Things to do in Portland (12/09/11): an informal gallery talk at the Lumber Room and Dig A Pony!

There will be an informal gallery talk at the Lumber Room for “Interior Margins” this Saturday December 10th. Beginning around 11am the curator Stephanie Snyder and Founder Sarah Miller Meigs along with several of the artists, including OCAC’s drawing and painting instructor, Michelle Ross, will engage in a dialog about the exhibition. This is sure to be an exciting event and an interesting conversation!

Gallery hours continue through January 30th, Thursday – Saturday, 11am -6pm.

More information about the exhibition can be found here:

http://www.art-agenda.com/shows/interior-margins-at-lumber-room-portland/

Address: 419 NW 9^th,Portland,Oregon, 97209

Hours:  Thursday – Saturday, 11am -6pm.

URL: www.lumberroom.com

Treat yourself to a drink and an order of “four cheese macaroni with caramelized onion & jalapeno” at Dig A Pony, possibly one of the hottest bars in Portland right now.  They have awesome live DJs every night, playing a wide variety of kinds of awesome – freakbeat, funk, soul, punk, post punk, fusion, gospel, and anything else you can think of. Check out their amazing listing of DJs from last month here. So if you haven’t already checked out DAP or you have (and obviously know what I’m talking about), give yourself permission to have a great time and go this weekend!

Address:736 SE Grand Avenue

Hours:  Every day, 4pm – 2:00am

Phone:  971 279-4409

URL: http://digaponyportland.com/

Blog: http://digaponypdx.tumblr.com/

JP Reuer and the 2011 Design/Build Project by the MFA in Applied Craft and Design (ACD) students to promote literacy and learning.

Last Friday on OPB’s radio program, Think Out Loud, JP Reuer talked about the recent design/build project conducted by new students in the MFA in Applied Craft and Design program – a joint degree program offered by Oregon College of Art and Craft and Pacific Northwest College of Art. Listen to the radio program here: http://www.opb.org/thinkoutloud/shows/designbuild/

This fall 19 students participated in a project to design a new learning center for a juvenile detention center in northeast Portland. The goal of the project was to design a space for kids that “celebrated literacy and learning,” and one that gave the kids a dynamic place to be “among books” (from here). For more information about the project, check out the following article: http://untitled.pnca.edu/articles/show/4891/

The video (below) about the project is also available here: http://vimeo.com/29755120

2011 Design/Build Project from PNCA on Vimeo.

Check out “in forms,” an exhibit of four OCAC thesis students’ work in progress this THURSDAY!

Sianne Ngai quote: “I’m interested in states of …”

“I’m interested in states of weakness: in “minor” or non-cathartic feelings that index situations of suspended agency; in trivial aesthetic categories grounded in ambivalent or even explicitly contradictory feelings. More specifically, I’m interested in the surprising power these weak affects and aesthetic categories seem to have, in why they’ve become so paradoxically central to late capitalist culture. The book I’m currently completing is on the contemporary significance of three aesthetic categories in particular: the cute, the interesting, and the zany.” (45)

Jasper, Adam. “Our Aesthetic Categories: an interview with Sianne Ngai.” Cabinet: a quarterly of art and culture. Issue 43 “Forensics,” Fall 2011, pgs 45-51

34. “Painting Abstraction: new elements in abstract painting” by Bob Nickas.

At 12:45pm today in the Centrum Studio, OCAC’s very own drawing/painting, general studies and foundations faculty member, Michelle Ross will be giving a presentation as part of the College’s Monday talks series.

She is well known for her contemporary abstract paintings, which “[traverse] the history of abstraction, design, decoration and the love of language” (here). Her work has been likened to Mondrian, Hans Hoffman, Giorgio Morandi, Agnes Martin, Mary Heilman, and Robert Mangold. Ryan Pierce has stated that “Ross’ paintings are firmly grounded in the tropes and traditions of modernism,” they are “refreshingly free of the gimmicks that crowd a lot of abstraction these days,” and they “link the classical and the modern with grace and reverence, leaving plenty of open space for whatever happens next” (from a 2007 review on PORT).

More images of her recent work can be seen on the Elizabeth Leach Gallery website. If you’re in the area, Don’t miss her talk!

For this week’s library pick, we have selected a title that showcases many of Michelle Ross’ contemporaries and other artists pushing the limits of abstract painting. The book is Painting Abstraction: new elements in abstract painting by Bob Nickas.

After a prefatory essay on the “persistence of abstraction,” the book is broken up into six parts: “hybrid pictures,” “Rhythm and Opticality,” “Color and Structure,” “Found/Eccentric Abstraction,” “Form, Space, and Scale,” and “the Act of Painting.” About a dozen or more artists have been selected for each section and a short text describes how each particularly addresses some issue related to that section’s theme.

For example, Nickas asks “Is the hand of an artist more visible to us when drawing and line are central to her paintings?” (139). He then demonstrates how this question can be answered in the “affirmative” by a close investigation on the work of Allison Miller. Several large, full-color reproductions of her work follow in order to illustrate his point.

Painting Abstraction is an authoritative compilation that addresses the key issues in the field of abstract painting from the last five years and profiles 80 different contemporary abstract artists including Mark Grotjahn and Amy Sillman. Bob Nickas work is an excellent balance of research, critical analysis, and, what all great art books so often have: art, art, and more art.

Things to do in Portland this weekend (12/2/11): Japanese Prints and Purebred kittehs

The Artist’s Touch, The Craftsman’s Hand : Three Centuries of Japanese Prints from the Portland Art Museum will be on display through January 22, 2012. The exhibition features a selection of 250 prints that spans centuries of Japanese printmaking, including the work of such artists as Harunobu and Hokusai.

The selection is from the collection of Mary Andrews Ladd, whose donation of 750 prints in 1932 started the Museum’s interest in Japanese printmaking. The collection has since grown to “more than 2,500 works and spans from the lat 17th century to the present day” (according to PortlandArt Museum’s website). For more information and images of some of the prints on display, check out their website: http://www.portlandartmuseum.org/exhibitions/feature/The-Artists-Touch-The-Craftsmans-Hand

Address:1219 SW Park Avenue,Portland,Oregon97205.

Hours:  Tues and Weds, 10am – 5pm; Thurs and Fri, 10am – 8pm; Sat and Sun, 12pm – 5pm

Phone: 503.226.2811

URL: http://www.portlandartmuseum.org

Lewis and Clark 40th Annual Cat Show. Cats, cats, and more cats? This Saturday the Lewis and Clark Cat Club will be hosting a show at the Lloyd Center Double Tree Inn that will give visitors an opportunity to see over 200 “rare and beautiful cats – from the West Coast and Beyond” and over 30 different breeds (see here for more information). There will also be purebred kittens and adult cats available for sale. For all you cat lovers or just curiosity seekers out there, don’t miss this! Bring your camera and don’t forget to come back and tell us about it!

Address: Lloyd Center Double Tree Inn,Portland,OR,97232

Hours: Saturday, December 3rd, 9am – 4pm.

Phone: 503-222-7823

URL: http://lewisandclarkcatclub.com

What did I miss? What are you planning to do this weekend?

New Books for November!

To easily view what’s new in the library go to: LibraryThing.  Under the “Tags” heading you can sort by month or department.

This month I’d like to draw your attention to some small, but not to be overlooked items…

You may notice we have started collecting the Documenta 13 printed matter  –  “100 Notes – 100 Thoughts” – in anticipation of the 2012 exhibition in Kassel. This series includes contributions from diverse artists, philosophers, authors, and thinkers.  They are located near the library entrance.

Come on down to the library and see for yourselves!