Category Archives: Arts & Culture

By Maquette Reeverts | Alberta Art Works

Born in Zongolica – meaning crafty hair – in Veracruz, Mexico, Pablo Gonzalez came to Portland in 2001 to pursue his art. He loved the beautiful trees and worked at Al Forno’s Pizza, where he did his first murals on Alberta Street.

Influenced by the Mexican tradition of murals, he carried a portfolio of his work to show store owners in his search of walls to paint. He now has quite a body of work on Alberta.

La Sirenita hosts his mermaid, her scales made of CDs reflecting the afternoon sun. On the alley wall, he collaborated with Consuela del Moral to paint Fertiledad del la Tierra – Fertile Earth – depicting various Mexican symbols, animals and designs.

On the once-vacant building on 23rd Avenue and Alberta, Pablo and friends painted a whale, elephant and large roses atop a stenciled background on the façade.

On Dar Salam’s front patio, find his trompe l’oeil. It’s an art technique that uses realistic imagery and perspective to create the optical illusion you are sitting on a Middle Eastern village street as you dine.

His latest mural at southeast 136th Avenue and Powell Street honors Black Lives Matter. Larger-than-life portraits of George Floyd and Quincey Hanes contrast a local incident with the more nationally known tragedy.

He received some negative feedback – being a Mexican artist – and pushback from the building owner, but he knew the importance of the message and continued his work.

Now Pablo’s portfolio is full of examples of interior and exterior murals, food carts and works on canvas. Visit PablosMurals.com to see his body of work.

Pablo invites fellow artists to an outdoor show in his yard for Last Thursdays. Find his sign on 19th Avenue and Alberta directing you to his house behind the Alberta Street Gallery. Listen for the DJ playing on the front porch.

“Times are tough,” Pablo said. “But I just keep going forward with positivity.”

CNA respects the views and beliefs of all Concordians, and their cultures and faiths. The views expressed by this writer do not necessarily reflect the views of CNA.

Michel Reeverts, aka Maquette , holds a master of arts degree in art education, serves Alberta Art Works as director and Alberta Street Gallery as a board member. She is also a practicing artist. Contact her at Maquette@AlbertaArtWorks.org.

By Maquette Reeverts | Alberta Art Works

So what can you do to help curb tagging? Plant thorny trees or bushes, remove ways to climb, light the area well, install a “living” mural or pay an artist to create a mural.

Portland’s Graffiti Task Force endorses murals as one of the best strategies available to reduce unwanted tagging. Murals demand attention and are far more respected than a glaring blank space.

They can educate, unify, beautify and create an experience that gets spread far and wide via social media. Murals can also be protected using an anti-graffiti coating making any future graffiti clean ups easier.

Interested in a mural? Use the $1,000 you might otherwise pay in fines, and pay an artist. A local one earns brownie points.

Alberta Art Works can help put you in contact with an artist and facilitate the somewhat complex mural permitting process. Or look into the Regional Art and Culture Council’s (RACC’s) Public Art Mural Program, which can provide matching funds up to $5,000 – or $2,500 if the artist is a college art student.

Under this program, RACC will own the completed artwork and have the artists waive their Visual Artist Rights Act (VARA) benefits. Those protect the artist’s image as the artist intended, regardless of the ownership of the final mural. This ensures the artist’s image remains as the artist intended, and it cannot be altered and nothing added to the creation.

Murals on private property are also a solution for those fences, garage doors or concrete walls that are unsightly or targets for tagging. Murals contrast the negative mental health effects of concrete and asphalt.

Through the visual aesthetic, murals promote a sense of identity, belonging, attachment, welcoming and openness, and they strengthens our community identification.

CNA respects the views and beliefs of all Concordians, and their cultures and faiths. The views expressed by this writer do not necessarily reflect the views of CNA.

Michel Reeverts, aka Maquette , holds a master of arts degree in art education, serves Alberta Art Works as director and Alberta Street Gallery as a board member. She is also a practicing artist. Contact her at Maquette@ AlbertaArtWorks.org.

By Maquette Reeverts | Alberta Art Works

Hard work, dedication, perseverance and integrity. The story of Floyd N. Booker Sr. is now in visual form on the northeast corner of 17th Avenue and Alberta Street.

After being discharged from the U.S. Army, Floyd came to Portland in 1943. He worked for Union Pacific Railroad for 18 years and became union shop steward before starting his own business.

Floyd came to own the building on 17th and Alberta that houses his business. Courtesy Janitorial Services is one of the oldest African American owned businesses in Portland.

Campo is an artist who has lived in the neighborhood for over four years. “The side wall on 17th Avenue was getting hit with graffiti regularly so last September I introduced myself to Ron [Booker, Floyd’s son and Courtesy Janitorial owner] and Marnella [Mosley, office manager] and offered them some relief with a mural,” he reported.

Originally from Ohio, Campo runs the small business Hand Brand Book Company, specializing in marbled notebooks and wallets, among other goods.

Provided with a couple of black and white photos, Campo used his favorite medium, spray paint, to create the portrait of Booker with an image of a photo of him with three other men in Vanport.

Symbolism tells the rest of Floyd’s story. A lantern shining through the night highlights his commitment to keeping the light on at home for his six children, represented by six beads below.

A lighted candle burns to signify Floyd’s work ethic of toiling into the night. A scale shows the balance he kept between his work and family commitments, especially as his family grew.

Campo is now turning his attention to another of Alberta Street’s walls. The northeast corner of 18th Avenue will soon have a new mural to cover the consistent tagging on the old Solae’s brick wall.

As a nod to the bar, the subject will be a jazz trumpeter amid a swirling background resonate of the artist’s marbling work.

CNA respects the views and beliefs of all Concordians, and their cultures and faiths. The views expressed by this writer do not necessarily reflect the views of CNA.

Michel Reeverts, aka Maquette , holds a master of arts degree in art education, serves Alberta Art Works as director and Alberta Street Gallery as a board member. She is also a practicing artist. Contact her at Maquette@AlbertaArtWorks.org.

By Joel Dippold | CNA Media Team

A thought slowly comes over you as you stand in a room full of Dan Pillers’ exquisite works of art: “The inside of this guy’s studio must be pretty amazing.”

Dan practices bricolage, assembling found objects into elaborate representations of his worldview, and his identity. His perspective is one of a gay man born in the Eisenhower administration who survived the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco and has lived a quiet life in Concordia for the past dozen years.

The basement studio of his Ainsworth bungalow is crammed with cabinets full of artifacts and curiosities, the building blocks of his art. The artifacts and woodwork come from thrift shops, yard sale free boxes and sometimes gifts left on his porch by mysterious benefactors.

His art is a mix of memoir, history, politics and popular culture. His pieces often take the shape of a glass case with elaborate woodwork – sometimes Victorian, sometimes mid-century modern. Etched onto the glass are ornamental designs or provocative bits of text.

And in the center of this space, often suspended in midair, is a central object of contemplation – some small thing of singular beauty, of wonderment, evocative of lost time or an emotion you can’t quite pin down.

Dan’s training as an artist includes a bachelor of fine arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute, residencies in France, and gallery shows up and down the West Coast.

But, as he excitedly shows a visitor some of the truly singular artifacts he’s collected, he repeatedly mentions his residency with a Metro program called “Glean.” Each year it gives a handful of local artists unlimited access to the local dump.

Next up for Dan is a joint show in June at the Guardino Gallery, 2939 N.E. Alberta St. There, you can see nearly a dozen of his pieces. In addition to the show through June 25, he is booked for an opening reception Thursday, May 30, 6-9 p.m., and an artist talk Saturday, June 15, 2 p.m.

Before you go, visit DanPillers.com or watch a three-minute video portrait at Vimeo.com/51840518.

Joel Dippold is a freelance writer and editor who has lived in Concordia since 2000.

By Nancy Varekamp | CNews Editor

Free wall. Legal wall. Rotating wall. You name it, but there are only two in Portland, and one is in an alley intersecting with the south side of Alberta Street between 27th and 28th avenues.

The Portland Street Art Alliance (PSAA) and a group of Portland State University students are collaborating to convince the city to allow more. They’d like your opinion in an online survey posted in April at PDXStreetArt.org/articles-all.

A proposal to the city this summer will seek permission for building owners to allow street and graffiti artists to express themselves any time on walls that are painted over completely on a regular basis. The wall off Alberta Street is covered once a year.

The PSAA website reported the objective is “for the collective empowerment of Portland’s street artist community to achieve city-wide district revitalization goals and use art as a means to include the voices and perspectives of historically marginalized communities.

“The proposal will combine research, original data collection and analysis to present policy alternatives allowing Portland to better leverage its thriving street arts culture and solidify the city’s identity as a haven for creatives.”

The effort includes analysis of similar policies throughout the Northwest and around the world. Plans call for submitting the proposal to the city this summer.

Nancy Varekamp is semiretired from her career in journalism, p u bli c r e l a t i on s and – her favorite work engagement – writing and editing targeted newsletters.

By Dan Werle | CNA Media Team

Portland has long been a destination for creative people looking to make and share their work. The city landscape is dotted with gathering spaces where artists live, work and/ or perform.

One such space in Concordia has withstood shifting demographics and rising housing costs. The Alice Coltrane Memorial Coliseum functions as a practice spot and gathering center for musicians and other artists.

The building sits on the eastern-most edge of Concordia, at the southwest intersection of 42nd Avenue and Sumner Street. Like many neighboring houses, it was built in the late 1920s. Since then, it has seen a number of different occupants, owners and purposes.

A former resident of the building informally named it for Alice Coltrane. Also known as Turiyasangitananda or Turiya Alice Coltrane, she was a jazz pianist, harpist, composer, bandleader and, later in her life, a swamini. Her husband, John Coltrane, was another prominent jazz musician until his death in 1967. She died in 2007.

The building’s name honors her musical and spiritual legacy. So does her photograph, surrounded by flowers, displayed prominently inside one of the rooms.

Throughout the years, former Apple CEO Steve Jobs is rumored to have visited there while studying at Reed College. For a few years, it reportedly served as a gathering center for Hare Krishna worshipers.

Chris Radcliffe owned it from 2006 until last August. He’s a member of the Cacophony Society, a counter-culture network of people based in San Francisco with “lodges” throughout the world.

In 2008, a container home he built on the lot was featured in Portland’s Build It Green Home Tour. The 1920s structure has also housed performances by:

• Joey Casio, an electronic artist known for his ahead-of-the-curve mixes and infectious friendliness – who died in the 2016 Oakland Ghost Ship Fire
• The long-running Portland-based creative music group Million Brazilians
• Rainbow in the Dark, a queer and transgender group that traveled across the United States in a school bus

That building is now occupied by Heterodox Records and also used for rehearsing and recording by such artists as Soup Purse, Grease Envelope, Production Unit Xero and Ralph Barton. The latter is an electronic dance music DJ, improvisational comedian and modular synthesizer builder.

Ralph, credits much of the spirit of the building to its previous owner. “It wouldn’t be this kind of building without Chris. This was his lab. This was his project.”

Dan Werle lives in Concordia with his wife, Anna, and their dogs.

By Karen Wells | CNA Media Team

Three six-pane doors capped with three seven-pane half moon windows signal the formal entrance to McMenamins Kennedy School. Late afternoon western sunlight illuminates the lobby.

These windows weren’t always bright with sunlight. When the school closed in 1975, the windows were boarded up and fell into disrepair. The building became an eyesore.

Isaka Shamsud-Din, (pronounced E sa ka Shem sue Deen) a former Concordian – along with his wife, son and a team of artists – took charge. They created a beautification project for the school building windows prior to the building’s renovation.

Led by Isaka, they created vibrant designs on the boards with bold colors and sweeping strokes. Each painted wood panel was unique and kept the windows safe from vandalism. This project launched a 15-year working relationship between Mike McMenamin and Isaka.

The Kennedy School project wasn’t the first time Isaka used his skills for the greater good of his community. A story teller, historian, educator, muralist and activist, his work has chronicled the African-American experience in the Northwest for more than 50 years.

Each of his pieces highlights the importance of perseverance, hope, education, remembering African-American history and contributions to the fabric of the American experience.

His current projects include launching a Go Fund Me campaign: “Juneteeth Calendar – Celebrating the Black Experience,” an 18-month engagement and history calendar. Isaka is collaborating with Pacific Northwest College of Art and Don’t Shoot Portland to host a night of social justice art and auction Dec. 1 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Pacific Northwest College of Art. He is also actively gathering community support for the restoration and preservation of his 1989 mural, “Now is the Time, the Time is Now.”

Editors note: If you’d like to know more about this mural and/or artist, Karen shares her resources online. Visit ConcordiaPDX.org/ KennedySchoolMurals.

Karen Wells is a retired early childhood community educator, health and safety trainer.