September 2006

· IN THIS ISSUE ·

• Feature: Artist Henk Pander 2006 RACC Fellowship Winner
• From the Executive Director: Eloise Damrosch
• Creative Capital Outreach Event focusing on Funding for Artists
• Get an Arts Card from Work for Art
• RACC presents Hidden Acts: Balancing Truths
• Current RACC Opportunities
• Grants

• Public Art

• Internships

• September Events Funded in part by RACC:
  • Artists Repertory Theatre: Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman
  • PICA: Time-Based Art Festival (TBA:06)
  • Tessa Brinkman & Ensemble East West: Global Voyages for Six
  • White Bird: Savion Glover
  • Maria T.D. Inocencio Exhibition Meet Me Here

Artist Henk Pander 2006 RACC Fellowship Winner
By Prudence Roberts

Henk Pander in Upshur Studio (Photo: Terry Thompson)

In June, RACC awarded the Individual Artist Fellowship Award in Visual Arts to Henk Pander. Guest writer and curator Prudence Roberts has offered her thoughts and insights into this most remarkable of Portland painters.

Henk Pander is often bemused to find himself, a classically trained Dutch painter, living in Portland, Oregon. But it is here that his career has unfolded and his adopted community is the richer for it. For more than 40 years, Pander has contributed to the cultural life of Portland: to its theater and dance, public art, films and literature. Thanks to his vision, we have the Visual Chronicle: a unique artistic record of the city's life. Pander has taught, lectured, and sat on innumerable boards and panels. But most importantly, he has painted, bringing his sensibilities and life experience to bear on a body of work that is like no other in the region. Pander is stubbornly independent, uninterested in art world trends and yet utterly engaged in the politics and moral dilemmas of the 20th and 21st centuries. He persists in making large-scale, representational oil paintings.

More than is true for most, Pander's life has been directly shaped by art and by world history. He was born in Haarlem, Holland, on the brink of World War II, the son of a realist painter and the eldest in a family that would include 10 children. He spent his childhood under the deprivations and terrors of Nazi occupation and he began making art by the age of eight. He grew up hearing the sounds of war, looking at the paintings of his father and knowing the world of Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Judith Leyster and Johannes Vermeer. Later, he studied at the Rijksacademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, where he learned to paint in the time-honored, painstaking, academic manner: a style and technique he has never abandoned.

But Pander's subject matter is far from academic. He is fascinated by astronomy, space exploration and aeronautics: in 1987 and1989, he received commissions from NASA. Many of his drawings, in particular, have a certain sci-fi edge. His portraits, of such cultural leaders as Tom McCall, Arlene Schnitzer and Richard Kohnstamm have a visceral punch, and his landscapes frequently include references to the confrontation of technology with the natural world. His is the desert where a sun sets over an airplane graveyard, his the flower-edged ditch that holds the carcass of a wrecked car. When he makes a still life painting, one of his luscious compositions involving bones, wild oversized bouquets of dead and dying flowers and assorted crockery, feathers and fabric, the notion of still life as nature morte--dead nature--is inescapable.

The Wreck of the New Carissa, 1999 by Henk Pander

But despite his skills as a portrait painter and his extraordinary watercolor landscapes, Pander is at heart a chronicler of the history of our times. His most ambitious paintings focus directly on the events and social issues we confront today. As he puts it, he wants "to make a record of what it has been like to be alive." Because of his own experiences and his willingness to take on the issues of the day, Pander's version of being alive can be intense. A series of paintings based on his childhood memories deal with the war time experiences of Pander's family and friends. In the past decade or so, he has made paintings documenting such subjects as the wreck and destruction of the oil tanker, New Carissa (above at right); vertiginous views of the devastation at Ground Zero, which he visited in early November 2001; and riot squads manning Portland's streets during a fundraising visit by George Bush.

Some of Pander's most recent works stem from his commissions for the Portland Fire Department and the Oregon State Police. As is his habit, Pander used both sketchbook and camera during his "ridealongs" with firefighters and cops as they responded to a series of emergencies that ranged from strokes to highway accidents to drug overdoses. He visited squalid apartments, hospitals, prisons, nursing homes and the sites of car wrecks. In his sketches, drawings and paintings, Pander has again explored the balance of power, for better or worse, between an individual and the forces of government.

Last year, Henk Pander became an American citizen. Three years ago, he left his cavernous space in Northwest Portland, with its views of railyards, warehouses and the Columbia River to move into a new studio tower- that rises behind the house he shares with his wife, Dolores, and a beguiling dog named Molly. Here he works, literally every day, unless he is traveling, taking his small trailer to ghost towns, shipwrecks, desert junkyards and other dystopic locations. At the age of 68, Pander has lost neither his energy nor his edge.

RACC wishes to thank the Fellowship Visual Arts Panelists serving this year: Paul Dahlquist, Robert Dozono, Jennifer Gately, Linda Hutchins, Thomas Orr, Jim McDonald, Julia Stoops and Marie Watt. For more details on the RACC Artist Fellowship and recipient Henk Pander visit www.racc.org/news/Fellowship2006Pander.

From RACC Executive Director:
Eloise Damrosch

After over six years of devoted care and management of the City and County public art collections, Robert Krueger bid a fond farewell to RACC. He left the "best job I've ever had" to pursue a Masters of Art degree in Art Conservation at SUNY-Buffalo State. Robert was the first full-time Collections Specialist for RACC, and developed the position's multiple responsibilities, covering such areas as accessioning artworks, overseeing the maintenance and conservation of paintings and sculptures, coordinating installations of portable works, and managing databases. He brought his unique experiences both as an artist and a contractor to the job, crafting it into an indispensable position for RACC's growing public art collection.

All of these tasks now fall into the capable hands of Karen Christenson, RACC's new Collections Specialist, who says she was "born to be a registrar." She has worked in the Registrar's Office at the Portland Art Museum for over seven years, most recently as Exhibitions Registrar. She brings with her extensive experience in museum registration as well as database management and overall collection care. Her enthusiasm for and professional approach to collections care make her a terrific match for this position. Karen can be reached at kchristenson@racc.org.

We at RACC wish Robert much success in his studies, dealing with Buffalo winters, and his new career as a professional conservator. And we welcome Karen with great enthusiasm and look forward to her interpretation of her new job at RACC.

Eloise can be reached at edamrosch@racc.org.

Creative Capital Outreach Event focusing on Funding for Artists

9/5 PICA will host a free outreach event where representatives from Creative Capital will present a grant information session at 7pm at PICA, 224 NW 13th Avenue, 3rd Floor. In 2007, Creative Capital will be considering proposals in the Visual Arts and Media Arts. Also a special Creative Capital program, the Multi-Arts Production (MAP) Fund, supports new works in all disciplines and traditions of the live Performing Arts. Artists welcome. Contact PICA at 503.242.1419, kristan@pica.org.

Get an Arts Card from Work for Art

Work for Art, RACC's workplace giving program, kicked off employee giving campaigns at two companies last month (The Standard and Oregon Children's Theatre), but anyone who wants an Arts Card can participate! The Arts Card is full of 2-for-1 ticket offers and other discounts at hundreds of local arts events -- a benefit for donations of $60 or more. Plus, all gifts will be matched dollar-for-dollar by the City of Portland (up to $200,000)! Visit www.workforart.org.

RACC presents Hidden Acts: Balancing Truths

Hidden Acts: Balancing Truths by Portland artist Rachel J. Siegel is in the Portland Building Installation Space through 9/15. Examining the "truths" (the unrecorded history) is important to people's lives and for collective healing. For change to occur, the truth must be mined and the artist hopes to provide a place for that dialogue to start. Reception 9/7, 4pm. Monday -Friday, 7am-6pm. The Portland Building, 1120 SW 5th Avenue, 503.823.5111.

Grants

• FY 06-07 RACC Professional Development Grants (Cycle II) assists artists or arts administrators with opportunities that specifically improve their business management development skills and/or brings the artist or the arts organization to another level artistically. Applications will be available at www.racc.org. Deadlines: Intent to Apply 10/2/06; Electronic Application 10/9/06.

• Arts Education Fast Track Grants assist public and private schools in the tri-county region with bringing high quality professional artists/arts organizations into the classroom. Awards are made on a first-come, first-served basis, and schools are encouraged to apply early. Download guidelines and application at www.racc.org. Deadline: 10/31/06.

Public Art

• Public Art Mural Program. RACC is accepting proposals for the creation of murals for the City of Portland. Some funding available. Guidelines and applications for the Public Art Mural Program can be downloaded at www.racc.org/murals. Contact: Peggy Kendellen, pkendellen@racc.org. Next Deadline: 9/5/06.

• RACC's Design Team Roster. The RFP for this roster will be coming soon. Click here to receive notification by signing up for RACC's Public Art Listserv. Contact: pkendellen@racc.org.

Internships

• RACC has internship opportunities available in a variety of areas for those interested in working in the arts. These are unpaid positions. Please email Marci Cochran at RACC at info@racc.org to inquire about current openings.

Photo by Owen Carey

Artists Repertory Theatre: Metamorphoses by Mary Zimmerman

Midas, Philemon, Orpheus and Euridyce - they all make a splash in this lucid, glowing adaptation of Ovid's masterpiece set in and around a swimming pool.

Artist Repertory Theatre receives General Support funds from RACC

Photo: Kevin Kennefick

PICA: Time-Based Art Festival (TBA:06)

The Time-Based Art Festival presents the works of over 250 artists--many coming from as far away as Australia, Mexico, Japan, The Netherlands, Israel, France, The Democratic Republic of Congo, and the United Kingdom and including one of America's premier performance artists, Laurie Anderson (pictured).

Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) receives General Support funds from RACC.

Tessa Brinkman (center jumper) & Ensemble East West (Photo: John Klicker)

Tessa Brinkman & Ensemble East West Concert Series: Global Voyages for Six

9/10 First Presbyterian Church, 1200 SW Alder
9/12 Midland Library, 805 SE 122^nd
9/17 Central Library, 801 SW 10^th
www.tessabrinckman.com

Global Voyages for Six, 2006 features Marjorie Rusche's work, Arctic Voyager, a four-movement musical narrative of an Alaskan journey; Gordon Lee's new arrangement of Native American jazz; Jim Pepper's Witchi-Tai-To for flute, string trio and koto; Bongani Ndodana-Breen's trio, Apologia at Umzimvubu; Albert Roussel's Serenade op.30 for flute, violin, viola, cello and harp and Astor Piazzolla's Libertango. Tessa Brinckman, flutist and producer of these concerts, was the recipient of a RACC Project Grant.

These events were funded in part by a RACC Project Grant

Photo: Lois Greenfield

White Bird: Savion Glover

Since age 12, Glover has been stunning audiences with his unparalleled virtuosity and rhythmic complexity, and in 1990 he won the Tony Award for his choreography of Broadway's smash hit Bring In 'da Noise, Bring In 'da Funk.

White Bird receives General Support funds from RACC

Maria T.D. Inocencio: Exhibition Meet Me Here

Based on community work done by Inocencio in North and Northeast Portland, the works in the exhibition examine the nature of the relationship between the individual and the group.

This exhibition was funded in part by a RACC Project Grant

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