Local Arts & Culture Headlines
The following are recent articles in the local media in metropolitan Portland
(and at times around the State) dealing with arts and culture issues. Each article is summarized; for the complete article please click the link provided:
5/13/08 Robert Rauschenberg: 1925-2008. Robert Rauschenberg, the extraordinarily influential artist whose humanity and generosity touched artists across the world, including the Portland art community, died Monday evening at his home in Florida. He was 82. The cause of death was not announced. The 20th century might have produced better individual sculptors, painters, photographers and printmakers. But no one, except perhaps Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso, embraced the range of art processes, materials and philosophical possibilities that Rauschenberg did. By challenging the boundaries of what an artwork could be, Rauschenberg expanded the imagination itself. (Robert Rauschenberg is survived by his son Chris Rauschenberg, Portland resident and co-founder of Blue Sky Gallery). D.K. Row, The Oregonian
5/13/08 Commissioners gird for city budget battle. Wednesday’s meeting on an ‘alternate budget’ could produce fireworks. The latest battle at City Hall is about to erupt as commissioners Sam Adams and Randy Leonard plan to propose an alternate budget for next year to the City Council on Wednesday. It would replace the one proposed by Mayor Tom Potter, which was previewed at a community budget forum on May 8 and had been set for approval Wednesday morning, May 14, at 9:30 a.m. in Council Chambers. The alternative budget would add millions of dollars for art, transportation and social service programs not included in Potter’s budget. Jennifer Anderson, Portland Tribune
5/9/08 Meet the dynamos who make Portland's art music snap and crackle. Four who are scene-shifting classical musicians talk about why they came to Portland, and why "a big small town" can be a more promising place than bigger Seattle for an art-music revolution. Stephen Marc Beaudoin, Crosscut
4/28/08 Talking With. Cynthia Kirk, the communications manager for the Oregon Cultural Trust moved to Sherwood from New York City several years ago and spends her days working as an advocate for the state’s unique arts and culture funding mechanism. Imagine asking a New Yorker what she likes best about living in Sherwood. Kelly Moyer, Sherwood Gazette
4/25/08 Sellwood school loses art. Elective not a choice unless cash found to fund half-time post beginning intermediate art class at Sellwood Middle School. Capps is retiring from teaching there, and her art classes may go with her due to budget cuts. As the Portland Public Schools budget winds its way toward approval Monday, parents, teachers and principals across the district are dreading some of the program and staffing losses their schools will feel next year. Jennifer Anderson, The Portland Tribune (reprinted in Sellwood Bee)
4/24/08 An absence of vision for Portland's future. (Op-Ed by Chris Colemen, Artistic Director of Portland Center Stage) T he first time I heard a mayor address the relationship of the budgeting process to a city's future, it was Maynard Jackson, the first African American mayor of Atlanta in 1991. He said, "If you want to understand a city's priorities for its future, look at the budget. That's what matters." So it was pretty disappointing to search through Mayor Tom Potter's latest (and final) spending plan for the city of Portland. After four years of asking everyone within hearing distance what the vision for our future should be, this mayor produced a budget that lacks, well, vision. I'm particularly struck by the complete absence of leadership in funding for the arts. Sure, there's a 10 percent increase for the Regional Arts and Culture Council ($309,000) -- and after a public outcry, the mayor on Wednesday added another $150,000 for Arts Partners. But that doesn't even get the agency back to its 2000 funding level. And it still means that Portland-area arts organizations will receive about 2.1 percent of their funding from government sources -- about half the national average. The Oregonian
4/24/08 Free at last. The next step for the Portland Art Museum should be free or reduced-admission days for adults. T he cash register stayed silent Wednesday morning as kids filled the lobby of the Portland Art Museum and poured through the inner doorways toward Degas and Van Gogh. They didn't pay a dime. General admission to the museum is now free for children 17 and under -- today, tomorrow and forever. This is an extraordinary change for Oregon's most prominent art museum, and it's one of several ongoing efforts to connect more people with art. "(We're) helping this museum become a resource for all, not just an attraction for a few," says museum director Brian Ferriso. For years, the Portland Art Museum embraced an admission policy that was out of step with the museum world. It didn't offer regular days with free or reduced admission, as most of its peer museums do. Its admission prices were steeper than average, too. A family of four could expect to pay more than $30 to see the permanent collection -- and more than $40 to see a special exhibition. Editorial, The Oregonian
4/23/08 Meet the Contenders: Race for Commissioner Seat #2. This will be our second to last question, as ballots go out so very soon. Given the earlier-today news that the mayor has restored some arts funding to the proposed budget, it’s slightly out of date. But we’re still behind when it comes to arts funding! In a year with $33 million in additional revenue to work with, Mayor Tom Potter’s proposed budget did not include any funding for new arts related requests—like a $200,000 request for Arts Partners, which funds art programs in schools. Moreover, despite Portland’s reputation for arts and culture, we’re far behind other cities in per capita funding of arts. Are the arts a priority for city funding? Should we increase that funding? If so, what would you do as a city commissioner to make that happen? Amy Ruiz, Portland Mercury
4/16/08 Potter's budget snubs mayoral candidate's pet projects. For fiscal 2008-09, the mayor wants to upgrade services and infrastructure before the economy worsens. Portland Mayor Tom Potter rolled out his final city budget Tuesday with two messages, one direct and one more subtle. The direct one: The good times we've enjoyed for several years are at an end, and it's time for city leaders to get serious about preparing for a rainy day that appears right around the corner. To that end, Potter wants to use the city's $33 million surplus -- money from tax revenues that rose above projections -- to shore up basic services, starting with replacing aging radios and computers used by police and first responders. He wants to help women recover from domestic abuse and make sure schoolchildren in one of Portland's long-ignored neighborhoods don't get hit by cars on their way to class. Anna Griffin, The Oregonian
4/14/08 PNCA lands Goodman building, donations. Oregon art school gets three $1 million gifts. Less than a month after it snapped up, for free, a historic building through a special government-sponsored education transferral, the Pacific Northwest College of Art has completed another stunning coup. During a gala for patrons and trustees Saturday at its Pearl District campus, Oregon's flagship art college announced three historic developments that assure its future as a Pearl District arts force, events that also clarify and resolve several intriguing plotlines of the past year. The college has reached an agreement with the family of the late Edith Goodman to buy the main building on its campus, a 65,000 square-foot structure that occupies the block between Northwest 12th and 13th avenues and Johnson and Kearney streets. The college also publicly launched a historic capital campaign targeting $32 million in pledges by the end of June 2009, when the college celebrates its centennial. D.K.Row, The Oregonian
4/3/08 Handmade bicycle exhibit opens at Portland, Oregon, airport. Handmade bicycle exhibit opens TODAY at PDX. More than three million airline passengers are expected to see the showcase of frames designed and built in Oregon. Starting April 3 and running through early October, ten custom bicycles will be on display at Portland International Airport’s artOBJECTS showcase in Concourse E. The bikes, all created by Oregon builders, demonstrate a combination of engineering skills, precision metal craftsmanship, cutting edge design, and a passion for cycling shared by the represented bike builders. The ten examples on display represent only a few of the builders working in Oregon, but they share the common goal of providing a one-of-a-kind, hand-crafted machine that is both a unique ride and a functional work of art. Velo News
4/2/08 Portland artists need unified voice. Momentum for the arts can be sustained only when musicians, sculptors, painters and other creative types figure out a way to work together for their greater good. During an art show last month at a Pearl District bank lobby, those who came to gaze at the portraits painted by a Portland artist named "Mo" were also treated to performances by poets, singers and positive hip-hop rappers. So when one of the musicians had a CD release party last week at a Northwest Portland bar, Mo also painted live a 3-by-5 foot piece of art, which was raffled to help raise money for art scholarships at Portland State University. Thursday evening, the multiracial collaborative, called Artists 4 The Community, will open its third First Thursday season at Albina Community Bank, 430 N.W. 10th Ave. All who participate are asked to collect donations for a charity of their choice. S. Renee Mitchell, The Oregonian
March, 2008 In Mid-Career Professional Development: Long-Term Asset or Short-Term Liability?, the second of a two part series (see Fall 2007 issue for the first installment), Victoria Saunders continues the exploration of what it means to be a mid-career arts and culture professional today. In this issue Saunders completes her analysis of feedback received from surveyed arts and culture professionals working at a stage in their lives in which they feel both committed to the cause of moving the arts forward in society yet stuck in a static career. Saunders then addresses possible solutions for mid-career burnout including rejuvenation and renewal through career development, professional coaching, and sabbaticals. CultureWork
3/31/08 Gift a plum for PNCA. A $1 million endowment advances the college's bold agenda. The Pacific Northwest College of Art continues its ascent to become more than Portland's modest art college in the Pearl District. Today, in the midst of extraordinary physical expansion and programmatic change, the college will announce its latest coup: a $1 million endowment gift from Ed Cauduro, the reclusive art collector and patron. DK Row, The Oregonian
3/28/08 Portland's DIY Listening Experience. The third Thursday of every month, a little group gathers at the Waypost, a coffee house in North Portland, for something called a listening party, which turns out to be exactly what it sounds like: For half an hour, everyone sits quietly with a glass of beer or a cup of chai and simply listens. In this case, to a radio show and podcast called "DIY, Portland," hosted by 27-year-old Julie Sabatier (funded in part by a RACC Project Grant). Inara Verzemnieks, The Oregonian
3/27/08 Red Ink: Local Gallery Owes Thousands To Artists. And Some Are Pissed. When City Arts LLC opened at 902 SW Morrison St. in November 2006, hopes were high that the gallery could be like Saturday Market with a roof. But after just 14 months, City Arts LLC owners were three months behind on their $4,000 monthly rent to the city and owed $10,000 to artists. Lillian Hogan, Willamette Week
3/21/08 Arts council offers encouragement, but not funds for ‘Parkrose Triangle.' Parkrose business people and neighbors have worked diligently over the past year to clean up the overgrown – and, frankly, unsightly – large traffic island where Northeast Sandy Boulevard crosses Northeast Killingsworth Street. After days of backbreaking work, these volunteers transformed this plot of land into the beautifully landscaped “Parkrose Triangle.” And, they prepared a large, concrete pad on which they plan to mount a display of public art – such as a statue or sculpture – that would be changed out every year or so. With this in mind, members of the Parkrose Business Association welcomed Eloise Damrosch, executive director of the Regional Arts & Culture Council, to their general membership meeting not long ago. David Ashton, The Gresham Outlook.
3/19/08 Chi Whiz: Urban acupuncturist Adam Kuby salves Portland with massive needles. A city is like a body. It eats, it breathes, it metabolizes. And when a city gets sick—coughing up things like pollution, poverty and crime—there are different ways to treat it. A traditional approach might prescribe the civic equivalent of a flu shot—a referendum on school funding or a voter overhaul of the city council. But here in Portland, one artist is taking a different tack (so to speak). He’s Adam Kuby, and he’s giving Portland an acupuncture treatment. (Kuby is the March South Waterfront Artist-in-Resident) John Minervini, Willamette Week
3/12/08 Two more promising new arts groups in Portland. KO & Co., a dance troupe, and Portland Vocal Consort strut their stuff in a city that is spawning many new companies. The performances, however, left our critic feeling a little stranded. I was sitting next to a prominent Portland arts administrator, and we were having that typical post-concert sort of non-conversation: speaking in broad generalities, averting our eyes, avoiding the subject of the concert itself (a newish chamber choir, which we’d both just heard). Stephen Marc Beaudoin, Crosscut, online news of the Great Nearby
3/10/08 New Yorkers connect with MK Guth's braid project at Whitney Biennial. The opening weekend of the prestigious Whitney Biennial found Portland artist MK Guth basking in a national spotlight. Strands of the braid, each representing a different city from its tour of the country in December and January, extend from a central hub.Her work, a massive and ever-growing braid of artificial gold hair and red ribbons called "Ties of Protection and Safe Keeping," was featured prominently on the cover of the New York Times' Weekend Arts section. Throngs of art fans showed up to engage with the piece, writing on the ribbons their answer to the question "What is worth protecting?", which were then incorporated into the braid. Grant Butler, The Oregonian
3/7/08 Dreamers + Builders. Portland is a hotter commodity today than at any other time in history. The New York Times loves our restaurants. Others in the media rave about our bike lanes, indie rock bands and, most of all, our forward-thinking "green" lifestyle. In short, they love the city itself -- its culture and how it's put together. The connecting thread in this Portland renaissance is design. Maybe we don't have many individual works of illustrious architecture attracting attention like our larger West Coast neighbors. But instead, Portland has created for itself a great city. And that comes back to the men and women who dream and build it. Brian Libby, The Oregonian
3/3/08 Making art, creating community. The day after Ben Pink graduated from Portland State University with a major in fine art, he woke up in his Southeast Portland home and realized he had no idea how to make a living. "I hadn't learned anything about how to approach a gallery or put together a portfolio, and there wasn't a community of artists who could help me," says the 31-year old New York native. Across town, a juvenile advocate, Joy Leising, and an art therapist, Beth Ann Short, were getting fed up with trying to help people from within a restrictive institution. In yet another part of the city, Adrienne Fritze was growing weary of her career in advertising and technology. "I was making lots of money, and I was depressed," she says. What she really wanted to do was to pursue her main passion in life: the arts. D.K. Row, The Oregonian
3/3/08 New gigs for former Portland Art Center heads. Gavin Shettler and Kelly Rauer, former executive director and programs director of the now-defunct Portland Art Center, have landed new gigs in the local art scene. Both start their new jobs today. Shettler is creative director for nascent live-work development Milepost 5, and Rauer is working on a special project with the Heidi McBride Gallery and Art Consultancy. Richard Speer, Willamette Week
2/29/08 Film Action Oregon and Box Office Tickets Launch Local Ticketing Network. Film Action Oregon (FAO) and Box Office Tickets Inc. (BOT) have teamed up to provide a community box office solution for Portland area organizations -- the PDX Ticket Network(TM). Now, local Portland organizations can sell tickets over the Internet and offer their patrons walk-up services 7 days a week, through the FAO-staffed office at the Hollywood Theatre -- all at no charge to their organization. The Earth Times
2/27/08 The End of the Affair. On the heels of last week’s announcement that the Affair at the Jupiter Hotel art fair has been indefinitely canceled, the Jupiter Hotel co-owners Kelsey Bunker and Tod Breslau report that they are in discussions with local art-world figures, exploring options for mounting a new fair, unaffiliated with Affair co-directors Stuart Horodner and Laurel Gitlen. Richard Speer, Willamette Week
2/22/08 Oregon-made bicycles to be featured at PDX Airport. This April, the work of Oregon’s burgeoning crop of bicycle builders will be on display at the Portland International Airport. The exhibit will be managed by the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC) and will run for six months (from April through September) and will feature a range of bikes in a 40-foot display in the airport’s E Concourse. Jonathan Maus, PortlandBike Blog
2/20/08 The Jupiter Hotel's art affair breaks up after four years. Scene changes - With other fairs to choose from, the art world's just not that into Portland, but the event may find a suitor with cash. On Monday afternoon, organizers Stuart Horodner and Laurel Gitlen told The Oregonian that Portland's annual art fair at the chic Jupiter Hotel on East Burnside won't be happening a fifth time in September. That ends a popular event with an influence that extended beyond the local art scene: The Jupiter fair projected Portland artists outside the city and attracted galleries and artists from other cities. Its closure is a blow to the city's art world ecology, and many still want it to continue without its organizers. D.K. Row, The Oregonian
2/1/08 Quest for fire. James Lavadour fuses a reverence for landscape, native culture, Expressionism and American jazz in paintings that transcend a single category. You will be awed: 12 painted panels of Oregon's majestic Blue Mountains, each one varying in its representative qualities and clarity. Some are blurred renderings of the land, overlaid by spurts and droplets of paint. Others are abstract geometric structures, topped by fuzzy contours of soil and stone. D.K. Row, The Oregonian
1/23/08 Experts: Not all art thefts can be linked to drugs. January hasn't been the kindest month for art made of valuable metals in Oregon. In Portland, a security guard and her boyfriend stand accused of chopping up and trying to sell two large sculptures taken from a private estate to a local scrap yard. Meanwhile, at Fort Clatsop, police are looking for clues in last weekend's theft of a 5-foot-tall bronze statue of Sacagawea and her baby Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. Scrap metal has become a red-hot commodity among thieves, police say. It's "coin of the realm" in the criminal underworld, they say, where any kind of metal that doesn't attract a magnet and can be easily melted down can be exchanged for quick cash. Joseph Rose, The Oregonian
1/18/08 The Lowdown. Arts Partners is a collaborative initiative to bring arts education to every student in the Portland metropolitan area. This effort is a systemic approach intended to address the inequity in delivery of arts services to the children of our community. The emerging vision – arts resources for every school and integration of arts and culture into every elementary classroom in the tri-county area. The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) is the convening partner. Portland Metro Arts Partners Intitative.
1/16/08 Pacific Northwest College of Art Launches FIVE Idea Studios. Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA) announced today the launch of Idea Studios as the leadoff program of the College's recently established Ford Institute for Visual Education (FIVE). Idea Studios premieres February 16, 2008 with a talk by James Turrell, MacArthur Award winning light and space artist, followed on February 29 with a lecture by Jacques Rancière, influential philosopher, critic and political theorist. PR Web.
1/11/08 Art center in disarray; board quits. In debt - Five resign from creative hot spot as director says he won't budge, will reorganize. A lack of financial transparency, administrative oversight and professionalism has severely damaged the Portland Art Center, a nonprofit that symbolizes the aspirations of Portland's young creative class, according to its departing board. Executive director Gavin Shettler confirmed Tuesday that the center's entire five-member board resigned, after three months of administrative upheaval and an attempt by venture capitalist and arts patron Henry Hillman Jr. to rescue the struggling organization. Shettler attributed the resignations to exhaustion. The nonprofit was roughly $40,000 in debt last month and still lacks a stabilizing revenue plan. D.K. Row, The Oregonian
RACC Staff to Contact
Mary Bauer
Communications Associate
503.823.5426
mbauer@racc.org
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