On Portland, Episode 1

Angry gods at Pony Club.

We moved from Oakland to Portland in early September of this year, and I’d like to make a sweeping opening claim about the art scene here, but so far it seems like a smaller version of the Bay. For her part, my wife Lexa Walsh is fully involved in the MFA in Social Practice program at Portland State, and has pledged to not make any object-based art for a full year, which is not only proper given the nature of the program, but handy, since Social Practice students don’t get a studio. And I’ve been channeling my work into the book form, which seems a stronger tool for speaking to all, not just fellow artists (not to naysay ye, tho!)

So, over the past year my attitude toward art as she is practiced has shifted, and somehow moving here has pushed me to the limit of this shift. The most major change in being here is that a gallery opening is not the social event that it was in Oakland. People are friendly, they’ll strike up a talk, they’re not spilling beer on the art, even though the opening’s crowded, they even hold the door for you. But having nothing invested in the people behind the work and the galleries makes for a curious case of merely seeing a variety of objects in a variety of rooms by a variety of people. There are cards and posters and price tags, pedestals and handmade signs and donation cans, there’s bad wine and stale crackers and just the crumbs left of something that was probably really tasty next to a huge bunch of grapes that no-one really wants because, let’s face it, we’re all sick of the grapes.

So that’s my kvetch/disclosure, and since I don’t trust myself to make any objective claim about anything art-related these days, I’ll make some remarks, from a sort of Martian’s view, about art things, people, and places in Portland, Oregon. It’s a minor miracle that I’ll pull off even this modest goal. Sometimes it’s hard to do anything but heave a sigh and shake one’s head. But art is one of the great conversations, and the best thing to say, in this case, is something that someone may find useful. When in the bayarea, I didn’t know a thing about the art scene here, except the (now defunct) gallery Small A Projects (which was notable).

So in the spirit of it’s-better-to-light-a-candle-than-to-curse-the-darkness, this is part one, some highlights from the second round of openings since I’ve been here, and focused on the west side of town. The east side comes later. Then some other stuff, and maybe some stuff in between the other stuffs.

Portland is divided into east and west by the Willamette River, and divided into north and south by Burnside Street. Northwest is where rich people live and where the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art and Pacific Northwest College of Art lie, and closer to Burnside is the Pearl District, home of fancy restaurants and fancy pants. Southwest near Burnside there’s a cluster of good rock clubs, and it’s also where Portland State is, and some tall buildings and the Hyatt and crap like that. Southeast is where everyone goes when they move here from San Francisco, and you will see a lot of tight black jeans and flannels, record stores, expensive vintage objects, etc. Northeast is mellow, with lots of little neighborhoods and small businesses, and feels more like a town and less like a city. This could be said for most of “Stumptown,” as we locals call it.

The high point of the west side openings, for me, is called Everett Station, which is nearly a whole block of city-subsidized live/work spaces that are run by, shall we say, people like us. It’s in the Pearl, but is miles away from the district’s truly nauseating and dispiriting sea of fake art flotsam. (I haven’t been to a wine-n-cheeser at PDX Contemporary, however, which may well be a low-elevation sandbar in the Pukian Sea that is the Hurl District.)

The first stop was a place called Eyeful, which had signs in the window saying “Don’t Be a Bub, Join the Club” and “Jokes? In This Economy?” and “Brains, Brilliancy and Bohemia Since 1914.” and “Are You a Nut About Anything? If so, the Dill Pickle is Looking For You.” Inside was a throng of hairy twenty-somethings (a common sight in this town), some pleasant elec. gtr. drone music coming from the half-loft upstairs (a feature shared by all of the spaces in Everett Station), an array of books on a table focused on local history, homelessness, etc. (localism is a bona-fide mania here), and a variety of objects on the walls. Got only brief glimpses of stuff: a poster saying WHY IS EVERY THING THE SAME?, a pink-tinged video of a white guy on a flying carpet, some highly-rendered drawings of some things and some sloppy drawings of pineapples.

It was kind of hard to make any sense of it all, if sense was indeed to be made, but overall there a pleasant vibe of something happening and the reassuring to-ing and fro-ing that goes with that. The show was Work Progress: A Benefit For The Dill Pickle Club, and features “special events all month long.” I don’t know what those events will be. The Dill Pickle Club might be a group based in Chicago. [Editor—please visit their web site for more info]

I do know some of the folks in the show, as they are PSUers: Harrell Fletcher (who started the Social Practice program and is generally on the vanguard of that field), as well as MFAers Ariana Jacob (a superb artist and capital human being who has a piece called “People Die, Let’s Talk About It”), and Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulson (a couple who make many photos of themselves blandly holding signs saying things like “This Is Not Art,” (that in front of some people eating dinner) but who are interesting, despite the rigidity of their visages.) Ariana’s Public Wondering blog is a good place to link to the work of all the Social Practitioners.

Then it was out briefly into the nose-crackling cold to get to Pony Club, which is basically the (one of two) Needles and Pens-type deals here. (The other is called Grass Hut. Lots of colorful and, again, variously-rendered things like superheroes and unicorns and figments of the bohemian imagination, as well as books and paper ephemera. Some very skilled work by the stand-up dude Jason Fischer. And may I gently point out, oh ye cultural coterie of yon bayarea, that the sticker-prices of these works ranged from $35 to $100, ahem, ahem.

At this point, another item of disclosure: the show at the intriguing Igloo was one of two reasons I even went out to the openings at all. Otherwise I could hardly be bothered to leave my place on the couch sucking a beer and petting the cat. Called Art Attack: Art and Engagement from ProjectGrow, curated by PSU Social Practitioner and first-rate human being Sandy Sampson, and featuring peeps from the Creative Growth-esque Project Grow, the show had some great wild paintings and drawings. And I got to meet artist and funnyman Dan McClary, who Sandy talks about all the time. Indeed our meeting did not disappoint:

Dan McC.: Hi, I’m an artist! (ok, maybe I’m imagining that). My name’s Dan.
Dan N.: Oh hey, I’m Dan, also.
Dan McC.: Hello, Dan Also.
[at which point he wanders away, distracted by a pretty girl.]

There were also some really nice pieces dans le style naïve with text splotchings on them, which is always edifying. [Wow, MS Word actually just automatically inserted the crazy French “i” into naïve—if only art were that cool! Whoa, it did it again!] And some videos, but they required too much going down the stairs and squeezing between people to see.

Then was mine eye greeted by the welcome sight of many switch plates and light switches gathered together on a board in the window of the excellent In House gallery and project space. Inside were equally quiet and lovely works by three wood-working students from the Oregon College of Art and Craft, Tucker Anglese, Nicholas Musso, and Amanda Wall-Graf. The works shown are thesis-studies to reveal the artistic process. (I don’t know if there will be photos accompanying this trash I’m writing; if so, no need to soil these fragile little wooden, cardboard, etc. creations with descripto-speak.) But an icicle-shaped stone balancing a postage stamp atop a mini wooden obelisk—who needs more?

Next up: doppler , my current fave of the block, if only because last month the tiny space had film projections onto ghostly plywood cut-outs, and now tonight, lo and behold, it’s a ladies haberdashery! Boutique For a Week had not only exotically-feathered chapeaux pour mademoiselles but lamps made out of scribbly Post-It Notes and some good pieces by Allie Bentley, who gamely described the process of shaping annealed bronze discs into poppy shapes on a lathe. Carry on!

On the way forth, a poster stating: “People are thinking about uncomfortable questions in public places. Let’s talk about it. (503-575-9031)”

Then Ogle, the eyeglass place that is also a gallery. Very large, gorgeous space with art that, so far (two shows), seems odd in a studied, deliberate way, but otherwise perhaps just decorative. For example, a few dozen identical framed copies of a photo of autumn leaves on the ground with a sign atop them on a wee easel saying: “CAUTION Pictures of Wet Fall Leaves on the Floor.” Uhhh… You know in books sometimes there’s a dialogue and when one of the characters doesn’t respond the author just puts a long dash? It’s art that makes me go “—“. Last month was better, there were match boxes you could take home that had art on them.

Then a show by the group Weird Fiction (weird-fiction.net), who had downloaded a great many gif images from the world wide toilet only to upload them into my brain-pan via video monitors, which only added to the feeling of Martianhood. Seeing all the infotaintmental slurry and wrack we allow to pass through our systems continuously bobbing up and down, empixellated. Nice presentation and intriguing in a meta-meta-meta way.

Brief stop at a gallery (with a sign out front that said “WHO CARES” under an image of a plane about to crash into the WTC) where tattooed people with askew hair carried on intense discussions amongst oddly appealing, thickly-daubed, and murkily-lit paintings of 9/11 and post-car bombed cars and mostly post-crisis things on fire.

Then unlock the bike (bikes are more likely to get stolen here than cars) and huff over to pal Courtney Price’s opening (house-departing reason #2) at, oh hell yes, Mio Gelato. Courtney’s work and the black cherry gelato are both very tasty. She describes herself as a painter, and this show includes both more materially traditional pieces (why use $2 words when you can say “paint on wood”), as well as some real stand-out wood pieces, shapes recessed out of wood, pieces cut out and put back in, all very smooth and subtly-colored, but not fussy looking. Sort of like Ellsworth Kelly Goes to Egypt, which is always fine.

Courtney’s showing at the gelato place because she has an ambivalent attitude toward galleries. The shock of this revelation almost causes me to crush what’s left of my waffle cone, which I narrowly avoided by shoving the entire thing in my mouth. But she does mention a couple of galleries over there on our side of the river that are carrying the torch as it were, the torch of High Art. I’ve seen some low-brow and some high-brow tonight, and basically have a warm fuzzy so far in Portland west side, even though my mind has failed, once again, to be melted. Perhaps next week.

Oh yeah, and did I mention the safety orange Styrofoam submarines hanging from the ceiling in that one place? They looked like Cheetos. If you are what you eat, then are you what you look at, too?