Carol Yarrow

Tonight artists and art lovers – and those hoping for a few plastic cups of free wine – will populate the streets of downtown and the Pearl District. This month’s First Thursday proves as busy as any other in its 26-year history, but a few shows in particular are well worth weaving through the crowds to catch. Thursday in the DeSoto Building, Blue Sky Gallery (122 NW 8th Ave.) hosts an opening reception for two photography exhibitions: At Home with Themselves – Same-Sex Couples in 1980s America by Sage Sohier and One Mahogany Left Standing by Carol Yarrow. In her fifth show for Blue Sky, Sohier presents intimate black-and-white portraits of committed same-sex couples photographed during the ’80s. Her work attempts to debunk the rampant misinformation surrounding AIDS that fueled the period’s homophobia. Between 1995 and 2002, Portland-based photographer Yarrow took multiple trips to Nahá, a small village home to roughly 200 Lacandon Maya in Chiapas, Mexico. During her visits she photographed the daily life of the people, who soon became her friends. This intimacy is evident in her black-and-white gelatin silver prints. View Thursday’s opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. The exhibitions run through Nov. 2. www.blueskygallery.org Portland-based…