The cover art for PDX Magazine Issue No. 2 is a linocut relief print of the St. Johns Bridge by Portland artist Kelli MacConnell. Kelli’s prints are on display in various places throughout the city. For current information on this artist and to view more of her artwork, visit her website at www.KelliMacConnell.com.
By Reese Kruse Photographs by Leif Anderson The rhythmic sound of the human condition is juxtaposed against the quiet play of laser-induced bells. Stephanie Simek is creating, tinkering her way through the soundscapes of bio-science and electrical engineering. The spirit of this driven artist chases an answer in the exact manner that the scientist does: “All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree” (Albert Einstein). Her methods follow Edison’s ethic of persistence; her outcomes remind us to stop, stand still, and listen. Through her continued experimentation and personal sense of wonder, Stephanie’s works range between the sciences, pivoting around sound; sculpture; and site-specific installation anchoring her works. In her work Slop, created for the Creative Music Guild’s improvisational summit in June 2012, it was the sound waves that created the physical sculpture. The installation melded human noises and music physically passing through a non-Newtonian fluid. Non-Newtonian fluids interpret sound waves as a physical matter that writhes in time to the ebb and flow of the sounds that produce them. During the spring of 2012, Stephanie participated in Pacific Northwest College of Art’s celebration of John Cage’s 100th birthday—Happy Birthday: A Celebration of Chance and Listening. Cage and…
Illustration by Ken Sellen The Henhouse by J. Adam Collins We ought to burn this house down, I think. We ought to get up slowly, so as not to disturb the watch on sleep’s brink. We are picked off three times a day, end up stuck broken hollow bones picking teeth, plucked and left naked at the cross- street saying please throw me some meat. That seed don’t feed us no more. We ought to tear this house apart, I’m sure. We ought to take it all down nail by board, cut the tin roof where the cock once stood, paint our bodies red, and only pretend to play dead. Lock the gold away—tomorrow can’t be good. Our little ones may need it someday. And they will wail and wait for us, I’m afraid. When they wake up each morning with their heads in the ground to keep away the sound of the axe on the block, the licking of chops, the trough full of slops—and there, still on the night’s watch is the fox. Who’d have thought? Someone ought to have taken that fox by now. This house— We ought to burn this house down, I think.
“We needed a deck with some modern concepts in it. I wanted to honor the tarot tradition while making it more modern and making it Portland. I’m very inspired by the city. I have a sincere love of Portland and I get to explore that with this project.” — Theresa Pridemore
By Mike Allen Photo by Brandon Clower Buck O’Kelly is wizened and his hands are dominated by knuckles, betraying years of hard work. But his spirit rivals that of artists decades his junior. The veteran furniture builder at Inventia Design talks about wood species, design philosophy, and finishes with a philosophical intensity that borders on mysticism. He and his partner Suzanne Bonham created the elegant wood tables that, night after night, endure the onslaught of steel, ceramic, and glass wrought by the hungry hordes of Le Pigeon. The pair is just one among a legion of small woodcraft design shops flourishing beneath the surface of Portland’s vaunted dining scene. In Portland’s new restaurant aesthetic, exposed wood surfaces are essential. White linens increasingly give way to polished surfaces highlighting complex grain patterns and deep shades. The warmth, irregularity, and sturdiness of wood echoes the dual biological and aesthetic roles played by the dishes it supports. Like cooking, woodcraft is situated on a ridge between craft and art. Both employ techniques and tools modern and ancient, while the raw materials remain timeless. I set out to find some of the personalities behind Portland’s public furniture and found a burgeoning scene humming away…
by Darka Dusty Photo by Miri Stebivka I sat down with Portland singer, songwriter and musician, Little Sue, aka Susannah Jean Weaver, just a few short months after the release of her latest album “New Light.” I found her not afraid to face her demons, as excited about letting go of the past as she was of embracing the future. Her journey has brought her to a very exciting time in her life, balancing her life as a musician with a new teaching career, and a young son. D: Let me start with something light. What is your favorite guitar chord? S: Really? It used to be B 7. It was jazzy and bluesy and it sounded complicated. But now I don’t know. Since I’ve started to play the ukulele, I no longer have favorite guitar chords. D: When did you know music was something big in your life—or is there an early memory that you can recall as a child, when you knew you were going to be a musician? S: Well, just sitting in front of the stereo for hours and hours and hours playing Queen, Harry Nilsson, or ELO. I was alone a lot as a kid…
By Mykle Hansen Photo by Ross Blanchard The night my family and I visited THE WOODSMAN TAVERN on SE Division, the waitstaff seemed so attentive, so singlemindedly focused upon excellence of service and attire, that I suspected either they were awaiting the arrival of some august food-press personage with the power to crush their poor lovely restaurant like a bug, or that the chef had slipped Ritalin in the floor staff’s supper. We were seated immediately upon arrival, and visited by two different waiters within sixty seconds. I had a sip of water, and as soon as my glass thunked on the table an arm in a dust-bowl denim shirt sleeve appeared by my shoulder with a carafe to refill it. We settled in to the vintage wooden task chairs, read the menu and took in the mid-century hunting lodge decor. After the taller and more handsome of our two tall, handsome waiters delivered an Oscar-worthy recitation of the night’s specials, we ordered appetizers: a beet salad for my wife and I and, for my daughter, a roasted chicken wing. This first course arrived almost instantly, laid before us hot, silent, and aromatic on the mirror-smooth wooden table, flanked by…
By Mugroso Illustration by Ken Sellen Fattened by a sensuous flight around Gabe Rucker’s Bird (not the Little one, but the seven-year-old squabbery, where goose-liver fat and beef cheeks are tormented by the former ecstatic raver turned James-Beard-Award-winning chef), our talk turns to next steps and haunts. We have options. Two in our group have that doe-eyed look and exit stage right, homeward bound. Our remaining two companions are sturdier, ready for more: Hit the wine vault. Their suggestion. I couldn’t come up with that one: don’t have one and never been, baby. A phosphorus glow from a street lamp ahead radiates off an unseasonable puddle in our path. Stepping lightly, we see the modest entrance to our destination ahead on the right of this Kerns Gulch block. Our tour-guide nee dinner companion from Rucker’s experiential eatery leads the way. A garrulous and well-upholstered man, fun and full of food, he has insisted on showing us his “wine storage,” a hideaway like many places and things in this rosy river city: atypical and largely unexpected. Portland is home to a handful of these understated overstatements; warehouses for the avaricious and excitable oenophile, the unquenchable, quaffing collector of bubbles and grape…