections, as is the mural. A strong central figure grounds each section. Each figure is adorned with symbols of Greek Gods that represent the theme of each section. The project is still fundraising and hopes to begin the project next Spring.
For more information and a copy of the mural program guidelines, visit www.racc.org/public-art.
Project Background: The Material Rescue League is setting up shop in the Portland Building. Created by artist Leslie Vigeant in 2010, the Material Rescue League (MRL) is an ongoing and evolving homage to humble materials. MRL installations also offer a critique on the marketing practices the mainstream retail industry employs. The degree to which we, as consumers, can be influenced by chic packaging and alluring presentation becomes crystal clear the moment we realize that Vigeant’s objects, elegantly displayed in futuristic boutique fashion, are actually post-consumer items that have been reworked and re-packaged—old floor tiles, lead tire weights, and discarded bits of wire never looked so good. In many ways, the installations are an anthropological display of cultural debris. Vigeant’s focus is a hybrid of scientific study, fine art, and dumpster diving and the work deftly calls into question the hierarchies we place on materials, and objects. This focus, combined with the attention to detail Vigeant brings to her MRL installations prompts a thoughtful examination of the challenges and rewards associated with the recovery and rehabilitation of discarded goods.
About the Artist: Leslie Vigeant lives and works in Portland, Oregon. She received her MFA in Applied Craft and Design from Oregon College of Art & Craft and Pacific Northwest College of Art. Vigeant is also a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she received a BFA in 2-D Studies; she has shown her work on both coasts and recently completed a Recology Fellowship in San Francisco, California
Viewing Hours & Location: 7 am to 6 pm, Monday – Friday. The Portland Building is located at 1120 SW 5th Avenue in downtown Portland.
For more information on the Portland Building Installation Space series including images, proposals and statements for all the installations since 1994, go to www.racc.org/installationspace.
The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) announced today that Boston based artist, Mikyoung Kim, has been selected to create public art for the Sellwood Bridge, slated to open in 2016. The art is funded through the city’s percent for art program and will be owned by the City and maintained by RACC.
Kim, an award-winning international landscape architect and artist has completed projects as diverse civic gardens and municipal playgrounds to large scale parks and institutional master plans and was selected by a panel of local artists, community representatives and project team members. Her concept, “Stratum Project,” is a “series of ecologically inspired geologic sculptural totems. Layers of various recycled and formed materials create a quilted surface that represents earth, water and sky as the gateway to the Sellwood Community”. The multi-part installation will line both sides of the block just east of the bridge, up to 6th and Tacoma.
Kim will talk about her past work and conceptual proposal for the Sellwood Bridge on Thursday, July 12th, 5:30-7:30 PM, at the Oaks Park Dance Pavilion. The event is free and open to the public.
Project Background: Christy Hawkins presents her ambitious quilting project Outdoors In at the Portland Building next week. Using a combination of organic cotton and “up-cycled” fabrics, Hawkins has created a full scale, three-dimensional campfire scene complete with scenic backdrops made entirely with quilted material. Her aim is to help counteract “nature deficit disorder” by inspiring visitors to leave their electronic devices at home and get out in the natural world. The sculptural elements in Outdoors Ininclude real tree stumps topped with pads quilted in tree-ring patterns and a handmade quilted tent situated next to a “soft and plushy” campfire of pillows. The sculptural elements of the installation will be surrounded by the artist’s two-dimensional quilted landscape backdrops.
About the Artist: Christy Hawkins attended Maryland Institute College of Art in the late 90s and is currently an Art Practices major at Portland State University. She began designing and sewing quilts for her children but loved the process so much that she turned it into a small quilt-making business. This life experience, combined with her love of the outdoors (she has solo-cycled across the U.S. and throughout Europe and has hiked the 230 mile John Muir Trail in the Sierra Nevada range), has shaped her artistic direction and led her to projects like Outdoors In.
About the Installation Space: Each year the Portland Building Installation Space series reserves several exhibition opportunities for advanced students in fine art. The format and presentation requirements for these student installations are identical to those for established professional artists, the Regional Arts & Culture Council created this separate eligibility category to help introduce emerging talents to the world of public art. Christy Hawkins is the third student artist to present work this season.
Viewing Hours & Location: 7 am to 6 pm, Monday – Friday. The Portland Building is located at 1120 SW 5th Avenue in downtown Portland. For more information on the Portland Building Installation Space series including images, proposals and statements for all the installations since 1994, go to www.racc.org/installationspace.
Project Description: Kendra Larson’s installation Aviary is designed to spark conversation about the ownership of nature. Drawing on her interest in literature of the woods, contemporary film noir, and research on natural phenomena Larson was inspired to combine her slightly spooky wall paintings—a mix of conifer trees, mountain vistas and clouds—with an aviary of bird sculptures constructed of paper, wire, wood, silicone caulk, paint, vinyl, and other industrial materials. The easily identifiable avian sculptures are cute and un-nerving at the same time. While the entire installation functions as a large scale forest diorama with recognizable Northwest flora and fauna, it moves beyond being a merely a regionally specific exploration of wilderness. The undertow of the installation touches on the artist’s contemporary ideas of Romanticism, place, humor and fear. With Larson’s unique painting technique to serve as a backdrop for her eclectically assembled perched and flying birds, our central sense of what constitutes the forest, and who might belong there, is tweaked and reimagined.
“The Portland Building is the perfect place for this project since I am interested in bringing questions of humor, fear, and the sublime into a public site that is inhabited by a wide range of art viewers. Ultimately, I see this as an opportunity to build a site-specific installation that addresses how we interact with nature and the way art contributes to this understanding.”
While Aviary is intended to delight and intrigue, it also works to present a deeper, more complicated definition of what “being in the wild” really means.
About the Artist: Kendra Larson lives in Portland; she received her M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and her B.F.A. from Pacific Northwest College of Art. Her studio practice typically takes the form of large paintings which explore concepts associated with Romanticism, contemporary landscape, and the notion of place. Larson is an Adjunct Professor at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, and shows frequently in the Northwest.
Viewing Hours & Location: 7 am to 6 pm, Monday – Friday. The Portland Building is located at 1120 SW 5th Avenue in downtown Portland.
For more information on the Portland Building Installation Space including images, proposals and statements of all installations since 1994, go to www.racc.org/installationspace.
Project Background: Artist Jodie Cavalier will bring her uncanny ability to translate the essence of an experience into evocative, minimalist sculptural form (picture a folded sheet of corrugated metal for a waterfall, a loosely tied sheet of rolled foam for a hug) to focus on the iconic postmodern architecture of the Portland Building itself.
Love it or hate it, the Portland Building is one of this country’s earliest postmodern icons, it is clearly distinct from other buildings with easily identifiable color, design and ornamentation details that immediately set it apart. Cavalier proposes to create a dialogue between its postmodern design and her minimalist aesthetic. By distilling the essence of this well-known Michael Graves monument and focusing on a select set of architectural elements—the signature small-format windows, the frequently repeated triangular shapes, and the distinct use of line and color—the artist hopes to build a bridge between two seemingly irreconcilable styles.
About the Installation Space: Each year the Portland Building Installation Space series reserves several exhibition opportunities for advanced students in fine art. The format and presentation requirements for these student installations are identical to those for established professional artists. The Regional Arts & Culture Council created this separate eligibility category to help introduce emerging talents to the world of public art. Jodie Cavalier is the first student artist to present work this season.
About the Artist: Jodie Cavalier is a Master of Fine Arts candidate in Visual Studies at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) here in Portland, Oregon. Her research explores ideas of function, value, and the body through a combination of video, photography and installation. For more information visit www.jodiecavalier.com
Viewing Hours & Location: 7 am to 6 pm, Monday – Friday. The Portland Building is located at 1120 SW 5th Avenue in downtown Portland.
For more information on the Portland Building Installation Space Series including images, proposals and statements of all the installations selected since 1994, go to www.racc.org/installationspace.
The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) has added 52 new works by 32 Oregon artists to its portable works collection. The collection of more than 1,000 pieces represents hundreds of Northwest artists, and these artworks are displayed on a rotating basis in publicly accessible buildings throughout the City of Portland and Multnomah County.
RACC purchases artwork for the portable works collection every few years or so, when accumulated funding from the city and county reaches a significant level. The budget for this round of purchases was $57,100. An important goal of this year’s purchase was to expand the artists and subject matter represented; only artists who weren’t in the collection already were eligible to submit artwork for consideration.
The artworks selected for this purchase include paintings, drawings, photographs, prints, mixed media works and wall mounted sculpture. They were chosen by an independent panel of artists, curators and Multnomah County representatives. The panel reviewed more than 1,200 digital images that were submitted for consideration, and made their final selections based on viewing actual artwork.
Several of these newly purchased artworks will be on display at RACC’s offices, 411 NW Park Avenue, Suite 101 in Portland, from April 5th to May 4th, 2012.
A list of the artists selected follows below. For a list of all the individual artworks purchased, with titles and thumbnail images included, please see PDF below. To request use of a specific image, contact Public Art Collections Manager Keith Lachowicz at klachowicz@racc.org. For more information on the Portable Works Collection, or other collections managed by RACC, visit http://racc.org/public-art/search.
Artists added to the Portable Works Collection, spring 2012: Holly Andres Corey Arnold Pat Boas Deanna Bredthauer Esteban Camacho Steffensen Laurie Danial Rachel Davis Shawn Demarest Justin Finkbonner Bobby Fouther Kwa Franklin Ghong Surabhi Ghosh Damien Gilley Pat Courtney Gold Trish Grantham Sabina Haque Farooq Hassan Kathy Karbo Jesus Kobe Garcia Kendra Larson Stu Levy Ron Mills de Pinyas Pepe Moscoso Susan Murrell Thomas Le Ngo Trude Parkinson Hampton Rodriguez Grace Sanchez Gwenn Seemel Sara Siestreem Shu-Ju Wang Tammy Jo Wilson
Rosewood Initiative – Antwoine Thomas, Artist 
