RACC Press Releases
May 30 , 2007
Arbor Vitae
at the Hoyt Arboretum June 23, 2007
The Regional Arts & Culture Council (RACC) co-presents Arbor Vitae, a 20th anniversary celebration and participatory eco-art event for House for Summer, a living public art installation, in the Hoyt Arboretum on Saturday June 23, 2007 from 1:30 to 3pm. Artist Helen Lessick created House for Summer in Hoyt Arboretum, 4000 SW Fairview Blvd, Portland, in 1987.
The sculpture is located within Washington Park, on the knoll east of the intersection of Knights Road and SW Fairview Boulevard. It is accessible, free to the public, from dawn to dusk daily. House for Summer was donated to the City of Portland’s public art collection in 2001 and is maintained through a partnership between the staffs of Portland Parks and Recreation and the Regional Arts & Culture Council.
Arbor Vitae celebrates the 20th anniversary of the planting of this artist-initiated living sculpture with a participatory performance led by Helen Lessick. Through this free celebration, visitors will playfully experience the aesthetics of nature and examine culture as a living resource needing care, feeding and pruning. The first 50 attendees will receive a special door prize; refreshments will be served. The event is co-presented with Hoyt Arboretum Friends, a non-profit group, the Regional Arts & Culture Council, and the artist.
House for Summer is a year-round sculpture using living, growing birch trees as its main material. The fifteen Himalayan birch trees are planted in a rectangle on an east-facing slope within the Arboretum. During the weeks around the Summer solstice, the rising sun shines directly through the entry of the house, while the leafy canopy creates a roof shading the bower interior. The work was created through the artist’s initiative and private funding, and has been the site of several performances, celebrations and picnics over its lifetime.
Background
Helen Lessick is a conceptual and visual artist with a long history in Portland. Graduating with a degree in Art from Reed College in 1976, Helen had her first solo show in Portland in 1978. She earned her MFA from University of California Irvine in 1982.
Helen has exhibited her work across the Northwest and has been honored with solo museum exhibitions at the Tacoma Art Museum, Bellevue Art Museum and the Sierra Nevada Museum of Art (Now Nevada Art Museum) in Reno. She was named a Bronson Fellow in 2000 and her site-related work, Vestige, is installed in the Chemistry Building Atrium at Reed College. Helen has created temporary and permanent exhibitions and projects across the United States and in Europe. She currently maintains her studio in Los Angeles, working in studio and public art, arts writing, curation and arts activism. More aspects of Helen’s work can be seen at www.lessick.net/gallery.
For more:
> Read the Oregonian story
> Read the Portland Tribune story
Through vision, leadership and service the Regional Arts
& Culture Council works to integrate arts and culture in all aspects of
community life.
####
Back to RACC Press Release page
View News Archives
Request RACC Press Releases via email. Contact: Mary Bauer, mbauer@racc.org
RACC Staff to Contact
Jeff Hawthorne
Director of Community Affairs
503.823.5258
jhawthorne@racc.org
Mary Bauer
Communications Associate
503.823.5426
mbauer@racc.org
| 
