After The Faux

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 and nightclubs for the Portland suburban twenty-one year olds who drank their weight in alcohol nightly… but, still, Voodoo Doughnut was just three blocks away. Somehow we failed, though. I went through all of my “savings” and may soon be returning to the same neighborhood seeking the services of some of the aforementioned establishments.

OR… I could start a new career. Please help me decide. Here are a few of the options I’ve been mulling over:

• Rainbow Astronaut
• Occupational Theremin
• Chaka Khan
• Directory Assistance Operation
• Entertainer
• Freelance line striper
• Hurdy-Gurdy Man
• The Man
• Wall Street broke
• Sergeant at Arms for International Prosthesis Association
• Ant
• Lottery winner
• Pinball Wizard
• Sneaker Pimp
• Dress Code Enforcer
• Gin Soaked Barroom Queen (Preferred location Memphis.)
• Wichita Lineman (for the county)
• Prostitute or a Creative Director in advertising
• Resident Chef at The Mattress Factory
• Copi Editor
• Quality Control Specialist at Frederick’s of Hollywood
• Any job where I get to walk around the dump
• Provocateur (With tenure!)
• Life Model Equipment Repair Specialist II
• Camouflage Specialist (If I’m good enough no one will be able to tell how hard I’m working.)
• Greeter at Gap company picnic! (This is all about payback.)
• Urban Drama Marketer
• Speech writer for Lassie
• Carbon Paper Decorator
• Model (train)
• Angry and resentful sidekick
• Historical Traffic Reporter (Morning drive time only)

Thanks to all of you who visited and supported The Faux Museum; and to the rest of you… Do you know anybody who’s hiring?

About the Faux Museum (according to Tom Richards): The Faux family began the museum tradition over ten thousand years ago. The Faux Museum was the first museum in the world and among its so called peers it is by far the oldest. Approximately ten thousand years ago the Faux family, after a trek across Asia and Siberia, crossed the Beringia land bridge and reached what is now the American state of Alaska. Within a few years of their arrival Ug Faux was born. Ug, who wore only black furs, eventually opened the first Faux Museum in a cave next to their igloo hut near present day Nenana.