Think Oregon

Parks and gardens proposed for the riverbank.

Albina Rising

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PNW Businesses Rush to Aid in the Battle Against COVID-19

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Puppies in Prison

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Tetherow home

An architect and interior designer fashion a modern Tetherow home befitting the high desert

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Liberty Bell in Oregon

When the Liberty Bell Came to Oregon

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Oregon Granges continue to connect rural communities

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My Workspace: Saddle Up with Rod Retherford

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Festival Sustainability

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Portland Flood of 1894

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14 Things We Love About Oregon

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Rankin Renwick

Filmmaker and Creative Rankin Renwick Finds Inspiration Off the Beaten Path

written by Joni Kabana Imagine yourself sweeping floors for an Oregon-based designer who is creating puppets for The Lion King on Broadway when the thought occurs to you that you should be focusing solely on your own art. You quit your job on the spot and start laser-focusing on your lifelong passion in experimental filmmaking, documentary, video installation, writing and whatever tickles your artistic fancy. Freedom is what defines Rankin Renwick’s artistic style. Take Renwick’s gonzo film promotion process, for example, of calling museums, grange halls, universities and film centers on the fly. The game, Renwick said, is not driving more than one day without securing a paid showing. Renwick still takes extended backroad trips meandering through impromptu artists’ studio visits, following leads to rooms full of stored film footage and stopping along the road to capture something inspired by an intuitive feeling. “Everything I do I consider is working…

Meat and vegetables hang from a fire dome during Tournant’s recent Oregon Asado event near Dundee.

Tournant: Dreams on Fire

A couple’s foray into community building through ancient cooking techniques written by Joni Kabana photography by Aubrie LeGault During both of their childhoods, Mona Johnson and Jaret Foster spent a lot of time in the great outdoors growing and eating bountiful food choices. While a natural progression for both of them was ending up working in professional kitchens, they also both shared a dream of creating a more immersive dining experience. In 2009, the couple met and bonded over their love of food, farms, nature and community building while working at Portland Farmers Market, a nonprofit organization that organizes various farmers’ markets. They began to formulate a plan centering on a new way of cooking that would engage and inspire both themselves and their guests. Tournant, their open-fire cooking and events company, was born out of this shared vision. Tournant’s signature offering is an unparalleled outdoor dining experience using farm-to-fire…

Poison Waters

Tickled by Fancy

Portland’s Poison Waters is a drag queen icon written by Joni Kabana After becoming starstruck while watching black drag queens perform in an all-ages show at The City Nightclub in Portland in the late ’80s, Kevin Cook said to himself: that could be me. Drag is for me! Fast forward to thirty-four years later, drag has definitely played an important focus for Cook via the sharp-tongued and glam gorgeous drag identity, Poison Waters. Poison’s award list over the years includes titles such as Rosebud 13 (Underage Drag Pageant), La Femme Magnifique (both Oregon and International), Imperial Princess 25, Rose Empress 44 and Queen of Queens. Accolades and awards aside, what is most important to this queen is kindness and humor. Known for her intelligent quick wit and sassy communication style, Poison can also be found volunteering at numerous nonprofits (she grew up poor and benefitted from charities) and hosting fundraising…

UO journalism professor of practice Torsten Kjellstrand (center) sees opportunity in rural storytelling.

The Rural Opportunity

A University of Oregon journalism professor sees risk and reward in small town news interview by Jonathan Shipley The world is on fire. But, so, too, are the students at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communications as they covered the disastrous effects of climate change with Science Story. The Science Story project brought together students to write stories about the impacts of climate change with particular regard to Oregon’s Holiday Farm Fire in 2020, which burned more than 173,000 acres in the McKenzie River Valley. The class was led, with the help of award-winning journalist Dennis Dimick, by University of Oregon’s professor of practice Torsten Kjellstrand, an accomplished news photographer for more than three decades. What appeals to you in telling stories of the underrepresented and misrepresented in rural communities? I grew up in Lund, Sweden, where I spent a lot of time in my family village,…

Jeff Daly

Just Clowning Around

Emmy-winning cameraman Jeff Daly returns to Astoria to restore a piece of its past written and photographed by Joni Kabana What’s a guy to do after he is awarded two Peabodys and an Emmy for knuckle-clutching TV sports filming? Go back home. That is precisely what Jeff Daly did in the ’90s. He made his way back to the Pacific Northwest, settled in Seaside and opened his delightfully eclectic studio space in Astoria on the first floor of a boat house that juts out over the mighty Columbia River. Daly’s first foray into art car design was in 1969 when he acquired his first car—a 1948 Mercury Woody station wagon that he still drives today. When he realized he had to make a serious wage to be able to pay for all of his expanding projects, he took a career side trip to become a top notch TV cameraman. Having…

Hillsboro’s new Steeplejack proves what we’ve long known—Oregon beers are to be worshipped.

Summer Brews

A slew of new breweries and tap rooms emerge from hiatus written by Jonathan Shipley Many Oregonians have something in common with Thomas Jefferson—they believe beer is good. “Beer, if drank with moderation,” Jefferson wrote, “softens the temper, cheers the spirit and promotes health.” There are many Oregonians cheering that spirit with new breweries and taprooms. Here are some of those halls of health. BREAKSIDE BREWERY Breakside Beaverton is coming. What was first planned to be an outdoor only space with a shipping container bar and food trucks has expanded into a full-scale beer garden, food truck pod and pub. There are also whispers of creating a private event space, too. Cheers! FUNKY FAUNA ARTISAN ALES Sisters has a new brewery focusing on producing terroir-driven beers through the use of local and sustainable ingredients. Brewer Michael Frith and his wife, Danielle, run the operation. They’re originally from another beer-centric area:…

Fresh dulse seaweed could be the new kale and a carbon mitagtor as well. Fried, it tastes like bacon.

We Need Seaweed

Eating Oregon’s dulse can save the world True, you might not be interested in eating a clump of seaweed. When you’re hankering for a hefty meal, a red alga poking about in the tide might not be what you had in mind. It’s often called a weed, after all, and who wants to eat weeds? But there are particular strains of seaweed called dulse that you might want to consider. Patented in the labs of Oregon State University, under the guidance of professor Chris Langdon, who has specialized in aquaculture for decades, and promoted by Chuck Toombs, an entrepreneur who is part of OSU’s School of Business, dulse is something you should really get excited about. You’re not excited yet. It’s seaweed. But why can’t dulse be the new kale? It’s high in protein, provides natural iodine, has twice the potassium as a banana, has all the amino acids a…

Sunday Afternoons hats

Hat Trick

Ashland outdoors retailer Sunday Afternoons doesn’t put a lid on innovation written by Kevin Max Angeline and Robbin Lacy began their business thirty years ago with an outdoor blanket they’d designed for their family adventures, but it was the fabric scraps that built the Ashland-based company. They began making high quality hats from the scraps. Today, Sunday Afternoons is focused on innovation and hats. The company has forty-five patents for inventions such as a sunglass lock, which is two narrow pockets on the sides of a hat that hold the arms of sunglasses in place, and a split brim that allows for easy folding and packing. They sell their hats in fifty-seven countries. Prior to becoming Sunday Afternoons CEO, Sarah Sameh was working in the outdoor retail sector and was intrigued by the brand and where it could go. “I had known about Sunday Afternoons and, by chance, met Robbin…

Sixth, seventh and eighth graders participate in a field trip with ECO educators in November.

World Class

ECO drives a new model of climate change education written by Kevin Branaghin The idea for nonprofit ECO, Ecology for Classrooms & Outdoors, hatched in 2005 when friends Sarah Woods and Bethany Shetterly were volunteering as environmental educators. They identified a gap in primary education and a growing need among students who were increasingly interested in environmental studies. “They wanted to expand environmental education and do field trip programs to educate elementary youth in the Portland Metro area,’ said Monica Smiley, ECO director of development and communication. “Since then, they developed an organization and programs that serve elementary students with hands-on field trips and in-classroom educational lessons. At this point, ECO has served about 32,000 students.” ECO developed and has always used a model of direct service, one that sends its own educators into classrooms to teach the curriculum and lead the service aspects of the program, too. The restrictions…