Art+Culture

Parks and gardens proposed for the riverbank.

Albina Rising

After bulldozers, highways and development brought down Portland’s historic cultural hub of the Black community, an innovative path forward emerges Written by Fiona Max On a Friday evening in the ’60s, locals of Northeast Portland’s Albina district could be found in the Hill Block building, an iconic, domed building on the corner of Williams and Russell Street. At the time, the place was home to the Cotton Club, a jazz club which had quickly gained popularity under owner Paul Knauls. Knauls had worked his way into the scene in Spokane, Washington, at the Davenport Hotel, and had gone to Portland in search of a venue of his own. He bought the rundown Cotton Club in 1963, and brought it back to life. Its fall, Knauls said, would come in 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., as tensions between the Black and white community ran high. “People came…

Breezy Anderson

Wonder Weld

Twisted steel and figurative appeal from a scrappy, self-taught sculptor Written by Kevin Max Breezy Anderson is a metal sculptor who turned a two-car garage in Bend into her workshop, where she began to learn the processes with “junkyard art.” She made mistakes along the way, but learned from them. Now she creates stunning works of beauty and pain sold around the world. Her metalwork began ten years ago when a family friend gave her an old welder and she was “instantly hooked.” Now her workspace includes a crane, a forge, multiple welders and, depending on her next piece, copper, steel, brass or aluminum. “Being a full-time sculptor hasn’t always been easy,” Anderson said. “A lot of the work would never have happened if I or others weren’t willing to try and accept the failures. The failures are where some of the largest successes come from.” “My style is a balance…

Art of wellness

The Art of Wellness

Forging new pathways to brain health by engaging in the creative art community Written by Cathy Carroll A musician lies inside a magnetic resonance imaging device with a keyboard and noise-cancelling headphones and plays a piece of music, then improvises, then composes. The imaging shows unexpected parts of the artist’s brain engaging. A cancer patient takes a doctor’s prescription to draw something—anything—every day. An ensemble performs authentic Japanese taiko drums and traditional dance as a way of combating violence against Asian Americans. Families at a birthing center see art depicting people who look like them, helping put them at ease and recover faster. Research and new technology continues to show the link between the arts and wellness, and Oregon health and civic organizations are embracing ways for it to make a difference in people’s lives. At Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, neuroscientist Lawrence Sherman began a series of popular…

Faultland by Suzy Vitello cover

Siblings, Shaken

Portland novelist Suzy Vitello imagines the “big one” and a family united by survival Interview by Cathy Caroll The “big one,” the earthquake which scientists predict could strike the Northwest at any moment, is what Suzy Vitello leverages in her new novel, Faultland, which follows three siblings working together to survive disaster in Portland. If resources don’t run out, if sickness doesn’t overtake them, if alt-right militias don’t converge and if the wet mass of land speeding toward their childhood home and makeshift shelter doesn’t bury them, they’ll have to navigate past traumas and the mistakes of their parents to survive as a family. Literary figures praising the book include Portlander Lidia Yuknavitch, author of the nationally acclaimed and bestselling novel The Book of Joan. She said Faultland “is about our collective resilience and the loyalty that holds us all together in the end.” Oregonians will no doubt savor this…

tintype photographer

The Tintype Photographer

photography by Joe Kline Look through an old family photo album or peruse a historical society or museum, and you’ll find eerie tintype photography of years ago. Using a Civil War-era photographic process to make one-of-a-kind portraits of his subjects, Jason Chinchen is harking back to those olden times. The images are created by applying a light-sensitive silver emulsion to a thin piece of metal and then exposing it in a camera and developing it. Chinchen’s business, Analogue Tintypes, travels to various pop-up events around Central Oregon making tintype portraits for the public, and makes portraits in private sittings as well.

Mind and Body: Oregon Ballet Theatre’s Xuan Cheng

Oregon Ballet Theatre’s Xuan Cheng keeps raising the bar with hard work and training written by Mackenzie Wilson Since she was a little girl living in China, Xuan Cheng, 33, has been familiar with call times. At 10 years old, she left home to attend the School of Guangzhou Ballet of China, where she and other aspiring ballerinas started their days with a rigorous hour-and-a-half workout at 5:30 a.m. “We were like a little army,” Cheng said. She doesn’t sugar coat the school’s strictness—snacks weren’t allowed and neither were family visits. Cheng’s family lived five-and-a-half hours away by train and she saw them once or twice a year. The only relief from the isolation was a five-minute phone call once a week to loved ones. Now a principal dancer for the Oregon Ballet Theatre, Cheng can appreciate the level of discipline it took to push her and the other students…

Mckenzie River Chainsaw and Arts Festival

The world’s top chainsaw carvers will be at the Chainsaw and Arts Festival photography by Bradley Lanphear Each year, some of the world’s top chainsaw carvers (yep, that’s a real thing) gather in Blue River to crown the best of the best. The carvers use their chainsaws to transform logs and stumps into finely carved sculptures— eagles, bears, even Sasquatch. The event, organized and held at the McKenzie Community Track & Field, is an annual festival—mark your calendar for July 19-21, 2019, to see the action in person. The Portland Spoon Company  

Portland Baroque Orchestra

Monica Huggett, the artistic engine behind the Portland Baroque Orchestra, is one of the world’s leading Baroque violinists. written by Ben Salmon Monica Huggett is one of the world’s leading Baroque violinists, an expert in the historically informed performance style, and the artistic engine behind the Portland Baroque Orchestra for the past twenty-four years. And just like anyone else, she had to get her start somewhere. For Huggett, that was the Pizza Express near her family’s home in London, England, where she played violin for £3 per night plus free pizza from ages 17 to 24. “By the time I stopped,” Huggett said with a hearty laugh, “I’d sort of had enough pizza for life.” Huggett, 65, has come a long way since then, and the PBO has come with her. The orchestra’s upcoming season—its 35th— will run from October through April and feature performances of works by Vivaldi, Telemann,…

Howard B. Taylor’s Living Rock Pictures

Howard B. Taylor and his family and friends built Living Rock Studios over a ten-year period, and made a unique and permanent contribution to art in Oregon.