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That’s A Negative mention…

Photographer Melanie Manchot throws a 360° on the former curator of PICA and the Affair. I had no idea he was such a bear of a man, and now he has no hair(!) in a groomy transformation in Shave. It’s like contemporized Kipling.

J.T. Kirkland is a twentysomethin’ artist from Virginia whose work is minimal, topographic and textural. In Kirkland’s spare time he writes a blog called Thinking About Art. Recently I was paired in a series he’s doing called “Artists Review Artists” where a random and anonymous artist, unfamilar with your work, writes about a piece of yours and you return the gesture. Giovanni Garcia-Fenech wrote about my work and I wrote about his…

PROMENADE
Featuring Bill Boese, Seth Nehil, Linda K. Johnson, Bill Will and more…

Place: South Waterfront AiR Series
Time/Tix: 1 Hour Before Sundown, Free (bring a picnic)

FLASH CHOIR/Caesar’s Gate
by Portland Musician and Composer Sarah Dougher

Place: Reed College Chapel
Time/Tix: 7pm, Free

In perusing Vimeo I came across excerpts of Jenn Ackerman’s powerful and visually resonating piece, Trapped: Mental Illness in America’s Prisons. It is a stunning, raw portrait of the American prison system as asylum. She was a recent photography grad student at Ohio University. The work recalls some of the beautiful tones seen in works like Stranger than Paradise by Jim Jarmusch and Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire. More photographers should consider the moving image, in more ways than one. Just press play and see for yourself.

One of the photographers now showing in the Newspace Center for Photography 4th Annual Juried Exhibition (through July 27) is also featured in this month’s RACC Artist Spotlight. Marne Lucas, who bides her time between NYC and PDX, working collaboratively with Bruce Conkle, has had as interesting a life as those depicted in her pictures. Above is the self-portrait I couldn’t help not selecting for the show. Below is a discussion she and I had back in 2005 (via Oregonlive)…it seems worth taking a look back:

WILD WILDERNESS CHAT

[ December 2005 ]

Marne Lucas is every woman (remember that Chaka Khan tune?). Through the end of January, her series called Amusement is on view at SE Hawthorne’s Homestar (a cute coffee joint). The work plays with the nature of, well, nature - human and mother. Born in Honolulu, and brought up in the Portland area most her life, this thirty-something worked for Danzine, curated projects all over town and has travelled extensively to create her body of work. Here’s a look-see into what drives her engine.

TJ Norris: Hi Marne!

Marne Lucas: Hello, TJ. You have the most incredibly striking blue eyes, almost like a husky dog’s. I can say this on paper and perhaps even in person!

TJN: (blush) Well, thank you, I’m flattered. They have been called greyish-green, but never been compared to a husky, though used to wear “husky” size (from Sears) when I was in grade school. LOL.

Speaking of colors, let’s talk lichen (my favorite uber-green colors come from this form of nature!). I just stopped by your current show at Homestar. What is the premise of Amusement all about for you?

ML: Lichen is on my top 10 list as one of my favorite things made by nature! I get the lichen apprecitation from my mom, I think she can identify just about any form of lichen and moss. Amusement gives viewers an idea of how nutty I am and that boredom never strikes. Armed with a camera and some inspiring thrift store items, I can be creative anywhere, making new work while travelling - which is what I do to relax and to get wound up.

I’m especially excited about the image I made of a fir tree that was deformed by burls, creating a shape of two figures in an intimate position, While the Forest Isn’t Looking. That tree is real - no Photoshop tricks, so being observant is rewarding, even with trees. Some of the other photos are about the edges of things you aren’t supposed to see, as in miniature dioramas. Unfortunate Portal shows a figurine of an 1800’s Native American, staring at himself in what appears to be a reality-sized mirror. He is not supposed to see himself in such a mirrored reality, ever, a metaphor for alternate reality, time and space. I feel both sad and elated for this primitive figure who is about to be swept into the universe.

TJN: Talk about narcissus. Yeah, I noticed you captured some funny goings-on in the woods. Back into the city…what do you think of cozy cafe culture and high art meeting head on?

ML: There is no shortage of places to show art in Portland… As the former curator to the Aalto Lounge and V-Gun, I’ve found that public spaces such as cafes allow one to develop a more intimate relationship to the art work and to the aesthetics the space itself offers. Not everyone will show work in a gallery, and not everyone needs to. That being said, I am an unrepresented artist, so beyond participating in group shows in galleries, that is where I primarily show my own work.

TJN: Sorry to hear the V-Gun thing isn’t still going, though I actually love sitting down at Cricket Cafe, or Le Happy and oogling at work while I wait, dually nourishing myself. I’ve written about the need for this in the past and will be back again and again. It was a lil’ thrill going into a “back room” (for adults only) at Homestar. And since your work often deals with the body do you feel it odd or titillating to segregate works in this way, or do you find that the “pin-up” style work is more so a different body of work, therefore the separation?

ML: The Amusement series is what I planned to show, and the Pin Up Lounge came after but it compliments the space perfectly.

One of the owners of Homestar - Paul Forrest, had the idea to open the back room for my pinup work. He painted it red and made the fur bench for the room. It makes the room itself a little special and titillating, which I love. Adding my own books, postcards and glamour props as installation made the room inviting and makes one feel like they are on one of my sets or in a bedroom.

TJN: I loved the feel of it, homey and horny! Can you describe your alter-persona, Gina Velour?

ML: From 1995-2000, I had a personae while developing my Pin Up style photography. This was the mid ’90’s and I was participating in fetish culture and collaborating with prominent erotic photographers such as Steve Diet Goedde as a model. I used my birthname for my first solo show in 2000 at the Mark Woolley Gallery. I had formed the personae for a specific film project in 1995 that Jacob Pander and myself made, in fact we both took on new names for it, an infrared erotic short film called The Operation. Gina Velour just lent herself to be a great way to make separate bodies of work and maintain my privacy here in Portland.

TJN: Speaking of the body, the worshipped, fetishized body. What do you think of Portland in terms of how people project their sexuality in general?

ML: Portland has a laid back attitude about nudity and freedom of expression, therefore lots of strip clubs and there’s certainly an affluent, patina of ’sexy’ for the $$$ scene in the “Pearl Necklace District” (writer laughs!!!), as I call it. I do prefer to make intimate Pin Ups of local men and women as their sense of style and identity is very individualistic. That individuality is what I am after, even after they are half clothed under hot lights. Confidence and accessibility seems to be part of folks personality here. I don’t find in L.A. that I wish I could photograph people there for my work.

TJN: I love the word patina! And it goes quite well with lichen actually: color, time, aging….I’ve been told that Portland is the porn capital of the U.S. Does that truly hold any water?

ML: Portland has been cited to have more strip clubs and employment opportunities for sexworkers per capita, in the USA. This does not translate into “porn capital” per se…that might have to be awarded to L.A. We have a very present gay culture, and almost legislated gay marriage, that and liberal politics in general help shape Portland’s sexy factor, but not outside of city limits. Oregon is conservative. I think it’s sexy to live here, and I can afford to make my art here, but the reality is that the press and the art community seems to be really hung up on my work and identifying it as prurient matter.

TJN: Well, that’s the rub, the friction. I think you can’t truly have a fully open and vital community with things that are “almost” - remember I come from Boston where marriage is non-segregated and rights for all truly exists, even with a Republican governor! But I digress…

The photograph of the deer behind the gauzy glass is my favorite. Do you know the one?

ML: Elk, Motel Shower was taken in the Curlywood Motel, near the Redwood Forest, in California. After driving all day from Portland and arriving at this quaint motel, I discovered my room had a frosty, textured shower door. I first photographed the elk model on the counter, then under the tub faucet as a fake waterfall, then with the door closed. It’s both like a photograph and a modernist cave painting - misty and surreal, the antlers, spindly legs and slightly focused nose are just visible enough to give the viewer a visual representation of an Elk. Deer and Elk possess a gracefulness that I envy.

TJN: The Curlywood, LOL!!!! I noticed some of Bruce Conkle’s work at Homestar as well. There is something of a common theme running through both your work, and I know you’ve collaborated somehow. What’s your relationship with Bruce?

ML: We are artists with similar interests in humor and nature. Upon meeting two years ago, we discovered that we had similar infatuations with trees, nature, fake fur, glitter, ironic humor, weird self portraiture and general bawdiness. Both Bruce and I have produced art that explores Pacific Northwest regionalism with humor and appreciation for where we were raised and now live. His art tends to be installation based and less representational and mine’s more based on intimate photographic portraiture. Creative chemistry brought us companionship and then we formed Blinglab.

TJN: What’s Blinglab (sounds gaudy)?

ML: Blinglab is an artist collective founded by Bruce Conkle and myself. Artist Jake O’Donnel is an active member and inspired us to form a group when we began a craft-based think tank at his farm.

There is a rotating roster of guest artists and members participate in making fancy, glittery things, we believe in adding humor where it didn’t exist before. We reference or rearrange history, pop culture, and fiction to suit our topical creative interests. Bruce and I will be participating in the Caldera Artist Residency in early January 2006 to work on a Lewis and Clark theme puppet show based on their ‘untold adventures’. We are planning a somewhat homoerotic, Bollywood-style musical, both Brat Pack inspired and historically based puppet show for mature audiences; as it contains explicit scenes of nature!

TJN: Ooooo. Homoerotic, and “untold”. The woods. How “seedy”! (sorry). I’m sure you will come up with something totally amusing and hystorical (pun intended). “The great outdoors”. Is that Oregon? Can you talk about the nature of your work so to speak?

ML: Nature is a spiritual, political, sensual experience for me. “Naughty by nature” could be an appropriate description of where I am coming from in my recent work. Intimacy and nature are what make me feel alive; my photographs of nature are equally intimate as the portraits I make of others. In Lichen Anklepanties, a self portrait I made in the Hoh Rainforest in the Olympic Peninsula, Washington, there is a panty-type object that is really a tangle of old washed yarn that looks like it could be an organic plant. I also had a show called Oregon’s Natural Resources which was a humorous take on the timber industry and the natural beauty for which Oregon is known- so I photographed hot girls with logs and wood products. That reception was protested by feminists, who leafleted the room with a flyer that asked: “What do George Bush and Marne Lucas have in common? They are willing to plunder women and timber!” I applaud them for their witty commentary!

TJN: Wow - I hope you documented these folks, sounds wild…oh, human nature! But why photography, say, rather than performance art - and - where do you travel to shoot some of your images?

ML: I am making work wherever I go. I make self portraits, portraits of artists, still lifes and abstractions of nature and culture. In Europe, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, the Oregon desert, forests, Vancouver BC, anywhere is perfect.

Performance art for me is a one time event that you share with an audience, unless of course you film it. I gave so much of myself when I was at the muse end of creative collaborations, that I prefer to quietly work on my own narratives and let the viewer have their own separate space with the work. I don’t personally need a stage. I do plan on making short films in the near future.

TJN: I am very curious about your east meets west (coast) lightbox work that greets you at the door, the one that was included in Fresh Trouble recently. Some folks actually thought our work was one and the same, as if we intentionally collaborated….

ML: I love that our work was positioned next to each other at that show, really perfect. Maybe we should collaborate!

Originally, East Coast, West Coast is part of an abstract series from about 3 years ago that I haven’t been able to afford to produce as lightboxes. I started making composited works with my own photographs to explore relationships between flesh, nature, architecture and man. I am amused by hip-hop culture, so the title is a reference to a series of self portraits about that scene. In talking to you, I think in a subtle way the idea behind my abstract series sort of reminds me of a less-developed yet similar theory to your recent show at Chambers Gallery. I love how you are reworking the familiar into an abstraction that’s beyond the mathmatics of beauty.

TJN: This is like a love-fest (and why shouldn’t it be?). I am blushing all over the place…Did you grow up ’round these parts?

ML: Yep. Since I was two. My parents are from Minnesota (friendly genes) and they moved here and raised me and my two sisters here. Seeing the trees and mountains blew them away. They instilled in us a deep love and respect for nature, literature and art. My interests in exploring intimacy in my art are not a diversion from this, I feel that to be in love with nature and intimacy is to be truely alive.

TJN: It’s one of my great muses too.

Some of your images, I want them to be much larger. Do you choose intimately sized images based on the location in which they are shown, or does size not really matter when it comes to your subject matter?

ML: Sure, this suite of photos should be large scale. Budget, location and saleability were the primary reasons for the Amusement shows’ small scale. Holiday gifts!

TJN: One of my best friends in the whole world is Kim Airs of Grand Opening, do you know her? She’s been up to quite a bit since we met back in the 80’s.

ML: Kim Airs! She’s great! I have yet to make it to her store! We have an email/phone relationship. She carried The Operation. We have lots of friends in common.

TJN: We go waaaayyy back. Can you say anything about your boy series that you did at Good Vibrations (Kim did an internship there before she opened her shop many moons ago)?

ML: MANWICH! I am basically a fag. I am obsessed with Freddie Mercury. I love the film Myra Breckenridge with Raquel Welch!

My inner personality is 50% Freddy and 50% Racquel!

Manwich was my first series of pin-ups of men. They are all Portland friends. I thought it would be more difficult to come up with ideas as had always done heavily art-directed situations with women, putting on lingerie or lounging around it sumptuous situations. The guys were actually a breeze, they had less issues about their physical appearance which allowed me to stay focused on my interpretations of their personality. I’m inspired by Bob Mizer and James Bidgood.

TJN: Marne, we have too much in common. One of my favorite films of all time is Pink Narcissus (I have the DVD if you ever wanna come over and watch it)!!! I had a huge teenage crush on Freddie myself (all that leather and hair!). In fact, Queen Live Killers (1979) was the first ever cassette tape I ever owned. And my old friend Thom Fitzgerald made this great film called Beefcake some years back, have you seen it?

ML: Yes we have loads in common! I would love to see Pink Narcissus, I love Bidgood’s use of simple, stagey props, a glittery cave wall, some fur, a big gold telephone, lots of buns…

TJN: Indeed, the larger cultural history of bling! You are shooting local studs! I did not know that, I’d love to flip through those images to see if there are . Artists and friends as centerfolds. It’s a bit like what Jeff Koons did with Cicciolina. Once upon a time, one lesser thing known about me, I did theatrical lighting for Annie Sprinkle once. Recently, I was doing an interview with Andrew McKenzie (The Hafler Trio) and connected back up with her to share some of her history (they were lovers once). As a sex activist, are you familiar with her work?

ML: I heart Annie Sprinkle! She and Sharon Mitchell are my porn moms. Candida Royalle is like my porn sister. These women have been so supportive of my work and the work of the now defunct non-profit Danzine, who I volunteered for and served on their advisory board. The sex worker community has heightened my awareness about a socially marginalised group of people. Sex workers and drug users are in our families, they are our friends and should be cared for publically.

TJN: Anything you want to share with our captive audience about today, tomorrow, next week?

ML: Activism, humor, nature, intimacy. That’s what I am about, that is what my work is about.

TJN: Shall old acquaintances be forgot? Any resolutions?

ML: Oh heavens no! I tend to be the one to hold up both ends of long acquaintanceships, wondering if it’s really worth it. But many acquantances are gracefully just that: not close friends and it’s ok that you have grown into -or- out of things in common. Sometimes acqauintances will transform into deep friends once I run into them abroad or out of town as you have a new context together. Portland is overwhelming in it’s social scale; it’s easy to want to avoid art openings or cultural events because of the sheer numbers of people to make small talk with. I prefer one on one conversations, but I’ve learned how to chit chat as I have always tended bar for a living and have art shows to be at. I find that old acquaintances show up in your life and give you a good laugh or new perspective on something, usually around the time you have just removed them from your email list or address book! (laughs)

From the Island of the Gods it was Jesse Paul Miller, who was recently featured in a piece covered on Art-To-Go by Regina Hackett of the Seattle Post Intelligencer who mentioned the Puri Ubud Royal Cremation Ceremony in Bali to me. I will be doing a podcast with him at a later date, but in the meantime, the NY Times (watch the slideshow which includes some lovely gamelan/chanting) covered this most high of events just two days ago (and Miller was there alongside 1000+ others to act as witness). The largest scale of its kind in decades, participating in such an act is very much encouraged in this ritual setting (see Bali Blog). Afterall, the whole scene is quite an occasion, filled with exaltation and circumstance, pagentry and common ground - the human spirit. Though such a crowd gathers to watch, if you follow the procession to the actual cremation, correct dress is essential.

The Independent had this to say:

“Crowds lined the streets and swarmed into the cemetery to watch as the bodies of Tjokorda Gde Agung Suyasa, who was head of the Ubud royal palace, and fellow royal, Tjokorda Gede Raka, were carried along Ubud’s main thoroughfare to the cremation site on enormous, carved bamboo and wood towers.” (Sara Webb in Indonesia)

One cheeky blog, which will go unnamed, called the sacred affair “Monty Pyron’s Flaming Circus, or, Bali Fl’ai”. As a lifelong Indonesio-phile (the music, people, bright attire, etc.) I see things differently, and very much like similar celebrations in Mexico, death is a time of jubilation and reflection. There are additional photos on Flickr™ to view from your vantage point, this side of the Pacific.

A new book by Peter Gidal about one of the most fascinating (and banal) films of all time. The first time I saw this film was around 1985-86 under the care of Saul Levine’s sublime film classes (also included intros to Anger, Jack Smith maybe even Russ Meyer and others). At 20 years old I was most certainly affected by the mystery of what the lens avoided moreso than what it caught. What a revolutionary angle on sexuality!

As the story goes: “Andy Warhol’s Blow Job, made at the Factory in New York in 1964, is a masterpiece of the complexities of voyeurism and duration…. In this important book, the influential film-maker and writer Peter Gidal shows how Blow Job is a film about film, about time and also about mortality. Gidal places Blow Job within a history of works by artists, including Duchamp and Velázquez, that directly affect the viewer, enacting a pattern of recognition and loss that constitutes the experience of perception itself.”

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Download his 1st-ever recording @ No Longer Forgotten Music….

 

 Roel Meelkop [30:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Beyond Trend: How To Innovate An Overdesigned World
by Matt Mattus [ How Books/F+W Publications ]

It’s out and about in a spiffy hardcover, with an official ISBN # and all that jazz. M_US__EUM, the editioned work I made w/Scott Wayne Indiana appears in the chapter entitled The Excellence Imperative alongside the very good company of Zaha Hadid and Rinzen among others. Author Matt Mattus has done a very detailed job making this both an interesting read and lovely to look at (maybe they’ll do a t-shirt design of the book jacket!). The book is available at Amazon.com and finer bookstores worldwide.

Yeah, it just blew by. But was filled with more than hot/thin air.

The weekend kicked off with a fantastic opening of the 4th Annual Juried Exhibition at Newspace Center for Photography. What made the evening particularly special for me was the artists in attendance, and especially those traveling distances to be there. Alia Malley came from Los Angeles, Jasper Sanidad came up from San Francisco, Joshua Kim (of the soon-to-be-closing Rake) was in town taking a break from his studies in London, and Oaklander Uri Korn who was in the first Newspace Annual in 2005 (curated by Terry Toedtemeier) stopped by after his opening with others in Universal Grammar, over at Gallery Homeland. Even Olympian (WA, that is) Daniel Baron and his family stopped by to join us from his own powerful solo show A Numb Hinge that was opening simultaneously blocks away at Pushdot.

BACKGROUND/PROCESS: Curating this survey-style group show was an extremely difficult process. First of all, I looked at over 320 electronic portfolios of work (practical, but far from my favorite way to look at work). Then having to cull down to what I anticipated to be only 25 works maximum seemed a bit daunting. Why? Well, there was a lot of really strong work submitted. There were several other layers of elements and reasons that made weeding out ‘the best’ psychically challenging. I will tell you this, my first pass was to remove anything that was overly Photoshopped…oh yes. Unless that seems the point. But I did turn away some powerful work. My own standards stopped me from ever looking at resumes or pedigree, unless I knew of the photographer by way of looking. Though I have to say I was only privy to about three photographers chosen in the end.

Secondarily, there are always portfolios which seem oddly suspect, lets say I get a sneaking suspicion that they are perhaps looking too much like a batch of stock imagery - so I weigh that and then wave some of those goodbye as well. In this batch, I actually received one that fit this description - perfect studio lighting, though with obscure subject matter - so this portfolio slipped to the next round, but didn’t make the final cut. But, honestly, one of the images in its contents still is emblazoned in my head. Critical thinking shuts down after a few hours running high speed, so intermittent breaks were factored in heavily over the course of a few weeks while I labored my decision. The final four rounds became more and more difficult, and rejecting portfolios by several colleagues who I know and respect is a hard process too - but I had to face that demon. And a handful of these folks are museum worthy. But I was searching for an overall sense of something that brought the whole thing together. Disparate images from many outlying places, stylistically spread thickly over cultures and cities in and outside my normal radar. Perhaps I sought something ‘new’…if there is some such. Perhaps I was looking for anything I have never seen..or that reminisces of something I’ve only seen in passing. A spirit of a moment I would have wanted to capture myself - but didn’t? The mind whirs.

After the fact, I realized I told many people that night that I had never curated a solely photo-based show before, but after some backtracking I realize that’s not true. I curated an exhibition called Stratum back in ‘03 at Soundvision that featured Julie Orser, Dan Burke (aka Illusion of Safety), Donald Jones (aka htur), Barbara Loomis, and Martina Verhoeven (who visited from Belgium with her partner Dirk, aka vidnaObmana, who played at the gallery). This show caught the attention of, among others, the curator of the Galveston Art Center and then director of LACMA who was in town for a conference (and sold quite well, btw). I dug further back into another few shows I curated and realized that in ‘02 I also put together disembodied.reconfigured with three photographers Bruce Eves (Toronto), Chris Komater (San Francisco) and Ira Tattleman (Washington, DC). I even assisted in curating a solo exhibition of work by photographer Kimba Kuzas called Dark Ages around that time. So, a dim light must have went off in my head.

Suffice to say, coming out of the process, having selected 37 photographers, was more than I thought we could chew within the modest confines of Newspace, but I think we pulled it off, and several folks have responded most favorably. So, there. And, phew!

Right now I do not have any curatorial projects in the works, but they become my babies, incubating warmly, until ready to be hatched. I have said many times in the past that curation is an art form in and of itself, and I stick by that statement. It’s as if you are able to use the work of others to form an installation, and most of this comes from looking, editing, re-arranging, making changes, placement, and making some form of statement - visual or literary. It’s very creative and fun, very frustrating and time-consuming, and in the end, as a curator, you are responsible for making many things ‘look good’ or sewing common threads, or drawing conclusions. I like the idea of ‘drawing’ in this context. Points of reference, all connected by some invisible line….

The remainder of the weekend included the usual escape from the heat, the cinema! And with my compadre Dan, we managed to head out to movies to balance for the lack of general cultural content as of late - making up for the b-movies mentioned last week. This time around we witnessed three very, very different documentaries (which we both seem to dig). These included: Gonzo, The Life & Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Derek, and the world premiere of Adam Cornelius’ People Who Do Noise (now available on DVD). The latter was made here in Portland, covering a range of regional folks working in the genre including better known (as far as the underground allows) Smegma and Daniel Menche. Newer practitioners like God and the Yellow Swans are also among those featured (many in the seats around me). It was a packed, near sold house at the Clinton last night. With decades of an international sound community out there, using sound as a medium of one’s personal madness, it was about time to see a film that captures the latest spirit of the apocalyptic (aptly described by several in the film as ‘punk’). The catharsis spent by many of the performers personifies a collective subconscious of how people simply make noise to be heard, with or without the need for the mainstream. The film drove its point in way deep.

The film about Hunter S. Thompson, who almost expectedly took his own life back in ‘05, is a solid and revealing piece about this man’s singular poetic (and calculatingly manipulative) vision of the state of the state. His gripping words often cut hard into the core of American politics with no one ever attempting to fill his shoes prior or to date. He was simultaneously unafraid, and comfortably numb. The film is a beautifully cast gem.

Lastly, I was disappointed to only see a dozen seats filled at PAM’s Whitsell Auditorium (the prior evening was slow as well) for the mostly untold story of one of the great filmmakers of the last century during the run of the series Of Angels and Apocalypse: The Cinema of Derek Jarman. After all, it was a hot Saturday night, and the cool theater offers much of a respite in these matters. However, I was far from disappointed at the loving ode of a film it is. The series runs through month’s end and includes most of Jarman’s must-see work, in particular, the graceful The Last of England (1987) and the rarely screened Wittgenstein (1993) and The Angelic Conversation (1985). The new film Derek by Isaac Julien (and starring the phenom & Academy Award Winner® Tilda Swinton who also wrote, narrated and produced the picture) is a great snapshot of a British artist and activist whose solitary vision was a testament to the times we are now living in.

—–

In conclusion, I have also been out and about to view some shows around town including luminous and eye-popping work by both Jaq Chartier (Elizabeth Leach) and slightly more optical and completely gorgeous John Dempcey (Augen), layered floral landscapes by Tamara English (Mark Woolley), and the group show about food (PDX Contemporary), and also the cryptically flowing stark pieces appearing in Brian Borrello’s Ars Brevis, Vita Longa (Pulliam Deffenbaugh) (these must be getting much more expensive to produce - double wink!). I also want to leave you with one thought I had as I emerged from a dream after seeing the current show at NAAU:

Jacqueline Ehlis’ Serenade can suitably be described as unpainting, that exists in the recesses between the fine lines of works by Koons to Duchamp. Her use of color emits light outside the confines of its format, making for a hybrid between the spatial relationship of the flat plane and the gallery itself.

And I also made it to see owner Wid Chambers’ exhibition at his epynomous Chambers Gallery, titled Urban Forest. With new director Martha Morgan now at the helm, this is the final show at its current location before they move to the Pearl District this Fall. Chambers has used the exhibition space as his ‘canvas’ to build out a completely enchanted digital forest from prefabricated plywood and projections of tree-lined green space. Here distancing (or making ‘convenient’ for) the viewer to avoid real time wilderness within the assumed safe setting of the white box, opting for the outside indoors. It’s smartly sarcastic, though would offer a better viewing experience in a more controlled, much darker space. Speaking of galleries moving on…in one month Portland is losing Small A, Rake and Tilt Gallery & Project Space (and tight lipped rumors run amok about a few others who may not see the light of the end of Summer). In the past several years many have come and gone (remember Alysia Duckler, Margo Jacobsen, S.K. Josefsberg, Field Gallery, Savage?). Would combining efforts and assets help? How does this speak of the future or of the longevity for the average gallery - and of the scene in Portland? Will attempts like the grassroots, interdisciplinary efforts of both galleryHomeland and the soon-to-be re-re-emerging Disjecta take the reigns and place for much of the exhibition venue needs in the area? Does quality prevail and quantity only divide a community? Is romancing the current cultural tourist model enough? So many questions, so lil’ time. Ommmmm……

Our big sister city to the North has just released the inaugural issue of City Arts, a new model magazine that I hope catches fire down yonder. With the economy slump, in my opinion, folks like publisher Terry Coe and staff are part of the new ‘walk the talk’. In a burgeoning cultural tourism-based city like Portland I’m sure we can do it. Think of combining the efforts of PDX Magazine, Portland Spaces and a little dash or Art Papers, add a snappy title like The Incubator (or something even more clever and probably a bit more ‘civic’) and voila! I haven’t seen the magazine yet, but am planning a quick trip up to Seattle soon. Now, just imagine good writing about and a glossy with the wonderful mugs of Jacqueline Ehlis, MK Guth, Storm Tharp or Ellen George gracing the cover? Once again: “this is the time, and this is the record…of the time.

Look at what showed up in my e-box today. Thanks Richard and Ben!

Both Change the Thought and Obey have released gorgeous new designs…

A review of Infinitus appears in the new Summer issue of Art Ltd. Magazine.