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She chooses to be colorful in Concordia
By Marsha Sandman | CNA Media Team
bright, lightweight jewelry. Photo courtesy of Mandy Allen Metal Arts
The imagination of Concordian Mandy Allen results in colorful, creative and unique anodized aluminum and silver jewelry as well as botanical inspired wall art.
Mandy Allen Metal Arts is a successful and popular line of jewelry that is sold locally and nationwide.
Although the transformation from plain aluminum sheet metal to colorful three-dimensional shapes and designs occurs right here in Concordia, the seeds of creativity were planted by Mandy’s 3rd grade teacher who recognized her artistic talent and encouraged her to pursue the arts.
After attending Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, Mandy went on to study at Humboldt State University. There she gained a strong understanding of design and technique. She also met her husband, which is fortunate for Concordia, because his job transfer brought them here in 2004.
“In jewelry, as in life, balance is key – playful yet elegant, distinctive yet wearable, well-crafted yet affordable,” Mandy explained. “I love creating colorful anodized aluminum and silver jewelry that helps you celebrate your day simply by wearing it.”
In Mandy’s online Etsy store, she explained the process. “Anodizing is a process in which an electrical current is run through a sheet of aluminum while it is submerged in an acid solution. This stimulates a chemical reaction that forms an oxide layer on the surface of the aluminum.”
Mandy mixes and combines luminous dyes in a way that no one else does. She uses hammers and stakes to form myriad shapes and forms. Her jewelry is lightweight and comfortable to wear.
She said her design inspirations include botanicals, and Japanese textiles and design motifs. “The metal working process is very satisfying to me. I am continuously learning about the capabilities and the possibilities that metal has to offer. As I respond to the metal, the piece will evolve and come into focus.
“I feel a piece is only successful when I achieve a balance between craftsmanship, composition and artistic expression,” Mandy added.
She’ll sell her work at several art galleries and juried craft shows this summer. You can also find Mandy Allen Metal Arts at the Salem Art Festival in July, Local 14 in September, and at the Wild Arts Festival in November.
To see her collection of earrings, necklaces, bracelets and wall art, visit AllenMetalArts.com or Allen Metal Arts on Etsy.
After living east, south, north and west, Marsha Sandman is home at last. And she wants to hear your story. Contact her at MarshaJSandman@ gmail.com.
Concordia Murals – Like Robinson, mural is larger than life
By Karen Wells
A larger than life portrait mural of Jack “Jackie” Roosevelt Robinson is a fitting representation of the “larger-than-life” Major League Baseball (MLB) player who stepped up to bat for the Brooklyn Dodgers April 15, 1947.
A month into the season, his first swing broke the color line of the segregation policy of the MLB. Robinson’s player number was 42. Collaboration between Michael DeMarco, Our 42nd Avenue executive director; Dennis Karas, Cully Neighborhood News advertising manager; and local painter/art teacher John Vance brought the image of the legendary baseball social justice activist to life on the north-facing wall of 5140A N.E. 42nd Ave. two years ago.
In 2016, John asked Dennis if there was any opportunity to install a mural within the Cully neighborhood. During a negotiation meeting, Michael shared a photo of Robinson wearing his No. 42 jersey.
The number was a good fit for the Our 42nd Avenue, and the organization’s primary goal of supporting equity and inclusion of all who live, work, play and do business in Cully and along 42nd Avenue.
John used interlocking geometric shapes painted warm colors of red, yellow and orange – interspersed with cooler ones of blue, green and violet against a black background.
Together they create visual illusions of blocks, diamonds or mountains. Robinson’s image is emblazoned against this background of color. The sense of agency – his innate ability to exert power – is palpable to the viewer. He is positioned to take flight toward the next goal, the future.
John earned his bachelor of fine arts degree in 2004 from Parsons School of Design, New York City, and the following year he moved to Portland. He loves the physicality of producing murals, and the abundant trees, natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest. John’s work can be seen at JohnnyTerrific.com/muralsgallery/.
Editor’s note: If you’d like to know more about Jackie Robinson, his life, and his influence on American culture, Karen shares her resources online. Visit ConcordiaPDX.org/jackierobinson
Karen Wells is a retired early childhood communit y educator, health and safety trainer.
Music (and a movie) due at Fernhill
Summer has arrived and, with it, the Fernhill Concert Series and National Night Out. Pack your blanket, picnic basket, the kids and the dog. Head for Fernhill Park Friday, July 6 and return the following four Fridays.
That final Friday, Aug. 3, celebrates National Night Out with a concert and a movie. Children’s activities are part of the evening’s fare and free popcorn is available during the movie.
Each Friday’s activities are on the west side of Fernhill Park, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Food vendors are available.
The concerts are among 61 this summer in 42 Portland parks, and this is the second Year Concordia Neighborhood Association (CNA) has screened a movie at the National Night Out gathering. Here’s the line up:
Friday, July 6: Portland Interfaith Gospel Choir
This community-based interfaith choir and nonprofit aims to inspire joy and unity through traditional black gospel traditions that foster crosscultural and cross-racial understanding and connection.
Friday, July 13: Sonny Hess and Lady Kat
Veteran guitarist and vocalist Sonny Hess teams with Lady Kat who, for the past six years, has performed at the Waterfront Blues Festival. At Fernhill Park, they’ll offer modern blues and soulful rhythm and blues
Friday, July 20: Trujillo
A congregation of like-minded musicians and family come together and create a rock & roll ode to Chicano identity
Friday, July 27: The Slants
This all-Asian-American dance-rock band made headlines last year thanks to a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that supported the group’s name. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had refused a trademark to the group, citing the name as an offensive slur to people of Asian descent. The band’s representatives argued the meaning instead refers to their perspective and is an attempt to repurpose the term.
Friday, Aug. 3: National Night Out
Concert: Eric John Kaiser is known as the French Troubadour. Born in Paris, the singer-songwriter moved to Portland 10 years ago and continues to reimagine Americana music by applying his French heritage.
Movie: “Isle of Dogs” – 2018, rated PG, Spanish subtitles – is a stop-motion animated film about a boy who searches for his dog after its species is banished to an island following a canine-flu outbreak.
Street Trust, law firm sponsor bike legal clinics
By Cynthia Newton & Chris Thomas
If you have questions about your rights as a bicyclist in Oregon, come to a free Bike Legal Clinic in 2018.
The clinics are hosted by Thomas, Coon, Newton and Frost (TCNF) in partnership with the Street Trust. This tradition goes back to 1993, when attorney Ray Thomas hosted his first clinic, and is continued today by TCNF’s four bike trial lawyers: Ray Thomas, Jim Coon, Cynthia Newton and Chris Thomas, who will take turns presenting.
Cynthia Newton and Chris Thomas both live in northeast Portland and commute by bicycle to the TCNF office downtown. Cynthia will present at several 2018 clinics, including the July 10 clinic at Gladys Bikes for women cyclists.
Cynthia has defended the rights of injured Oregon cyclists in hundreds of cases since 2004, giving her abundant experience on the practical effect of Oregon law following a collision. She has written extensively on the application of Oregon insurance law to bicyclists and the danger to cyclists posed by commercial vehicles.
Although Chris Thomas is the most recent addition to the TCNF team of bike lawyers, he has been actively involved in the Portland bicycle community for over 15 years.
He has lived in, and commuted primarily by bicycle from northeast Portland, downtown, Beaverton and rural Washington County. He also competes as a Category 3 road cyclist. As a father to two young boys, most of his weekend riding currently involves pulling a kid trailer, which gives him a heightened sense of the importance of protected bike routes.
Each clinic attendee receives a free copy of Pedal Power: A Legal Guide for Oregon Bicyclists by Ray Thomas, which is a compilation of statutes and articles regarding Oregon bike law.
Clinic topics include taking the lane, riding on sidewalks, signaling, lighting, e-bikes, riding under the influence and more.
The 2018 clinic schedule includes:
- July 10 at 6 p.m. at Gladys Bikes (Women’s Bike Clinic), 2905 N.E. Alberta St.
- Aug. 14 at 6 p.m. at Outer Rim Bicycle Shop, 10625 N.E. Halsey St.
(Story reprinted with permission from Northeast Coalition of Neighborhoods newsletter, Hey Neighbor!)
Join me: be a reading mentor
By Tricia Elder | AARP Experience Corps
Volunteer! Help Children Read. “Hey, that sounds like fun. I bet I could do that,” I thought when I saw the ad in Concordia News.
But I’m no teacher. What could I really do? Would I be in a classroom? Choose my own books? Would the teacher guide me? How much time would it take?
The answers are: I’m in a classroom, I can choose my own books and word games or use those provided, I have guidance and input from the teacher, and I’m in class about eight hours every week but I could be there as few as four.
Volunteers who earn a stipend serve about 10 hours a week.
When I contacted Metropolitan Family Service (MFS), which administers the AARP Experience Corps program, I learned it’s nationwide and has been operating for many years.
Older adult volunteers are carefully screened, interviewed by MFS staff, and given 12 hours of training in literacy strategies and building relationships before being assigned to classrooms that have requested them. More training is conducted throughout the year.
Teachers identify four vulnerable students who would benefit from tutoring and match them to a volunteer with whom the children will work one-on-one or in small groups. Although volunteers work most intensely with their matches, they also provide literacy assistance to other children while in the classroom.
I’ve been at Prescott Elementary for the past four years, the past two years in kindergarten. What a dramatic difference it makes to work with young children! In just a few minutes at a time a few days a week, a child can learn not just letters and sounds, but words and sentences.
Today I worked with two of my matches playing a rhyming game they enjoy. We put letters in front of “at” to make these words: cat, chat, bat, brat, fat, flat, sat, spat, splat, that. I did not read the words to them; they sounded out and read the words to me.
These kids are 5 and 6. I’m matched to them because they needed help in October and, after just a few months of reading and playing with words to augment regular classroom instruction, they’re flying!
Please consider volunteering for our Experience Corps team, and help children read. Hey, it’s fun and you really can do that.
Email volunteer@mfs.email or call 503.290.9427 and I’ll see you next autumn.
Tricia Elder volunteers for AARP Experience Corps and performs data input for the Sierra Club. She also maintains an online real estate database for surveyors and lenders working in the rural Texas county where she and husband Steve lived previously. Tricia is happy every day to wake up in her Concordia neighborhood.
Greenway diversion is a matter of policy
By Tyler Bullen | LUTC Vice-chair
Every morning before I strap on my helmet for a half hour bike commute into the Pearl, I wonder, “Is today the day I get hit by a car?” Given the number of miles I bike weekly, there’s a decent statistical likelihood of a collision with an automobile at some point in my life.
Despite the risks, I commute via bike, largely because it’s much faster than driving. It’s also cheaper, better for our environment and, when not competing for road space with cars, far more enjoyable.
Many Portlanders recognize this, which helps drive our nation-leading bike commute rates. Yet Portland’s bike commuting culture could be so much stronger if bikers felt truly safe on our streets.
Don’t get me wrong. We’re better than most other American cities. In 2016, Portland adopted Vision Zero, the concept that every road injury is preventable. We’ve lowered speed limits, increased enforcement and expanded road safety education.
However, the only way bikers will feel materially safer on our ever-more-crowded city streets is to reduce the potential for collision with cars.
Concordia features many bicycle greenways, roads designated to be low trafficked by cars and well-suited for bicycles. In theory, these roads provide easy through routes for bicycles, free of impediments like stop signs. But roads without stop signs attract cars.
To combat this, diverters – structures that prevent or dissuade cars – are occasionally placed on these roads. Well-situated, diversions can dramatically reduce car traffic.
Going Street, northeast’s most utilized greenway, performs well. It features diversions at MLK Boulevard, and 7th and 15th avenues, and speed bumps throughout. But too often our neighborhood greenways function as nothing more than normal neighborhood roads, like 37th Avenue.
Nothing in city code requires greenways to have diversions, often rendering the designation nearly pointless. Without material separation, these roads do nothing to dissuade cars or increase bicycle safety.
It’s time Portland adopted an approach that will make a difference. Physical diversion ought to be a matter of policy on all neighborhood greenways.
The concept is fairly simple. Any greenway crossing a road with yellow dotted or solid lines requires a diversion. There are at least five such intersections in Concordia, and hundreds across Portland.
Diversion takes many forms, and each intersection should be considered independently. But, when executed properly, bikers will appreciate the reduced stress that comes when not constantly thinking of cars ahead or behind. More people will leave their cars home in favor of bikes. Residents on these roads also benefit from fewer pollutants, noise and stress of cars. Portlanders can enjoy a more livable city.
Maybe I’ll even wake up one day no longer wondering, “Is today the day?”
Tyler Bullen lives with his wife and two boys in the southeast corner of Concordia.
Ask the Historian: 114-year-old church serves as theater
By Doug Decker | Historian
The question:
What’s the history of 602 N.E. Prescott St., and when did Portland Playhouse take it over and begin producing plays there? — Karen Wells
The historian reports:
We love it when readers write with a question about a specific building that’s had a long and interesting journey like this old church. We know it today as the Portland Playhouse – and it’s recently undergone a major overhaul inside – but it started out life as the Highland Congregational Church Jan. 3, 1904.
A news story in The Oregonian from the next day reported on its construction:
“The Rev. D.B. Gray reported the cost of the building was $4,709.15 and the 100 x 100 lot had cost $800. The community raised $600 and the Oregon Missionary Society provided the rest.
“The Sunday school associated with the church had 150 children. Plans for the church were furnished by L.B. Volk of Los Angeles, California, and Peter Wiser was the builder. The building is modeled after the Mizpah Church at East Thirteenth and Powell streets.”
The story went on to say why the new church was so symbolic for the surrounding community:
“The dedication signalizes strikingly the wonderful growth of the city to the northeast as fully 500 homes have been built in the Highland District in the last two years, besides a schoolhouse now occupied by 500 students.”
From the mid-1920s until the early 1950s, the building was referred to as Grace and Truth Hall. Its most recent faith community was the Mt. Sinai Baptist Church, from the mid-1960s to 2005.
The building was vacant for several years and, like many older area churches, was sinking under abandonment and deferred maintenance. It was bought by a private owner who lived in the old church for several years prior to its current incarnation as Portland Playhouse, a theater company.
The first play in the church was in 2008 and, since then, Portland Playhouse has built a solid reputation for high quality and well-produced shows, and a loyal following.
Michael Weaver, playhouse managing director, explained the church has recently undergone a $2.4 million interior upgrade to better function as a theater. It also expands the theater company’s offices into the former fellowship hall in the basement and the former Shining Star Daycare, which was attached at the back of the church. While much has changed inside, the upgrade kept the bell tower, stained glass windows and much of the original flooring.
“We wanted to honor the history of the building,” Weaver said.
The play “Fences” shows there through June 10 with rave reviews.
Doug Decker initiated his blog AlamedaHistory.org in 2007 to collect and share knowledge about the life of old houses, buildings and neighborhoods in northeast Portland. His basic notion is that insight to the past adds new meaning to the present. If you have a question for him to answer in CNews, send it to CNewseditor@ConcordiaPDX.com.
Intentional community nears completion
By Tamara Anne Fowler | CNA Media Team
Organic. Non-GMO. Humane pet food. And now intentional communities are the wave of a green future. One is in next door neighborhood Cully.
An intentional community is a cluster of private homes, with shared interior and exterior spaces, designed to benefit groups of people of all ages. This makes it easy to form clubs, organize child and elder care, and to carpool.
Cohousing facilitates interaction among neighbors and thereby provides social, practical, economic, and environmental benefits.
Members share common amenities such as garden plots, open outdoor areas, tools, a common house for large gatherings, guest rooms and more. They work together to enhance and beautify the landscape. That also creates a sense of being part of something larger than themselves – while they also enjoy private homes to retreat to with family and friends.
Cully Grove is the most recent, full-scale intentional community built by Eli Spevak, the owner of development company Orange Splot LLC, a company named after a favorite children’s book.
Eli partnered with Mark Lakeman. Mark, the owner of Communitecture, has worked with Eli for more than a decade. He started with volunteer work at Dignity Village.
Cully Grove homes were presold to people looking for community living. Some of the residents, including Eli’s family, had previously lived at other cohousing communities.
The development sits on nearly two acres right in the heart of Cully near 42nd Avenue. It is comprised of single-family residences with a large shared garden, bike parking, tool library, interconnecting pathways, and a central grove of trees perfect for planned or spontaneous gatherings.
Eli assembled the Mason Street property in 2014 and 2015. After going through several design iterations with Communitecture, they submitted for permits in late summer 2016 and broke ground in spring 2017.
It offers opportunities for those looking to move either up, or down. “Orange Splot focuses on walkable neighborhoods, where it’s possible to get to transit, groceries, restaurants, schools and parks without always having to jump in a car,” pointed out Amber Turner, principal real estate broker.
The development is within easy walking distance of an Albertson’s grocery store, coffee shops Bison and Beeswing, the five-corner restaurants and food carts, and less than 100 feet from a bus stop. It’s also within easy walking distance of Wellington Park and Rigler and Scott elementary schools.
Tamara Anne Fowler is a copy/content editor, fiction editor and accountability coach. Visit her at EditKitten.com, email her at Tamara@editkitten.com or call 310.359.6038. She would love to hear from you.
CNA Voices: It’s time to join the CNA LUTC
By Garlynn Woodsong | CNA LUTC Committee Chair
It’s an exciting time to be involved with the Concordia Neighborhood Association (CNA) Land Use and Transportation Committee (LUTC). That is fortuitous, because it also just so happens the committee has four current vacancies.
In May, the CNA Board approved sending another comment letter to the city of Portland concerning the Residential Infill Project (RIP). Once again, the board acted upon a recommendation from the LUTC to ask the city to make fourplexes legal within the zones covered by the project, among ot he r re commended changes to staff’s proposed plan.
The board has gone on record with letters recommended by the LUTC such as this multiple times during the past four years. The board’s position on this issue comes from a deep-seated desire for more equitable outcomes from the local housing market.
Recently, the LUTC has worked with the board to apply for a pilot program for residential parking permits to help manage parking demand adjacent to the Alberta Street commercial district.
For many years, the LUTC and board have worked to try to improve bicycling in the neighborhood –and indeed around the city and region – recognizing that bicyclists often leave neighborhood boundaries
Efforts include:
- Working with the city on the 20s Bikeway Project
- Advocating for better bicycle access from downtown through Sullivan’s Gulch to the Columbia River Gorge
- Advocating for more physical diversion to prevent automobile cut-through traffic from damaging the city’s investment in bicycle greenways to provide safe bicycle infrastructure for Portlanders of all ages.
The LUTC is now recruiting new members to bring new energy and to help share the load of working on these exciting topics and more.
If you, or somebody you know who lives, works, or owns property in Concordia – and who is interested in these or similar issues related to land use and transportation – please come to a meeting.
We meet the third Wednesday of each month from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Community Room in the southeast corner of McMenamins Kennedy School. Our next meeting is Wednesday, June 20.
Garlynn Woodsong lives on 29th Avenue, serves on the CNA Board and is an avid bicyclist. He also is a dad who is passionate about the city his son will inherit. He is the planning + development partner with Cascadia Partners LLC, a local urban planning firm. Contact him at LandUse@ConcordiaPDX.org.