Mari bartoo Jacobson
I can’t drive past a pile of old fencing on the side of the road without stopping to investigate. Discoloration, moss, insect trails, nail holes, any imperfection really, make a piece of wood turn my head.
It’s the idea of a whole life already having been led that provides an opportunity for reincarnation. Each piece of furniture I create is unique, shaped from my response to the material at hand.
I have a passion not just for the reclaimed aspect of my materials but also for the functionality of my art. The table featured above is a work table with ample storage space that also serves as a shop counter at Alexa Stark‘s.
Mari Bartoo Jacobson, half of Rutabaga Redesign (1732 NE Alberta Street) has been applying the ethic of reclaiming and repurposing materials to her functional artwork for years. Now with an eye to furniture she is unearthing new beauty from old wood. To see other examples stop in The Make House or contact her directly.
Erinn Kathryn
I am a leap year baby, I write with my left hand, I’m INFJ, mutable, and young at heart. I like full moons from hilltops, pink sunrises from bedroom windows, warm fires after being soaked to the bone with rain, cayenne and lemon in my tea, smells that remind me of times or places or people past, the concept of ‘saudade”, synchronicity, sleeping outside, circles found in nature, connection, quirkiness, laughing hard and long ,turquoise and lavender, landscapes moonscapes and dreamscapes, places you go to listen where no one else and no other thing can be seen for miles, storytellers, words and language, intention and intuition, simple rituals, and to practice creativity.
All of these things inform my work. For some time I have been working through the concept of “maps” and challenging the idea of “landscapes”, fabricating ‘aerial views’ where non-related or juxtaposing forces compete. These aerial views of nowhere are concrete, informational, and objective as maps are, though they reference no specific or existing site. My latest body of work draws parallels between forest wildfire on a landscape and cancer growth on the body-as-landscape.
This project was awarded a Regional Arts and Cultural Council project grant for 2012. The exhibit opens on December 6th, 2012 at Gallery 214 at Pacific Northwest College of Art in the Pearl District, and runs through December 23rd, 2012.
Stephanie Brockway
Stephanie Brockway is a local artist curating the 6th Annual Day of the Dead Art Opening and Celebration at Guardino Gallery (2939 NE Alberta Street). Join 27 Portland artists inspired by Day of the Dead in one of the most impressive annual group shows of the year, right in the heart of Portland. Featured on OPB, this year will offer even more revelry, merriment, live music, spirits in costume, sugar skull face painting, and glowing altars. The public is invited to bring something for the altar in remembrance of loved ones while they enjoy dozens of mixed media pieces celebrating the departed. Public altar and show is up all month! Like the Day of the Dead PDX on Facebook for the latest on this and other related community events.
Michel Reeverts aka Maquette
I wake, I think and then I draw. I spend hours studying aesthetics from other artists going voraciously through library books and other image sources. I spend hours sketching and only a few do I choose to transfer to canvas, paper, or whatever may be on hand, grab a glass of water and paint or I find, collect, arrange and attach. I step back and think some more then I may alter, rearrange, subtract, or add. I wash my hands, clean my brushes and go to bed so I can get up and do it again.
I earned a little piece of paper that says I have a Masters Degree in Art Education and have taught children through adults for over fifteen years in an elementary, high school, and college.
I am a mother of a precocious 18 month old boy and have lived in this neighborhood for five years now. Right now I am the president of an art cooperative here on NE Alberta, Six Days Art where I show my work. I have made my living as an artist for the past 12 years with my paintings, sculptures, photographs, costume design, etal.
I have been a fire performer for 12 years leading large to small troupes leading me to become the Producer and Artistic Director for Rose City Vaudeville. We have a summer project, the Vagabond’s Theater on 19th and Alberta, running vaudeville variety shows and boasting the only legal fire show in Portland this summer. As if I wasn’t busy enough, I help lead Friends of Last Thursday struggling to help get control of the monthly event. Working with the many city agencies and our community we are striving to steer the event to focus on art, work on respect for our neighbors, and deal with the many issues related to this large festival.
Jon MacNair
Jon MacNair was born in South Korea and grew up in the suburbs of Southeast Michigan, where he developed an early love of drawing. He attended the Maryland Institute College of art in Baltimore, where he earned a BFA in illustration, graduating in 2005. Since then, his illustration work has been featured in various editorial publications across the U.S., as well as used for apparel and package design.
When not illustrating, he can be found participating in many group shows around the country and abroad. He has exhibited in cities such as Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, San Francisco and Glasgow. In 2012 he moved from Michigan to Portland where he continues to participate in group shows and meet many artists he has long admired.
Gracewood design
Gracewood Design offers unique, custom floor treatments which enhance the beauty, style and elegance of any environment. The company makes floorcloths (hand made canvas rugs) and provides custom stenciling for surfaces including wood floors and interior and exterior concrete.
Gracewood Design is a collaboration between Gwen Jones and Ken Forcier. Ken has decades of stenciling experience, initially schooled by his mother, Polly Forcier, a renowned researcher of American decorative arts. Gwen has a background in product development. Both have strong design and color sensibilities which are evidenced in their rugs and floor design projects.
Gracewood Design employs authentic stencil patterns from previous eras as well as original patterns, with a portfolio that includes Early American, Victorian, Arts & Crafts and modern designs. They work in conjunction with their customers to create beautiful, one of a kind, hand crafted canvas rugs and floor decoration. The company has been in business since 2004.
Mark Downing
Mark Downing is an artist – designer, craftsman, and builder. His work is very diverse, ranging from home remodeling to very special pieces. All work is spirited, whimsical and always beautiful. He designs and builds projects as large as home remodels and smaller projects like the very special doors that suggest the beautiful life within the home.
He has lived and worked out of his studio at 5125 NE 19th since 2001. His wife Fern, whose portrait is on one of his doors, creates their home’s beautiful garden setting. You can see more of his work at markdowning.blogspot.com. Mark Downing - Atelier - (503)709–4049 - craftmark@gmail.com
Nathaniel Young
Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, Nathaniel Young’s photographs tell a story about the city he loves and the people in it. Nathaniel specializes in portrait photography including weddings, senior photos, and family portraits, among other personal projects. He creates photographs which make you think; which make you laugh; photographs which pull you inside the experience shown through the lens. A personal goal of Nathaniel’s is to move into commercial photography. In his current employment, Nathaniel finds himself producing videography, graphic design and other media production projects for a small company based in Vancouver, Washington. Nathaniel is also a member of the American Society of Media Photographers.
To see more of Nathaniel Young’s work, please visit: nathanielyoungphotography.com or call him at (503) 734.9838 for more information. His studio is located at 325 NE Graham Street, Portland, OR 97212.
Rachel Sabin
Rachel Sabin is a Portland, Oregon based visual artist. She received her Bachelor of Art degree from Willamette University where she was a recipient of the Carson Undergraduate Grant for independent research. Her art has been shown at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art as well as Blackfish Gallery and Mary Lou Zeek Gallery II, located in Oregon.
Rachel Sabin’s recent oil paintings center around found objects, particularly vintage photographs and ephemera retrieved from sidewalks, streets and discard piles. By recreating images and patterns, Rachel emphasizes the aesthetic beauty of seemingly mundane objects, allowing their features and designs to become more important than their original function. Working from abandoned antique portraits, she creates a new narrative for the subjects based on their facial features and body language. Further paintings can be viewed on Rachel’s website: www.rachelsabin.com. Since moving to Portland, Rachel has never lived more than five blocks from Alberta street…she’s in love with the area.
Peggy Pfenninger
Born in 1969 in New England, Peggy Pfenninger lived overseas and in several states before finally calling Portland, Oregon home. She majored in Graphic Design and minored in Art History at Savannah College of Art and Design, and hasn’t stopped creating and crafting. Since college, she has worn many hats in the graphic design industry—from old-fashioned paste-up, advertising, electronic pre-press, to her current position as Go-Go Gadget Graphic Designer and digital print mistress at Camera Graphics. She also won the Sock It To Me design competition in 2010, a personal coup, given her sock addiction. Perhaps you voted for her, check out Peggy’s design.
Her true passions lie with her own creative endeavors—whether crafting decorative mirrors or costumes, dreaming up a new collage or mixed media painting, or snapping photos around town. Her art is the exploration of color, texture, and energy. Although there is no specific subject matter or recurrent theme, it is still very easy to get lost in and transfixed by her work.
Peggy has been a volunteer board member for the arts nonprofit organization Art on Alberta (AoA) since 2007. She recently created an original installation in AoA’s Red Rover mobile art gallery called Winter Wonderland. Maybe you saw it when it was parked outside of the Alberta Main Street office or Alberta Rose Theatre this past month.
Peggy would love to create a fabulous invitation for your next party or help you make your unique business cards a reality. To talk shop, hire her, or just check out what she’s been up to in the studio, feel free to find out more about Peggy on her Facebook page.
Neil M. Perry
Neil M. Perry is an artist and illustrator, with creative roots in Edinburgh, Scotland, currently living and working in Portland, Oregon. Neil has participated in group and solo exhibitions at galleries in Europe, the United States and Japan. Thanks largely to David Attenborough, he has been fascinated by the animal kingdom since childhood. This has driven him to develop a body of work featuring anthropomorphic drawings and paintings that fuse wildlife and nature with elements of his own imagination. Neil considers pizza, soda and ice cream to be the true holy trinity and has an intense fondness for prehistoric animals. Neil is always interested in learning about new opportunities for exhibitions, gallery representation, and personal commissions.
Neil has been a NE Portland resident since moving here in May of 2010. In that time he has made his visual mark on Alberta St. by showing his work in Galleries and making murals for businesses including Salt & Straw and Townshend’s Tea House. Find our more about Neil and his work: www.neilmperry.com or www.facebook.com/neilmperryart
Jaye Campbell
Jaye started Flying Shuttle Weaving Studio custom handweaving business in 1979. One of her ongoing clients is Timberline Lodge which was featured in the 2007 PBS series, “Craft in America,” where she experienced a nanosecond of fame in the filming of the segment on the lodge. With an educational background in history, she enjoys historical reproduction of textiles and has woven over 500 yards of upholstery fabric for the National Historic Landmark Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood in Oregon. Her fabric appears on chairs and couches throughout the main building.
Jaye is Textiles Coordinator, the Gallery Coordinator, and a weaving instructor at the Multnomah Arts Center in Portland. Custom interior design textiles for the home and public spaces are her specialty. These handwoven fabrics consist of upholstery, rugs, curtains, window transparencies, room dividers, and wall hangings.
She volunteers as a textiles consultant to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Gordon House in Silverton, Oregon. Jaye was commissioned in 2010 to weave and completed the replacement fabric for the banquette cushions in the Gordon House. Jaye is the past PR board member of Art on Alberta and currently volunteers on Alberta Main Street’s Promotions Committee. For more about Jaye, visit http://www.infinitehealing.com/flying_shuttle, email or call 503.281.6149.
Rachael Rice
Rachael moved from Montpelier, Vermont to NE Portland in August, and currently lives and performs with musician and long-time former PDX fixture musician (of Ed & the Boats fame) Dan Haley. She now works with other creatives doing branding and web development, non-profit fundraising, and her own art projects. For more about Rachael, visit her website at http://rachaelrice.com.
Allie B.
Allie B. is a metalsmith, an artist, and a jeweler. She has always been attracted to unique and non-traditional jewelry. Her art career began years ago in Philadelphia, PA at Marion County Art Center. Striving for new challenges she moved to the west coast to attend full time at the Oregon College of Art and Craft (OCAC). Becoming engulfed in metalsmithing she took delight with what an essential tool her body has become. She has learned to raise, form, fabricate metal, spin metal on a wood lathe, and most passionately since she’s been out of art school, the process of electroforming. Allie graduated from OCAC in the spring of ’09 with a Bachelors Degree of Fine Art and continues to make and show art in her cooporative studio and gallery StuStuStudio at 1627 NE Alberta Street, NE Portland, OR.
Klutch
Klutch, best known as the cranky old punk responsible for the Vinyl Killers project, has been creating visual mischief for over two decades. From his work with the early 1980′s hardcore punk scene and the legendary Skull Skates, to painting backgrounds for Nike ads, his work has appeared around the world on t-shirts, skateboards, city walls, magazines, and galleries.
In 2005 the suite he created at San Francisco’s Hotel Des Arts was featured in Time magazine’s annual “Best Of” issue. Since then he has accomplished very little. (editorial note, we doubt that is true…) Contact Klutch
Susannah Kelley
“I have always been drawn to the human figure, particularly the contorted and dilapidated. Almost all of my work revolves around these types of beings, their interactions, and their relationships. My most recent pieces revolve around the fusion of the organic and the inorganic. In the Pacific Northwest there is a stark contrast between the mechanical and the natural: knotted trees framed by bold metal lines. These harsh mechanical characteristics exist inside all of us, and in my work I imagine what we would look like if that structured nature tried to escape. Industrial scenes surge forth from human forms and bodies are suspended by structures. I am exploring the relationship between our natural forms and the world that humans have built. The inclination to create, destroy, and forget is simply labeled: human nature. ”
Hilary Pfeifer
I have two voices as an artist. Sometimes I create large site-specific installations for museums and galleries around the United States and Europe (www.hilarypfeifer.com) Other times I satisfy my needs to design everyday objects such as nativity sets or wedding cake toppers that I sell under the name Bunny with a Toolbelt. (www.bunnywithatoolbelt.com) I alternate between these two worlds in my home studio which I’ve worked out of for the past decade in the Alberta Arts District. My connection to this neighborhood goes much deeper–my great great grandfather lived here with his family over a century ago while he was the construction foreman for the building (and rebuilding) of St. Andrews Church on 9th and NE Alberta. I care a lot about the Alberta Arts District and have served on the board of Art on Alberta for the past six years (President 2007-10.) I have created window displays for Guardino Gallery and Green Bean Books, and show my work locally at the Museum of Contemporary Craft and Oregon College of Art and Craft.
Jackie Avery
People say that my paintings are like little scenes from a larger story. Often, viewers spontaneously invent story lines to go with them, or relate them to their own lives.
They certainly have a narrative quality, and I’m drawn to quirky photographs and old books as visual resources. Most recently, I’ve been using an old photo album for my beach scenes, and a 1920’s picture encyclopedia to mine odd subjects.”
Locally, you can see a permanent collection of my logging themed paintings at the Secret Society Lounge (116 NE Russell Street) and a secret suite of portraits down in the recording studio there. I also frequently show at Benjamin Benjamin Gallery (1720 NW Lovejoy) and always at www.jackieavery.com. I received a BA in painting from UC Santa Cruz 1994, and have been painting ever since.
Sarah Farahat
Sarah Farahat is an Egyptian & American artist living and working in the Alberta neighborhood of Portland. She recently received a RACC Artist Project Grant for 2011 and will be preparing a solo exhibition in the coming year. For several years Farahat has explored the political conversation between the United States and the Middle East. Her projects typically focus on community, politics, everyday living, and social organization. She loves to collaborate, work with youth, and exhibit in public spaces. As an Intermedia artist, the medium she chooses to work with is often dictated by the concept and message of the project. From Egypt to Palestine she has spent lengthy time in the Middle East; she has also traveled extensively through Senegal, Haiti, and Central America. Learning about grassroots struggles for liberation and self-determination informs her writings, photographs, installations and way of life. In addition to her more traditional art practice, she spends her days farming, creating food, and dj-ing. Farahat holds a B.A. in Psychology from Occidental College and a B.F.A. in Intermedia Studies from Pacific Northwest College of Art. Her work can be viewed at sarahfarahat.wordpress.com.
Heather Paske
Heather was born in southern California, lived near Detroit, Michigan for most of her life and now calls Portland, Oregon home. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a major in Illustration in May ’09 from the College for Creative Studies (Detroit). In Portland she works as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator doing projects that range from the Alberta Street Fair poster to illustrations for a [Portland writer’s!] vampire novel. She is available for commissioned work and you can find prints available at etsy.com.
