RACC Blog

Portable Works Collection: New Artworks for the Gladys McCoy Building

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New Artworks for the Gladys McCoy Building

The new Multnomah County Health Department Headquarters

PORTLAND, ORE —The Regional Arts & Culture Council is proud to announce the purchase of 99 new small to medium scale artworks from 57 artists for display in the new Gladys McCoy Building, the Multnomah County Health Department Headquarters at 619 NW Sixth Avenue. Artworks for the building have been selected by a community panel to reflect qualities of Lightness, Openness & Optimism. The lobby artwork is by artist Francesco Simeti and the 99 smaller scale artworks by 57 local artists will hang in floors 2-9 when the building opens on April 9.

These artworks are new additions to the Portable Works Collection, which consists of over 1,200 works on paper, paintings, prints and textiles.  RACC will publish images and basic information about the artworks once everything has been catalogued and framed.  Many artists who are new to the collection have been included in this purchase.  These artworks are part of the Multnomah County 2% for Public Art program managed by RACC and generated through the construction of the new building. An artist reception will take place in late Spring – early Summer 2019.

*image above: Connection of Love, William Hernandez, 2018

 

2019 Portable Artwork Purchase Artists (*indicates new artist to the collection)

 

Adam Sorensen* Aja Ngo* Akram Sarraj*
Alyson Provax* Amy Bernstein* Andrei Engelman*
Anna Daedalus* Anna Gray & Ryan Wilson Paulsen* Anshula Tayal*
Baba Wague Diakite Barb Burwell* Bayann Alkhatib*
Beth Yazhari* Brittany Vega* Chet Malinow*
Cyrus Nahab* Dino Matt* Ellen McFadden*
Erika Rier* Grant Hottle* Haruka Ostley*
Hobbs Waters* Hsin-Yi Huang* Ivan Salcido*
Joanna Kaufman* Larry Yes* Latoya Lovely*
Laura Heit* Lisa Onstad* Michael Loen*
Michelle Ross Miroslav Lovric* Naomi Shigeta
Natasha Bacca* Pat Boas Patrice Cameron*
Peter Blanchard* Petra Sairanen* Phyllis Trowbridge*
Poppy Dully* Quire Leah Hugon* Rachel Wolf*
Rebecca Rodela* Renee Zangara Ridwana Rahman*
Ruth Lantz Sade Beasley* Samir Khurshid*
Sarah Bouwsma* Sarah Meadows* Shawn Demarest
Shobha Jetmalani* Shu-Ju Wang Stacy Lovejoy*
Tamara English* Tia Factor* William Hernandez*

 

March 2019 Night Lights: The Midnight Variety Hour

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Our final Night Lights, RACC’s outdoor public art series, is wrapping up its 2018-19 season with The Midnight Variety Hour (MVH) – Night Lights Edition  March 7, at 6pm.  For RACC’s Night Lights Program, MVH will present a video program with live music, sound and vocals.

MVH deconstructs the world of live television and the essence of the variety hour creating a dream-like memory of tv shows. Through the build up of layers and patterns of imagery and sound, MVH creates a landscape of distorted time and space. Some of the elements used in their live performances have included pre-recorded and live video, foley sounds, tap shoes, microphones, acoustic instruments, drums, synthesizers, and dance. Distinct sections of improvisation emerge through the tension and release of accumulated instrumentation, dance, and video.

All works will take place at the north wall of the Regional Arts & Culture Council office at 411 NW Park Ave, Portland OR (on the corner of NW Glisan St and NW Park Ave).

 

Night Lights is a monthly public art event that celebrates the intersection of digital technology, art, and place. Happening outdoors on the First Thursdays of fall and winter months, this multimedia art series presents local artists’ new works, combining large-scale video projection with other art forms such as movement and sound. Works are projected for several hours starting at dusk on the north wall of Regional Arts and Culture Council’s office at 411 NW Park Ave, Portland, OR.

Midnight Variety Hour (MVH) is a collaborative project consisting of five multi-disciplinary dancers, performers, musicians, and filmmakers (Maura Campbell-Balkits, Sean Christiansen, Kelly Rauer, Fern Wiley, and Leah Wilmoth).  Learn more about them here midnightvarietyhour.

 

 

 

 

February 2019 Night Lights: Untitled

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Night Lights, RACC’s outdoor public art series, continues its 2018-19 season with Megan Mckissack’s Untitled work on February 7 at 5:30pm. Mckissack’s Night Lights work was inspired by the current Presidential Administration’s deletion of climate data.

Mapping and generating visualizations of Oregon LIDAR point cloud data from the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, these visualizations are projected as visual loops accompanied by ambient and atmospheric soundscapes McKissack creates an environment that responds directly to the architecture its projected onto.

Only one more Night Lights event remains after February: Midnight Variety Hour in March.

All works will take place at the north wall of the Regional Arts & Culture Council office at 411 NW Park Ave, Portland OR (on the corner of NW Glisan St and NW Park Ave). The remaining schedule of events for Night Lights is as follows:

February 7, 5:30pm
Megan McKissack
Untitled

March 7, 6pm
Midnight Variety Hour
Night Lights Edition

Night Lights is a monthly public art event that celebrates the intersection of digital technology, art, and place. Happening outdoors on the First Thursdays of fall and winter months, this multimedia art series presents local artists’ new works, combining large-scale video projection with other art forms such as movement and sound. Works are projected for several hours starting at dusk on the north wall of Regional Arts and Culture Council’s office at 411 NW Park Ave, Portland, OR.

Megan Mckissack is a Portland, OR based, new media artist working in the realm of live visuals, video installation, and creative coding. Learn more about her work on her website meganmckissack.com

December 2018 Night Lights: Three Moons/Tres Lunas/3つの月

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Our outdoor public art event series, Night Lights, will feature Roland Dahwen and Stephanie Adams-Santos in December! Happening on December 6 at 5pm, Dahwen and Adams-Santos will present Three Moons/Tres Lunas/3つの月, a two-channel video installation and altar, dedicated to, and made alongside, our elders.

In conjunction with the video and text projections, the artists will build several temporary altars. Mixing personal and familial artifacts, religious symbols, and offerings, these altars will enshrine the space as more-than-art: as an actual devotional and spiritually imbued act of honoring our elders.

Only two more Night Lights events remain after December: Megan McKissack in February of 2019 and Midnight Variety Hour in March.

All works will take place at the north wall of the Regional Arts & Culture Council office at 411 NW Park Ave, Portland OR (on the corner of NW Glisan St and NW Park Ave). The remaining schedule of events for Night Lights is as follows:

December 6, 5pm
Roland Dahwen and Stephanie Adams-Santos
Three Moons/Tres Lunas/3つの月
Event info

February 7, 5:30pm
Megan McKissack
Untitled

March 7, 6pm
Midnight Variety Hour
Night Lights Edition

Night Lights is a monthly public art event that celebrates the intersection of digital technology, art, and place. Happening outdoors on the First Thursdays of fall and winter months, this multimedia art series presents local artists’ new works, combining large-scale video projection with other art forms such as movement and sound. Works are projected for several hours starting at dusk on the north wall of Regional Arts and Culture Council’s office at 411 NW Park Ave, Portland, OR.

New mural materializing now on NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard

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Local artists channel Día de Muertos in next installment of Fresh Paint, a temporary murals program

October 17, 2018 — PORTLAND, OR – Passersby can now see the newest work-in-progress from Fresh Paint, a temporary murals program, on the exterior wall of Open Signal: Portland Community Media Center on NE Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard at Graham Street.

Created by artists Andrea de la Vega and Damien Dawahare, the mural depicts the Mexican tradition of building the ofrenda, or ‘offering,’ during Día de Muertos—a practice intended to welcome the deceased to the altar.

“Through our own greater cultural explorations, we discovered a ritual of connection that is all about telling stories and remembering and honoring the past,” the artists wrote in their mural proposal. “The imagery is lighthearted and shares a story of coming and going. The color palette is warm and vibrant, depicting a life after death through friendly and familiar tones.”

The mural will be completed on October 22, 2018, staying on display until March 31, 2019.

Fresh Paint is a partnership between Open Signal and the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC). Now in its second year, Fresh Paint is a professional development program that provides emerging artists of color the opportunity to paint a mural in a high-traffic setting for the first time. The goal is for each artist to learn new ways of creating art in a public space, as well as to build their portfolio.

Fresh Paint will feature two additional murals in 2019. Future muralists include Maria Rodriguez, Bizar Gomez & Anke Gladnick (April 2019 – October 2019), Munta (Eric) Mpwo and Limei Lai (October 2019 – October 2020).

 

About the Artists

ANDREA DE LA VEGA was born in Querétaro, Mexico and grew up in Las Vegas, NV. Her mother encouraged her creativity at an early age and she pursued a degree in Interior Design at UNLV. Her work in interior design is rooted in storytelling and she believes design can have a positive impact on the human daily experience. With her artwork, she is drawn to nature and the female form. She paints in acrylic and watercolor.

DAMIEN DAWAHARE is an artist and designer from Las Vegas, Nevada. He is currently working and studying at Pacific Northwest College of Art. Damien’s work ranges from traditional printmaking techniques to 3D modeling and interactive design. He utilizes line and color in order to interpret light and space.

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About Open Signal

Open Signal is a media arts center making media production possible for anyone and everyone in Portland, Oregon. Launched in 2017, the center builds upon the 35-year legacy of Portland Community Media to create a resource totally unique in the Pacific Northwest. Open Signal offers media workshops, a public equipment library, artist residencies and five cable channels programmed with locally produced content. Open Signal delivers media programming with a commitment to creativity, technology and social change. Learn more at opensignalpdx.org.

About the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC)
The Regional Arts and Culture Council provides grants for artists, arts organizations, and artistic projects in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington Counties; manages an internationally acclaimed public art program; raises money and awareness for the arts; convenes forums, networking events and other community gatherings; provides workshops and other forms of technical assistance for artists; and oversees a program to integrate arts and culture into the standard curriculum in public schools through The Right Brain Initiative. RACC values a diversity of artistic and cultural experiences and is working to build a community in which everyone can participate in culture, creativity, and the arts. Learn more at racc.org.

Media Contact
Yousef Hatlani, Marketing Manager, Open Signal  |  yousef [at] opensignalpdx.org  |  (503) 536-7622
Lokyee Au, Communications Manager, Regional Arts & Culture Council  |  lau [at] racc.org  |  (503) 823-5426

November 2018 Night Lights: Windows 11

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Night Lights, RACC’s outdoor public art event series continues with local artists Roesing Ape and Beth Whelan. Following a successful kickoff to the series with Laura Median’s Flying in October, the next Night Lights event will take place on November 1st at 6PM. Titled Windows 11, Ape and Whelan’s work involves a minimalist dance piece inside an architectural projection of the building itself. This interactive piece will use both prerecorded and live dance.

For December, Roland Dahwen and Stephanie Adams-Santos will present Three Moons/Tres Lunas/3つの月, a two-channel video installation and altar, dedicated to, and made alongside, our elders. In conjunction with the video and text projections, the artists will build several temporary altars. Mixing personal and familial artifacts, religious symbols, and offerings, these altars will enshrine the space as more-than-art: as an actual devotional and spiritually imbued act of honoring our elders.

All works will take place at the north wall of the Regional Arts & Culture Council office at 411 NW Park Ave, Portland OR (on the corner of NW Glisan St and NW Park Ave). The schedule of events for Night Lights is as follows:

November 1, 6pm
Beth Whelan and Roesing Ape
Windows 11

December 6, 5pm
Roland Dahwen and Stephanie Adams-Santos
Three Moons/Tres Lunas/3つの月

February 7, 5:30pm
Megan McKissack
Untitled

March 7, 6pm
Midnight Variety Hour
Night Lights Edition

 

 

Beth Whelan is a movement based artist with training in modern, ballet, improvisation, and choreography. Her work is based upon creating shapes within the body that fluidly disperse and rearrange in synchronicity with the breath. 

 

 

Roesing Ape is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on the deconstruction of cognitive frameworks in sound, language, and sight. This results in a mostly unmarketable catalog of site specific video, improvised soundscapes, and nonlinear performance pieces.

Essex Park Gets New ‘Mindfulness’ Mural

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If you’re around the Foster Powell Neighborhood in Portland, you may have caught a new mural going up at Essex Park on SE 76th and Center St. during the weekend of September 22 and 23. Artist team Rather Severe (Travis Czekalski and Jon Stommel) is heading the mural painting, with design and painting help provided by the Foster Powell Neighborhood Association and Marysville School students.

After some public safety issues in the past, neighbors of Essex Park came together to find ways to “re-establish positive and uplifting energy and encourage more positive and healthy interactions between community members who use the park space”. They started a GoFundMe campaign earlier this year, reaching their original goal, and later received matching funds from RACC to support the project.

Rather Severe artist standing in front of the side of the public restroom building. The wall has been primed and shapes are laid out for painting.

Mural in progress. Photo courtesy of Essex Park Mindful Mural Project

While the original plan was for the mural to be painted on one wall of the public restroom building, the financial success of the campaign meant enough funds were available to paint all four walls. The design consists of a vibrant Sun on the front facing wall, Moon on the back wall, and imaginative landscapes with characters in between. The landscape design elements move consistently in a clockwise, upward spiraling motion, symbolizing growth, movement, and uplifting energy. The characters in the mural aim to communicate and encourage the idea of mindfulness, the practice of meditative drawing, feelings of interconnection, and the concept of an ever present and infinite ‘now’.

For those interested in the progress and status of the mural, you can follow the project Facebook page. You can see the mural-in-progress or the finished design by next week at Essex Park (7730 SE Center St, Portland, OR 97206)

Learn about other public art projects happening around town or RACC’s Public Art program here

Meet the artists showcasing their work for 2018-19 Night Lights!

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Night Lights, RACC’s outdoor public art event series, is back for five months with local artists/collectives projecting their digital media works onto RACC’s building for several hours starting at dusk. Now in its fourth year, Night Lights is a unique event series that celebrates and highlights the intersections of digital technology, art, and place.

Laura Medina, the first artist to kick off Night Lights on October 4th this year, will be presenting work that bodies the exact intersections Night Lights aims to celebrate. Medina’s projected work, titled Flying, will use different animation methods to convey movement and change of setting to discuss migration as a human right. The location of the projection, as Medina notes, is across the street from Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA), formerly a US Citizenship and Immigration Services and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement building. For Medina, we cannot ignore the proximity of the projection to what used to be a distinctly hostile environment, and re-contextualizing this space into an environment that fosters and nourishes acts of solidarity is key.

Following Medina, Roesing Ape and Beth Whelan will show their work on November 1st. Titled Windows 11, their work involves a minimalist dance piece inside an architectural projection of the building itself. This interactive piece will use both prerecorded and live dance.

All works will take place at the north wall of the Regional Arts & Culture Council office at 411 NW Park Ave, Portland OR (on the corner of NW Glisan St and NW Park Ave). The schedule of events for Night Lights is as follows:

Still image from Laura Medina's work, Flying.

Still image from Laura Medina’s work, Flying.

October 4, 6:45pm
Laura Medina
Flying

November 1, 6pm
Roesing Ape and Beth Whelan
Windows 11

December 6, 5pm
Roland Dahwen and Stephanie Adams-Santos
Three Moons/Tres Lunas/3つの月

February 7, 5:30pm
Megan McKissack
Untitled

March 7, 6pm
Midnight Variety Hour
Night Lights Edition

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Night Lights is a monthly public art event that celebrates the intersection of digital technology, art, and place. Happening outdoors on the First Thursdays of fall and winter months, this multimedia art series presents local artists’ new works, combining large-scale video projection with other art forms such as movement and sound. Works are projected for several hours starting at dusk on the north wall of Regional Arts and Culture Council’s office at 411 NW Park Ave, Portland, OR.

Laura Camila Medina is an interdisciplinary artist born in Bogota, Colombia and raised in Orlando, Florida. She bases her practice around uprooting and migration as a response to personal, cultural, and historical research. Medina is constantly inspired by her memories of home, her mother’s arepas, and her father’s soundtracks. Her work has shown at the Center for Contemporary Art & Culture, PLANETA New York, and through the Nat Turner Project. She earned a BFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art and is currently based in Portland, OR.

Beth Whelan is a movement based artist with training in modern, ballet, improvisation, and choreography. Her work is based upon creating shapes within the body that fluidly disperse and rearrange in synchronicity with the breath. 

Roesing Ape is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on the deconstruction of cognitive frameworks in sound, language, and sight. This results in a mostly unmarketable catalog of site specific video, improvised soundscapes, and nonlinear performance pieces.