Featured, Words March 17, 2018

St. Patrick’s Lament

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By Ross Blanchard St. Patrick sits at the edge of Heaven looking down at Earth. His bare legs stick out from his white, flowing robes and dangle over the edge of the cloud upon which he sits. It is March 17th and he watches the multitudes bedecked in green begin to gather as evening approaches. St. Peter wanders up. The head of security and Heaven’s main bouncer has just finished with his shift at the Pearly Gates. He’s holding a cigarette and a martini, wearing sleeveless robes to accentuate his muscles and to show-off his banded tattoos. His hair is pulled back in a ponytail. He leans over St. Patrick’s shoulder. “What’s happening down there, Paddy?” St. Peter asks, exhaling puffs of smoke into space. This startles St. Patrick slightly. He half looks over his shoulder frowning, grunts, and looks down at the little planet again. “Oh,” says St. Peter observing the mass of green spreading out into city streets. “It’s your day again, huh. That’s right. Your people took quite a liking to you. It’s pretty much only you and the big Junior who get celebrated down there anymore.” “Mmmph.” grunts St. Patrick, not taking his eyes away from…

Arts August 1, 2016

“CounterPoint” at Gallery 114

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“Counterpoint” by Jon Gottshall Gallery 114, 1100 NW Glisan August 4-27, 2016 Opens Thursday, August 4th, with pre-opening artist’s talk Wednesday, August 3rd, from 7-9 pm The exhibit also features Megan Paetzhold’s multi-medua installation “Studies in: Amblyopia” in the south gallery Story by Jon Gottshall The Sellwood Bridge is Portland’s southernmost Willamette River crossing. The old span, built in 1925, was a narrow, industrial-era structure. High up on its piers, it nevertheless had an uncomplicated, slender beauty as it angled through the trees of the river’s west bank. We’ve known the old bridge was doomed for a long time now. It was never anchored to the bedrock when it was built, and as the western bank shifted, the bridge went dangerously out of plumb. In the time I’ve lived in Portland, the bridge went from handling trucks, buses and cars, to just buses and cars, and finally, only cars were allowed over. Plus, its narrow sidewalk was a terror to every cyclist and pedestrian who had to meet halfway across. Knowing its days were numbered, I began to photograph it. Working at my favorite time to think visually—after 10pm—I became intimately familiar with this broken giant. Today, the old bridge…

Words April 27, 2016

The Philosopher Gets His Hands Dirty

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By Mike Allen Cover photo of Robert Izzat by Mike Allen Ideas ain’t worth shit. No one cares about ideas until they have some tangible value or physical manifestation to justify the brain weight. Case in point: I’ve been trying to give away this writing (just portable ideas really), and no one wants that bullshit. Maybe I’m a shit writer, or maybe I need to treat my words as a valuable commodity, with a commensurate price. Here’s a better case in point: Alexander Baretich, a guy who bursts at the seams with ideas. Like an itinerant philosopher, he discourses on a steady stream of things you probably heard about in critical theory classes: deconstructing colonialism, critiquing the nation-state, engagement with the disenfranchised, et cetera. Boring stuff mostly. But me, I’m rapt. I love this anti-imperialist, deconstructing Otherness crap. It helps that my critical studies professor was pretty hot. So what did Baretich do with these ideas? Why have I even heard of him? I don’t just read Jacques Derrida and Martin Buber for fun. He designed a symbol, a flag even. Personally, I’d prefer a kite. No one flies flags anymore. But now we’ve got something tangible, something we can…

Arts, Uncategorized November 10, 2015

Theatre Troupe Seizes Control of Art Salon, Hurls Offenses At Audience

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By Ross Blanchard Photo by Reuben Broadfoot. Foreground: Corey O’Hara. Background: Evan Corcoran A few weeks ago at a Ford Gallery event in Southeast Portland, five actors slipped into the venue, seized the microphone from the event’s host during a presentation, and began to shout offenses at the startled and silented crowd. The art salon in PDX Magazine‘s Mechanical venuewas paying tribute to artist Olinka Broadfoot whose show had launched that evening in the Ford Gallery one floor above. Broadfoot had just delivered a talk about her exhibit and poet Dan Raphael had read, when a man in his early thirties, shaved head, and wearing a yellow nylon jacket burst onto the stage and wrested the microphone from the event’s host. “You are under review by us,” he shouted to the stunned crowd. Another man, dressed in a TSA-style uniform, walked through the audience and shone a flashlight in their faces as a third man pointed a video camera at them. “You don’t have to watch inactively any more,” the man on the stage continued. “You feel the discomfort of being watched and addressed, since you came prepared to watch and make yourselves comfortable in the shelter of the dark. Your presence…

Booze, Featured, Words July 21, 2015

The Kommie, the Yank, and the Holy Gose Ale

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I am a former Soviet, smuggled over the Iron Curtain in my parent’s gonads like some Cold War technology and assembled in the USA. The other night, I was at the Alberta Street pub, listening to the musings of local Slavic rock band Chervona. I should have been drinking vodka. Instead, I was slowly nursing a New Belgium 1554 Black Lager for a period much shorter than my own gestation but surely a longer process than usual. It was like reading a fine book. Each sip was a page revealing another character. In a moment of emotional flavor, at only 5.6 ABV, I could feel the warmth of the beer moving slowly through me. Its nutty taste made me happy, and its chocolaty aftertaste gave me the feeling of being privileged, decadent, and pampered. Soon my bar stool buddy and I were having an intense discussion about the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. You would think that when two former Soviets discuss history, things might turn crazy quickly. But, since we were drinking craft beer and not vodka, the conversation stayed nice and calm. It dawned on me that the craft beer I was drinking is revolutionary in itself and that drinking…

Arts, Featured May 13, 2015

Dear Artists, Toss the Instructions and Forget the Critics

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Discussed in this essay: – What Painting Is, by James Elkins, Routledge, 1999. – Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness, by Alva Noë, Hill and Wang, 2009. – Ways of Seeing, by John Berger, et al, Copyright 1972; Penguin, 1977. This article focuses on painting, but if you’re into something else—music, dance, ceramics—these ideas probably apply to your creative endeavors, too. I’ve been working full-time as a painter for four years. Before that I earned a Ph.D. in Theory and Cultural Studies at Purdue University where I taught courses on an array of topics from film theory to ballet. In both of these lines of work I’ve found that the way we usually talk about painting blows right past the most important thing in painting: the paint, mixed and applied by hands that try and err and retry. What’s going through a painter’s head as she works? Let me put most answers to that question into two categories: “Art History” and “How-to.” This is an overgeneralization, but follow me. Under “Art History” we have critics and historians in coffee-table books, documentaries, classrooms, and museums. Their goal isn’t so…

Featured, Words April 23, 2015

Squirrel Benediction

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By Mike Allen I finally took the leap and fried up a batch of squirrel—gray city squirrel harvested from my backyard. I’ve been halfheartedly killing them for a while now because I hate them and everything they stand for, except free lunch. It’s clear from the little bites taken from each and every piece of unripe fruit on the trees that the squirrels expect a free lunch. I’d been watching them from the kitchen, climbing up into the trees, eating all the figs and persimmons, digging their little walnut stashes all throughout my raised beds, where they might return sometime in the spring to dig their booty, carelessly tossing my seedlings aside. I was helpless as a baby in the sewer, since my .20 caliber Sheridan Blue Streak blew a gasket a few months ago. It sat impotent in the garage, as I stood at the window. But thanks to the good people at Ollie Damon’s (not the counter dude, he’s a dick), I got my long arm back, working better than new. It was time to rain hellfire on these vicious little rodentia. And I did. But after a few carcasses tossed carelessly into the city compost, guilt began…

Arts, Featured March 5, 2015

After The Faux

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Bumps and bruises heal and projects end, but creative, restless minds don’t quit. The Faux Museum in Old Town Portland closed its doors in February. Curator Tom Richards (pictured above. His bruises are from a jogging accident.) operated the art museum since June 2012. When PDX Magazine asked “What’s next for you, Tom?”, he replied with the following open letter to the museum’s fans and to the interested public in which he asks everyone to help him choose amongst myriad options available to an enterprising young man like himself. We’re glad to publish his query. — Ross Blanchard, Editor-in-chief Hello. My name is Tom Richards, and I was the curator/Janitor of the late The Faux Museum, which was a conceptual art museum based in Old Town Portland, Oregon. I say “was” because after January of this year we closed our doors. I know it may be kind of hard to imagine how a conceptual art museum claiming to be the oldest museum in the world could fail. After all we had a Woolly Ant! True, we were surrounded by social services that aid the mentally ill, recovering addicts, and houseless persons; and our neighbors who weren’t strip clubs or dispensaries were bars…

Vinnie Kinsella by Jayna Milan
Events December 9, 2014

Storytelling on display: Dark Night of the Soul

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Hear tragic tales and stories of bold resolve at Dark Night of the Soul III. The storytelling session, presented by experimental performance group Home Theatre Systems, gathers at Floyd Old Town Coffee (118 NW Couch St.) this Thursday. The story-sharing group thrives on the idea that transcendence and community can be achieved by sharing moments of hardship. The third installation of Dark Night of Soul features several members of the PDX Late Bloomers Club, whose members will share their distinct experiences as gay men who remained closeted for 30 to 50-plus years. The event is the first opportunity to hear stories of the like that will be featured in the anthology Fashionably Late, a collection of stories that articulate similar experiences. Fashionably Late, which has an expected release date of National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11, 2015, is the inaugural publication of Eldredge Books, a Portland-based small press started by local publisher Vinnie Kinsella. Doors open at 7 p.m. and admission is $6. — Rachael Lesley Vinnie Kinsella shot for PDX Magazine by Jayna Milan.

Arts, Events December 5, 2014

Photography At Large: My Tour With The Wild Ones

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“On the count of three, jump back and lean to your right—actually, put that crown on your head first. Mateus, can you help her?” I directed from behind my camera. As Mateus placed a flower crown on top of Bella’s head, I wrapped my arms around myself and hugged tightly. It was a chilly day in New York City’s Central Park and the sun was quickly disappearing behind the city skyline. I had only met Bella and Mateus minutes earlier, but was already comfortable creating art with them—as was everyone else. On the other side of the park, Kory had climbed daringly high into a tree while Sandra, sprawled out on the grass below, quickly snapped photos. Nearby, Wendy was carefully arranging butterflies on Alyssa’s back while Alyssa emoted over her shoulder. Mere hours before, we were all strangers, but had gathered together that day to create conceptual photographs for The Wild Ones tour. We quickly became friends. Combine three best-friend photographers, a van overflowing with camera equipment, and a strong desire to give back to the photographic community and you get The Wild Ones tour. The annual traveling summer workshops are where aspiring photographers befriend and create photographs with…