“The seventh annual celebration of the diverse art, music, and culture of Portland, featuring many artists, craftspeople, writers, performers, and musicians.” from the Portland Mercury (here)

Where:  TheOldChurch,1422 SW 11th Ave.

When:  Fri., Feb. 24, 7 p.m. | $8-10

Phone:  503-222-2031

Website:   www.oldchurch.org/ and  http://worksnight.blogspot.com//

THE REIGN OF SPAIN: AN EVENING OF TAPAS

“Kenny & Zuke’s Sunday dinner series returns, as does its long-running Spanish dinner. Chef Ken Gordon will serve up 14 dishes to share, along with pomegranate sangria.” from the Willamette Week (here)

Where: Kenny & Zuke’s Delicatessen,1038 SW Stark St.

When: Seatings at 4:30 pm and 7:15 pm Sunday, Feb. 26., Sunday February 26 | $42.50 per person including wine, $35.50 without wine, $19.75 kids under 12.

Website: www.kennyandzukes.com

Phone: 222-3354

The North East Institute for Analog Studies goes into its 18^th year. (2009)

“The first time I made an angel it was very dense, and I covered the
statue totally in skin. I really tried to control what the material
was doing and it didn’t quite work. Now I let the material do its own
thing, so it flops over and the holes come through. I could wrap it
around the same thing 100 times and every one would be slightly
different” (50).

“High Fidelity.” Crafts: the magazine for contemporary craft. No. 234,
January/February 2012.

Fairgrieve is a printmaker, painter, book artist, and sculptor who lives and works in rural Wales, UK. She earned a Post Graduate Certificate in Drawing and Painting from Edinburgh College of Art and an MA in Multidisciplinary Printmaking from UWE, Bristol. She has taught at Coleg Sir Gar and Swansea Metropolitan University for 17 years, and she is currently Program Co-ordinator, BA (Hons) Painting, Drawing and Printmaking.

Fairgrieve will be discussing images and video of her recent work investigating coal mining and the significance of a forgotten or hidden industry as well as the duality between terrible conditions in the mine and the solidarity of social communities. She will include an overview her work that preceded this project.

She is visiting OCAC in connection with the exchange exhibition she organized “Invisible Cities/Hidden Landscapes” which opens in March in the Hoffman Gallery.

We are honored to have Catherine Fairgrieve visit and present to our OCAC community. Don’t miss this event!

Thinking in particular about other contemporary artists (and book artists in particular), we’ve selected this week’s library pick, Book Art Object, because it is probably the most exhaustive and diverse survey of book artists to date. It is an excellent resource to see what it currently going on in the book art world:

“Across its 400-plus pages of sumptuous color reproductions, it tracks the present state of the art throughout every continent (including Antarctica!) and through every variant of the book arts, from one-off publications to letterpress to artist/poet collaborations to artist’s books. Stalwarts of the artist’s book circuit such as Brad Freeman and Granary Books are represented here, as well as newer artist’s book publishers such as Dobbin Mill, Otis Laboratory Press and Red Trillum Press. Also well represented are small literary presses such as Chax Press, Arion Press, Indulgence Press and Nikodim Publishing. A visual record of the proceedings and exhibitors attending the first biennial Codex International Book Fair and Symposium, Book Art Object collects work by many of the world’s most esteemed printers, book artists and artisans into a single satisfying volume.” — from the publisher.

It is an astonishing work with a broader and far more extensive reach than other surveys on the topic. We are proud to include it among our collection and we hope, by giving special attention to it, we will attract more people to explore its depths.

From a quick perusal, one can get a much better sense of what is going on in the book arts field, and, if you plan to attend Catherine Fairgrieve’s lecture, it might provide a nice context in which to interpret Fairgrieve’s work with respect to her peers. Check it out!

Work by OCAC Post-baccalaureate students Eric Campbell, Daniel Granias, Ariana Kolins, Gina Rios, Amy Williams and Pete Williams.

Where: TheBoxLiftBuilding,331 NE Hancock Avenue

When: Saturday | February 18 @ 6pm

Contact: boxliftbldg@gmail.com

100 YEARS OF JOHN CAGE: FEAR NO MUSIC, CARLOSKALMAR,PORTLANDSTATENEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE, JEFF PAYNE, JOEL BLUESTONE, BRANDON NELSON

“YU and Fear No Music are celebrating the 100th birthday of John Cage with an evening of “Cageian” compositions and collaborations from a variety of responsible, capable musicians, wholly in the spirit of Cage. It’s thinky for a Friday night, but thinky is your brain’s bread and butter.” SUZETTE SMITH from the Portland Mercury (here)

Where:  YU Contemporary, 800 SE 10^th Ave

When:  Fri., Feb. 17, 7 p.m. $12 – 25.

Phone: 503-236-7996

Website:   http://www.yucontemporary.org

“It seems as though we inherit curves, as if they were a genetic code,
a sequence of actions distilled by one potter after another, one curve
after another, until they became our own; distinct, pure, and potent.
Chance always creeps into the mix (and let’s not forget zeitgeist),
but ultimately curves begin in the empty space where a pot will be,
clay and skill gives them shape, your fingers identify them, and there
they are, fragile, millions of possible permutations–but only one
curve is realised, as if there were no choice” (34)

Hewitt, Mark. “A Colony of Dreamers: Mark Hewitt reflects on his
journey from Stoke-on-Trent to North Carolina.” Ceramic Review, Issue
253, January/February 2012.

Here’s one of my favorite featured image views from the Cook & Book website.  Never been to Brussels.  On the short list now.

Skin Horse

Here’s what others are saying about it:

“Poetry. Like a secret date with Lizzie Borden, these moody lyrics thrill as they incriminate. SKIN HORSE shows that history is a crime scene, and that crime is theatrical, rife with costumes, masks, hats, props, weapons, scripts, dialogue, wooden scenery and dreamlike reenactments. These poems are anachronistic yet uncannily alive, furtive yet frank like an incriminating note forgotten in an apron pocket. Cronk locks words together like a lace collar which flutters attractively even as it tightens at the reader’s throat. She writes, “with velvet trim / in the whistle of seeing.” She writes, “Is it too untoward to say Please Go Back to Normal Life?” She writes, “Gotta nest of woe a nest of wail / and pardon my tied-on prom.” –from the Publisher.

Praise for Skin Horse:

If the wind cries Mary sounds to you more like The ring pulsed maria then you have your ears tuned to Cronk’s indiosyncratic sonics. You can’t be overtly prepared for Cronk’s directions, all you can do is gladly, if a little hesitantly, follow the paths her word combinations offer: Back to the city in chains…………trees typewritering………..I am indeed a nurse. SKIN HORSE will stimulate some neurons to try some new actions, to scare up some gathering, to be thrilled to be amongst her magnifications. -Dara Wier

An interview with the author and a review of the book are available here.

Copies of the book can be found here:

http://www.actionbooks.org/

or here:

http://www.spdbooks.org/Producte/9780983148036/skin-horse.aspx?rf=1

Check it out!

After looking at Kim’s work online (here), we couldn’t help see a resemblance to another great sculptor, Martin Puryear. For this week’s library pick, we’ve selected, Martin Puryear edited by John Elderfield, a book published in conjunction with the exhibition, Martin Puryear, at the Museum of Modern Art, November 4, 2007 – January 14, 2008.

John Elderfield’s essay, Martin Puryear: ideas of otherness, is a close critical review of the artist’s work, spanning the 1970s to the present. It highlights themes in his work throughout his career but also pays special attention to the concept of metamorphosis. Elderfield addresses how Puryear negotiates the limits of sculptural form and the limits of material, and that “his negotiation is, of course, a broadly cultural one that he makes it ours as well” …and this has, like Kim’s work, sociological implications: “to imagine changes in immobile things has always been, ultimately, to grapple with transformations of the self” (51).

The book also includes another fantastic essay about Puryear’s work by Michael Auping called “Artisan,” that covers the artist’s philosophy of art-making as well as talks about his process. In addition to the many high quality images of Puryear’s work, there is also an intimate interview with Richard J. Powell about the artist’s early work and how he arrived at the kind of artist he is today, a conversation that is definitely worth checking out!

If you’re already familiar with Martin Puryear’s work, this book will only strengthen your appreciation. If you’re unfamiliar with the artist, this book and his work will blow you away.

More information about Puryear (including a video clip from the Art21 series) can be found here.