[pdx art] An Artist A Day Back In April At Muse Art+Design

2474.

Continuing to be historically late-to-the-party, I wanted to share something that I stumbled on back in April before life became a bit sucky and distracting. But it involves Muse Art+Design, and watching artists work, which are two things I'm big fans of.

The other year, when we first got acquainted with Muse, it was April and we noticed they had put up spots all around the shop announcing something called An Artist A Day. It is, as it turns out, more than just a cool and canny bit of promotion. AAAD gathers thirty artists, one per day, who work in the front window of Muse, creating one piece per day, which is then hung about the shop and silent-auctioned.

Here's the best part: the proceeds of the auction are used to buy Art Supplies for the Schoolhouse Supplies store, which is a free classroom-supply store for teachers. The value of access to art supplies for schoolteachers should be self-evident. And it's supported by great local art supply companies, M. Graham and Art Alternatives, so you know it's good.

Muse does this once per year, and according to the AAAD website, they'll be accepting applications to particpate in the 2011 edition starting in January.

Here's the hip:

• An Artist A Day: http://anartistaday.com
• Muse Art+Design: http://museartanddesign.com
• Read All About AAAD at Hungry Eyeball here: http://hungryeyeball.com/2010/03/30-portland-artists-participate-in-live-art-making-fundraiser-everyday-in-april/

Technorati Tags: Muse Art+Design, An Artist A Day, PDX art, art

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A Visit To Muse Art and Design, or Gamblin Torrit Gray; We Haz It!

2003.A few discourses back I mentioned stumbling on news of a new art supply store here in town, Muse Art and Design. Today, we got a chance to check it out, and we were well pleased.

It's a cozy little space tucked in just to the east of yet another vintage store on the corner of SE 42nd and Hawthorne, on the south side. It goes back a ways, and is a little store, but they pack a lot in there, oils, watercolor, acrylics, inks, the requisite endcap for Sumi-e materials (I joke, but you do seem to find them everywhere), Copic markers for the manga-ka, even beeswax for encaustic.

The web page touts affordable prices and this is one boast, I'm happy to say, that gets lived up to. There were a whole lot of affordable art materials there, including Daniel Smith watercolors (I understand you can't find those too many places hereabouts) and everything had a price break on it. My mind is hardly an eidetic store but I dont remember getting too much sticker shock there.

Prices were reasonable and the stock was of a rather respectable quality, with all the brands you'd expect to find in a first-rank art store. The fellows behind the counter were affable and approachable and loved chatting about what they were doing with the store.

Particularly this month they're having an artist a day come into the store and set up shop in the front window, to have the work product displayed on the walls, day-by-day (they already have the canvases up for them–speaking of which, they have an excellent selection of grounds as well).

Now, mind you, we have a powerhouse art supplier in Art Media and Aaron Brothers will do in a pinch. But I do think that the Portland area can (and ought to) support a few more good art supply sources in town, and Muse Art and Design certainly deserves support. We plan on returning there from time to time; I'm taking up manga, see, and they sell Copic markers ...

Anyway, the other thing to come out of this is that, well, y'all'l remember a few missives back I reported on Gamblin's unique and brilliant idea to take the particulate out of the Torit filters and create the unique Torrit Gray. Around the first of April, Robert Gamblin sends Torrit Gray out to art supply stores where it's free for the asking.

While at Muse, I asked. And they did. Here's the proof:

PROMOTIONAL, NOT FOR RESALE, says the label on the top; below the logo, we have In honor of Earth Day, we make this color from recycled pigments collected from our air filtration system. Which, as I've said before, is cooler than cool.

With the reputation for quality and the commitment to being awesome to the environment that this suggests, I, not for the first time, wish that Gamblin made watercolors.

Also I mentioned that Gamblin does a Torrit Gray painting competition, and it's on; you can submit three paintings made with Torrit Gray, white, and black (a value study; always challenging). First prize is $500, and there are two $350 Honorable Mentions.

Information can be found at http://gamblincolors.com.

I don't know if I'm going to submit anything. I will be playing with this though.

Technorati Tags: art, art materials, art supply stores, Muse Art and Design, Gamblin Artist's Colors, Torrit Gray

[pdx, art] Singin' More Of The Praises Of Muse Art + Design

2460.

I know I've written about Muse Art + Design before, but every time we go in I find my happy place with regards to east side art supplies, and I just want to tell more people about it.

The east side of Portland (and regardless of what your local alt-weekly may or may not say, deep eastside PDX - and by that I mean east of I-205, is in Portland) is sadly lacking in any real artist-centered art stores. So, when we go westward in search of art supplies, we like finding places that make our art-store dollar count for something.

Muse, at 4224 SE Hawthorne Blvd, is located near the ironic end of the Hawthorne trend zone, but its prices are just as reasonable as you could want. My favorite non-Pilot Precise V5 pens, which are now the Copic Multiliners, are 7 bucks a throw (but they're refillable and the points are replacable, just like any good Copic markers. Great selection of paint at great prices. Less elite pens and markers are priced accordingly.

The thing I like the most about Muse is that it, in its way, and like I've Been Framed over at Foster and Powell, is by artists, for artists, and all about artists. Each April, they have "An Artist A Day", a fundraiser when each day of the month an artist works in the front window, producing one piece, which is then hung above the product in an impromptu gallery show and silent auction.

They even have Testors enamel paint! How many art stores stock that? I haven't used Testors since I was ruining model rockets and polystyrene model kits as a kid.

I've noticed that Muse is Twitter enabled - http://twitter.com/MuseArtDesign -  and of course they have an elegantly designed web page, http://MuseArtAndDesign.com. Between them and I've Been Framed, you pretty much have your east side art material needs nailed down.

Technorati Tags: muse art and design, art supplies, PDX art, art supplies in PDX

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A New PDX Art Supply Shop: Muse Art and Design

1993.Just got wind of this one via a little bird: we have a new art supply star to add to the firmament.

Muse Art and Design is located at 42nd and SE Hawthorne Blvd and has a brief little page up, not too much on the stock and what they got yet, but some good basic information and enticing enough to get you to get a toe in and see what their all about.

The rationale seems to be professional-level encouragement for everyone to produce something, because creating something feels good! (We can relate):

Whether you've been creating art for years, or just starting, you'll find a full range of QUALITY ART SUPPLIES at Muse Art and Design, along with affordable prices, and friendly, knowledgeable service. Have an idea but not sure how to get started? We'll help you choose the right materials to fit your budget.

We haven't browsed an art supply store in a while (it's a wonderful experience). We think this one would require a visit, perhaps. Will report back.

Technorati Tags: art, art materials, art supply retailers, PDX art supply retailers, Muse Art and Design

[liff] Muse Art and Design: Goodbye, Farewell, So Long.

3456.

It's hard, on the heels of that sorting out of what the knowledge of the demise of the Corvallis Gazette-Times's wonderful former headquarters building has done to my personal psyche, but now I have to face the knowledge that one of our favorite bright spots in this world, the mighty Muse Art and Design, at 4220 SE Hawthorne Blvd, is gone now, too.

Well, is going. In the process of closing. My heart is broken.

I got the email, as many on the email list did, at the end of last week. Sudden, it seemed; stunned, I was.

Muse opened back in 2004 in the space immediately adjacent to this, at 4224 SE Hawthorne. It's a new-jack old-fashioned barber shop now. The space that they were now in, 4220, was a vintage shop called Shadowhouse. Muse came in and opened up the light and what was a bright spot to us before became even a brighter spot now, well lit, with well-priced supplies we would go back to again and and again, and the same sweet, friendly people.

I made several mentions here in the past of our love of Muse and the people who ran it and the artists who would come by occasionally for a demo or a talk. They will remain cherished memories. But there will be no further. An old beloved favorite is leaving us.

Where there were once art supplies to buy, there is space.

Peter Rossing, whom
we shall extremely miss

I understand the demand for the clearance merchandise was huge. Peter Rossing, the proprietor and hero of our tale, was quite surprised at the number of people who came in on Thursday, which may have been the first real day of the sale. By the time me and The Wife™ arrived, it was only Sunday, but the place had been gone through pretty well. I was hoping to score a black book or two, but those were gone with the wind. There was still quite a few paints - oil, acrylic, and watercolor - also a lot of pastels, but most of the drawing paper was gone, the sketchbooks, graphite and ink drawing supplies, all conspicuous by their absences.

I had to stifle more than one sob, which is corny, but I'm not going to lie about that.

There were some woodless pencils left. I scored several HBs and 2Bs. I don't need much else. Wife got some acrylic colors and some of the POS displays, including a mechanical pencil merchandiser on a pivot.

This really causes me some interior displacement. Art supply shops are some of the happiest, brightest places I can think of. One of the peak experiences of my weeks are visiting art supply stores with my wife; the feeling of well-being art supplies give me is hard to put into words. The two which occupied complementary places in my heart are, of course, the eternal I've Been Framed, and Muse. I loved both of them because of their complementary souls. IBF is like the raggle-taggle gypsy, the tie-dyed Grateful Dead fan, always surprising, just wanting to get you what it was you wanted and the funky style wasn't so much curated as it was evolved. It's the most casual, kind experience you can have. Muse, on the other hand, had a restrained, refined style and poise. Both served the Portland artist community with the same sort of "get busy with your art" passion that has made that community such a vibrant thing.

With Muse, it was a slogan: To equip, inform and inspire.

What will be my most treasured memory about Muse? Knowing I could always depend on getting Preppy fountain pens there? The transformative seminar in February 2015, about the difference between art inspiration and motivation which has finally (after two years, my brain moves slow) enabled me to grasp that it wasn't inspiration I needed, but I was starved on motivation? That time when Bwana Spoons did his demo? Getting to know Vaughn Barker and his little women? That time the fellow who was looking to get a treasured volume of DosPassos repaired and told me the story of Rosa Luxembourg's visit to Portland and the way DosPassos and Hemingway ended their friendship over the way Hemingway regarded the victims of the Spanish Civil War? Or will it be the endless chats me and my wife had with Peter and his staff about art materials, the art store business, small talk about the day, and how goddamned nice they all were?

It'll all be treasured. Because we won't have it again, at least not at Muse.

Muse moved into 4220 about six years ago. One of the improvements to the landscaping was six curved stepping stones arranged into a circle; colored yellow, green, purple, blue, red, orange. A color wheel. And in the middle, a big circle of white gravel. Walking past it always ignited a frisson of happiness in me; I knew that, whether or not I walked out of Muse with a purchase, I was about to pay a visit to friends, and it would be a happy thing.

This is the color wheel today. Sic transit gloria Muse. 

They were friends as well as vendors, and, for a little bit anyway, the old maxim don't be sad because it's over, be glad because it happened and you were there rings a bit hollow. At least we still have I've Been Framed. They aren't going to be leaving us any time soon, or at least it doesn't seem that way.

We visited them in the beginning, and we were there at the end: RIP Muse Art and Design, as Portland as it gets: 2004-2017.

I hope I cross Peter's path again. He sure is a swell fellow.

[pdx_art] Bwana Spoons at Muse Art & Design, May, 2015

3202.

I have been unfairly keeping this to myself. Bad on me.

Muse Art and Design, the splendid art and inspiration supply store at SE 42nd and Hawthorne, has been holding the occasional demo and seminar. And they get better and better. The one back in February stays in my memory banks, and the one I've dithered on reporting on, this one, in May, was simply fun.

Bwana Spoons, Muse Art and Design, May, 2015.

The bespectacled man in the picture above should need no introduction if you exist in any of the intersections of art and illustration worlds currently percolating around the Portland area, but if you do, this is Bwana Spoons, and he produces trippy illustrations, but he works in chaos.

But more on that anon. The subject of this visit was the release of a line of acrylic gouaches, Acryla Gouache. This, a line of utter vibrancy by Holbein, was something of a revelation. I hadn't imagined that gouache could be anything but a watercolor, but here it was, a gouache created of acrylic … a resin color.

The wet consistency is lovely, thick, rich, creamy, creamier even than water-based gouache. The colors are memorable, and, amusingly, the assembled salon was going in big on a color called Opera, a brilliant pink-orange that is to your eyes what strong citrus is to your mouth.

I make no judgements by saying this; oversaturating your color response just might be the object you're going for. I found a cosmic humor in the way such a color was getting such an overwhelming, gut-level response.

The event was intended to demonstrate the color, and demonstrate it did. But it was also given over to a sense of pleasantly-chaotic play where people just dabbled with mixing the colors or came up with chaotically-inspired pieces. My favorite amongst the group is possibly this one, done by Peter, who runs the place. It started out as clouds and an abstract sun-not-sun in the sky … but it evolved into the most delightful flying snail I've ever seen, riding the air on a trail of fabulous:

You know not where it goes, all you need knowis that Rainbow Flying Snail wants you to be
fabulous.

Me and The Wife™ of course, had some fun. I was a little dry on inspiration today so we got Supernatural Orange Cat and Red Superhero. Wife did Rainbow with Shazam Outline. It was fun.

But, as to Bwana Spoons and chaos? Let me put it this way. We all fancy we can take a few disconnected strokes, pencil marks, what-have-you, and evolve something interesting out of them. Bwana started playing in his sketchbook with just a big, serpentine wave of color. Little-by-little, a detail there, an extension there, an overpaint in another place, and the fabric of that painted space began to take on depth and meaning, as though it was evolving itself through him. 

Skill, he has. I was watching the changer changing the changed and the changed changing the changer, though. It was something on a higher level. And this …

… is the utterly amazing (and maybe a little disturbing) result. The original fat squiggle is on the verso side of the spread and, like a sort of strand of DNA, it gave birth to the rest. And the real reward for the viewer is that it looks so accomplished. That's the true polish of skill. 

Bwana Spoons' website is: http://www.bwanaspoons.com/

Muse Art & Design is, of course, http://museartanddesign.com

[art] Where To Get Your Art Supplies In PDX (Updated)

(Updated 0300Z 27 June 2010 with a listing for Utrecht. Thanks to Ben Lukoff for the tip!)

2461.

As an extension on the last chapter, since one of the reasons I do a blog is to share the nifty things that I do find sometimes, this being a very human thing to do, I've created a list of art stores that I know I'll find what I'm looking for in PDX, and which I believe readers will have a good time simply going to. It's on the sidebar down under "My Favorite Designers and Illustrators", or just do a search for Where to get your art supplies in PDX and the browser should take you right there.

Right now there are five members to the list. They are listed in the order we usually look. When it comes to Muse/I've Been Framed, we usually go first to whichever one we're closer to. Either one is a great experience, though I've Been Framed has a lot of closeouts and their prices aren't better 100% of the time - only about 98% of the time. But they'll give you good value for money. Anyway! On with the show (visit websites for info, call for hours. Most are open until about 6:30 pm):

1. Muse Art + Design, 4227 SE Hawthorne Blvd, PDX, http://museartanddesign.com. Good little shop, good selection, run by artists for artists and for those who want to do art, reasonable prices, great selection of paints.  503.231.8704
   
2. I've Been Framed,  4950 SE Foster Rd, PDX. Good selection of paints and graphite media, marvelous prices on paper, wonderful selection of good-priced papers and canvases, Good quality closeouts. You'll never know what you'll find here some days. 503.775.6651
3. Art Media, two locations-downtown and Clackamas, http://artmediaonline.com. This is the grandaddy of local art supply stores. Between the two locations, they got a lot - if you can't find it, you probably don't need it. Best selection of art instruction books outside Powells or your nearby megachain. Online ordering available! 1.800.990.3364 x4
4. Utrecht Art Supply, 1122 NW Everett St, PDX, http://utrechtart.com. (reviews via Google) PDXers can feel fortunate that they are in the good geographic luck to be near one of the 38 nationwide locations of this art supply company. It's been a while since we
   personally have visited, but I recall the shopping experience there was a nice one, and it comes highly recommended by art acquaintaces. (Thanks to Ben Lukoff from Seattle for pointing this one out)
5. Aaron Brothers Art and Framing. Two locations-Tigard and Beaverton. http://aaronbrothers.com. Plan B if you can't get to any of the other three because it's open like a chain store, at least until about 8pm. They really market to people looking for frames, but they have a Good selection of mass-market materials, prices about what you'd expect.
6. Michael's Art and Craft, http://michaels.com, various PDX locations - check the websites. If all the others have closed you can always hit Michaels. Though the market to primarily the crafty sorts, the art supplies are unexpectedly plentiful and feature brands that you'd use seriously - Grumbacher, Winsor & Newton, good selection of graphite media, worth checking out if you work on the lower-quality end too.

About the only place the quality gradient really matters is in those last two, but if you're shopping at Aaron Brothers or Michael's, your probably just looking for a place to get "some paint and a brush". This is not necessarily a bad thing, just one of scale; those two stores market to the craft community as a whole, and it's hard to be and "artist's" store when you spread your net that wide. We find unexpected good things in those two stores, so they're worth the stop.

Technorati Tags: art, art supplies, art resources, art in PDX, PDX liff

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[art] A Motivational Self-Study Short Course: "Do More With Your Art" By Peter Rossing

3457.

In the previous missive I shared some of my thoughts and feelings about the permanent closing of Muse Art and Design, the Hawthorne area art supply store that has delightfully taken some of our disposable income over the past twelve years.

I may have gotten a little lachyrmose about it, but it was that good. 

I'd like to share a little something with the world. Peter Rossing, the owner, had as one of his missions to give little talks, a way of fulfilling the store's mission of equipping, informing and inspiring, All artists, may we be working or aspiring, need two essential things to get going: inspiration and motivation. My problem, for an embarassingly-long time, was that I would confuse and conflate the two, eventually thinking that inspiration is all I need to create.

That's bull. I live in Portland, Oregon, perhaps one of the most inspirational places known to artistic people. Also, there are no shortage of publications exhorting my attention: look at this! Truly, this is inspiring! What can you create, now that you've seen this?

Well, I can create whatever I want. But knowing I can create and getting moving on creating, why, those are, after all, two different things. I must have nearly 1,000 pounds of books about insipiring me to create art. Very few on getting the motor actually running.

What I'm going to share with you now is the notes from a talk Peter and Muse gave on the 23rd of February, 2015, two years ago. The title is Do More With Your Art in 2015, and it's a short course on separating inspiration and motivation and how to nurture motivation in a world that's all about inspiration. I love this document, and as I continue the pitched battle to create habits that are about self-indulgently creating good (or any) art rather than just self-indulgence, this is a touchstone that I return to time and again. It contains a couple of self-guided exercises and a handful of good suggestions, a list of references for further exploration, and a chart of checkboxes that represent two years of days (every time you do something creative, put an x in the box and you'll have a trajectory). It's not hard! All you have to do is bring yourself, your brain, a few minutes of your time (it's only 11 pages) and a bit of honesty.

One major reason I made sure to stop by Muse is to visit Peter one last time and thank him. Another important one? To get his permssion to share this file. Muse Art and Design may no longer be with us, but with this, we can make sure its spirit of Equip, Inform, Inspire remain as though it still were.

Inspire yourself to motivation with this document, a PDF, which is on my Google Drive, here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5n6OeSCIc0dUXEteVhUZFFKVzQ

[art] PDX's Original Art Media Store to Go Blick

2638.

It seems fitting that I should devote the first post here in rather a while (it's called ennui. Look it up) on the fundamental roll that a well-known local art supply titan is going through.

Art Media is going away, in a way. It is being absorbed by the national art supply retailer Dick Blick, who many artist know from thier awesome mail-order catalog. 

I hold in my hand a postcard from Art Media which gives a rough timeline (about the only firm-ish date on it is "early 2012" … do you suppose that's what the Mayan Long Count Calendar was predicting, after all?) and a particularly disappointing fact … the location at SE 82nd Avenue and King Road, in an area we used to call Clackamas but is increasingly being referred to as Happy Valley, will be closing for good.

That makes me sad. Some of my fondest art-supply-browsing memories are contained in that store. Sic transit gloria.

This is a good-news-bad-news, where-you-stand-depends-on-where-you-sit sort of thing. If you believe in and support local businesses, this is not a real good thing. Art Media is one of the longtime Portland greats. Started in a little store on SW 10th Avenue between Yamhill and Taylor, then, in the late 80s, moved over to its big anchor location on SW 9th and Yamhill. Opened a Beaverton store, then the one on SE 82nd, and for a while actually had one in Salem. Through many plays at art and one course through graphic design school, Art Media was my store.

If you know Blick Art Materials, though, this probably works out to be good news. Blick's selection is huge, and if Blick doesn't have it, then you don't probably need it. And Blick fans in the Portland area have had to do the mail order because the nearest Blick store is up Seattle way. And Blick has the reputation of being a good company to do business with. Mail order is keen, but having a store to go to is better.

If, like me, you prefer to use local merchants whenever you can, there are still options open, and they're going strong. They're not too big, not too small, and the people who own and run the place you might just find behind the counter, ringing up your sales, which is the way it should be.

• One is the magnificent Muse Art and Design. They have just the charmingest, friendliest location, down on upper Hawthorne at about 45th, and they are in the progress of opening one in the Milepost 5 artists residence complex over on NE 82nd between Glisan and I-84. They seem upscale going in, but the prices are good and affordable, there's something there for just about everyone.
• The other is the delightful I've Been Framed. They're located where Foster splits from Powell at SE 50th, and they have an art store experience that's something other than else. Very bohemian, very eclectic, thoroughly enjoyable. They have good prices on a lot of stuff and take on clearance lots from other places which sometimes gets you one-of-a-kind deals (I got a set of DaVinci gouache for about a third of full price once, and a big, official Bob Ross clear plexi palette for a steal). Great selection of graphite drawing materials and great paper and media selection. But it's the warm and friendly electic real-artist attitude which keeps us coming back again and again, and the wonderful and affable people.

So, you still have a local option if you'd rather. And they're going strong. So support them.

In the meantime, RIP Art Media: born 1974, merged 2011. It was a good run.

[PDX, Type] At Muse Art & Design, Hand-drawn Type Rules The Register

3168.

Another visit to +Muse Art and Design, another few art supplies to satiate the jones for such things. Great visit with Peter and Vaughn, of course.

It was a busy day there. We got there on Sunday just before a sort of an afternoon rush, and I couldn't help but notice there almost everyone there was smiling and happy. I guess Muse has the same effect on just about everyone. It's just that way.

Something that made me happy is a hand-designed ad posted on the pillar near the register:

It's gone up during the last couple of months, and the Spring Sale verbiage is not by the original artist, who I understand is a newish employee there. But that's great design there … I love the classy art-deco-ness of it all

And there is a Spring Sale at Muse. You might want to check this out. Something else worth the checking out of is the other side of that column, which is all original artist…

Whether or not the idea of sugar-alcohol-based low-VOC spray paint is your deal, looking at this lovely hand drawn, highly-artistic type should be. 

[art] You Can't Legislate A Man's Neck; or, Art in the Art Supply Store by the Employees

2997.

This is one reason why I love my favorite art stores, and one reason why we have to have more than one.

I have rhapsodized in past missives about my two beloved east-side art supply sources, I've Been Framed and Muse Art and Design. Today's IBF's turn for some sloppy love. They both have different characters, each unique from the other, both like sides of a whole.

Kind of like this taijitu here.

Both are friendly, both are crazy knowledgeable, both almost-unsanely-affordable, but where Muse is cool, ordered, and tailored to fit its location, IBF is kinda wild, kinda wooly and exuberantly unafraid of being what it is. And, today, what it is is a happenin', accidental gallery for its employees.  I wasn't looking for anything this day, The Wife™ was. I come out of the long corridor of decorative papers …(and tho IBF on Foster is in a small building, it seems to go on forever … like 'dis …)

… and I look at this, and can't stop giggling.

Flesh Beard. You can legislate a lot of things, but you can't legislate a man's neck … Well, yes and no. In American culture you certainly can't argue the point, but during the French Revolution they legislated a whole lot of men's necks, if I understand what goeth on thereth correctly. Turning about a quarter of the clock's turn to the right, we have a windowpane simply full of delight.

There is some connection between Nathan (whoever he is) and coffee (or, perhaps coffeee) that we will have to leave to more learned heads … Erich VanDaaniken, say, or Richard Hoagland, perhaps … to puzzle. At this time, I can only bask in the infinite power of such a connection.

Another incident where the inanimate speak. First, it was 'bacon bits'. Now …

I guess that colors having an off day. GEDDIT? OFF … COLOR!!! Let's try it with the bonus Commonwealth U: OFF COLOUR!!!! My God this is comedy gold!

A couple more for good measure, or least odd measure

It's the newest model, 70s cool, with all the options (as noted)

Stravinksky from the Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain school.
And whooo's your Daddy? I guess we'll never know.
The illustration of the building façade? You know I'm in love with this.

Is it any reason a visit to IBF leaves me feeling kid-antic inside, and full of the idea of the possible?

My recommendation to you, dear artist friend, is to also adopt both IBF and Muse. Do it. Don't argue with me. Just go.

And don't forget to stop and smell the art along the way.

[art] Muse Art and Design-Earth Safe Finishes Demo at Milepost 5

2792So, yesterday night, The Wife™ and I took part in a demo/workshop put on by Muse Art and Design at the Milepost 5 complex. The subject of interest is a line of art supplies by Earth Safe Finishes (http://earthsafefinishes.com), and we found the whole thing nifty as a rule.

Earth Safe Finishes is a company working in the field of 'green'; the line is different, they say, for two main reasons. First, they're made in the USA, which is always a plus these days, and second (and maybe more important to an individual artist) they boast that they're free of VOC's, or volatile organic compounds. These are the chemicals that allow the paints, mediums, etc to dry quickly by outgassing. For those who are chemical-sensitive they are an active concern.

If they are a concern for any individual, then Earth Safe Finishes products do indeed provide an alternative. They are all non-toxic. They include mediums (including a titan called Fabric Magic, which can do just about anything, it seems) and a line of paints (called colorants but now called pigments) that are very very concentrated. A few drops do go a loooong way.

I used very small amounts of Phthalo Blue, Red, Yellow, and Lampblack to produce this Mona-Lisa-esque work over the two-hour workshop:

The colors are very rich and vibrant and enjoyably workable. The right side of the picture was me playing around with colors and a medium. 

A good time was had by all, and the Musers Marcus, Peter and David were there, and did their own works; I found all three to be skillful artists … albeit with visions running toward the comically disturbing. Good thing I don't have clown issues … and let's leave it there. Susan, led the demo had a sure and informative hand over the proceedings, and the people who showed up were all very affable and friendly.

In short, fun.

[art] One Thing Bwana Spoons Did At Muse Art and Design

3185.

On Wednesday we were privileged to attend another one of +Muse Art and Design 's increasingly powerful demo-seminars. We went to one in February that I'm still unpacking, not because it's complex, but because I'm a mess. But I'll get to that one in due course. This dude abides.

Last Wednesday's event was about demoing the Acryla line of acrylic gouaches. They're good ones, and more on that to come. The featured artist was none other than Bwana Spoons, a man whose name is fun to say and is worth coming just to see him work. And he demoed the gouaches by doing so. A more complete write up is to come, but, for now, let me give you a taste of what he did do.

The man dances with chaos. But, like I said, more on that anon. Stay tuned.

[net liff] Scribefire Fixed It!

2467.

In the credit where credit's due department, we note that, given the presence of the screenclipped logo below, Scribefire's developer, Christopher Finke, has fixed the image upload problem.

Me and a whole lotta bloggers depend on and love Scribefire, which allows us easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy blog posting with quick image upload and FLAVENS. So, when you get a nifty free Firefox addon that allows you do this thing here, and he fixeded it, you give mad public ups.

I'm leaving the Muse Art & Design logo because you should go there.

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[art] Meredith Dittmar At Muse: Creative Process From The Inside Out

3088.

On Saturday, 17 May 2014, as the May offering in Muse Art and Design's Artist-to-Artist talks, Peter and the crew hosted an artist I'd not heard of before: Meredith Dittmar. This is Meredith:

Meredith Dittmar at Muse Art and Design.

She works in polymer clay: Fimo, if I remember correctly. She takes it and assembles it into the most enigmatic ways and shapes; view her website, the picaresquely-named CorporatePig.com. The splash page will give you a big ol' taste; click through to her homepage and thither to the portfolio. Cute characters cavort amidst abstract confections that are possessed of the hint of a mathematical reverence and resonance that is hard to put a finger on but tickles the imagination.

There's a reason for that. During her talk, she mentioned that her father was an engineer and her grandfather was a NASA rocket scientist. She didn't elaborate, but it's not hard to presume that she fairly swum in scientific verities as a youngster. Another anecdote seemed to suggest that she also has something of a suspicion of authorities; when learning vowels in school she was schooled up on the traditional five plus the sometimes-sixth, her father corrected this by saying that the sometimes-sixth was a full-fledged vowel, no sometimes about it, and furthermore there was a seventh*.

When relating this at school, this lowered the proverbial boom, and her father stuck up for her. I'm not sure of the eventual resolution, but bless that man, right?

Meredith struck me as a brilliant human who appreciated knowledge while at the same time rejecting the 'it has to be' structure that knowledge is sometimes unjustly straitjacketed into, at least by way of authority. She worked, by a sort of gestalt way, to cause me to come to the conclusion that while there is a great deal that is knowable, capital-E-Everything is unknowable, or at least not-quite-completely-knowable, which appealed to me on a Tao level. And my impression was that this was a tremendous informative data line on her own work.

She shared with us a lot of images of idea boards that she kept. Patterns, clippings, fractal patters, mathematical formulae scampered about on them in happy semi-anarchy. The genius expressed … the jelly somehow nailed to the wall and not nailed to the wall, all simultaneously, which is a heady experience for any armchair philosopher and aspiring artist trying to find direction.

In retrospect this formed a sort of base stratum for what was happening concurrently. Everytime I think of it, I get a little more impressed and in awe. See, she never showed off much of her work, but she showed off a great deal of her working, or at least her possibility. At the beginning  of the hour-long talk, she distributed small cut pieces of Fimo and invited us to play with them at will, but without taking our attention from her. She did her talk about her life and influences and work, and I kneaded my bit of Fimo about without taking it too seriously.

My bad there. A word on that presently.

At the end of the discussion about her and her work, she asked us to take part in two 'experiments'. They both involved yet another lump of Fimo, but we were to listen to two recordings of physicists discussing quite abstruse concepts: the first, from its discussion of spin and color was no doubt relating to quarks, and the second was completely beyond me, but I did recognize the word eigenvector, though about the only thing I currently know about that is how to spell it. The important part about working was to simply observe your hands working the clay into whatever shapes the environment moved you to create, to get into that zone, and if we slipped out and got too self-aware, to pause a moment and refocus on the process of molding.

This is the stuff she plays in the background when she creates and the idea, as it seemed, was to see what sorts of things her audience would create. Whether she was compiling any sort of result or even per se looking for one we weren't clear on, and I suspect that wasn't the point anyway. All we walked away from the experience with was the experience, left to do its subliminal work on us; photos of past exploits showed spirals, geometric patterns, interesting prettiness.

Just before she left I got the chance to chat for a few minutes and found her intellect quickly drew me into a sort of orbit in which I started actively applying the experience to where I hope my own artistic growth takes me. I know this sounds kind of crazy, but she would say something and it would start this whole intellectual cascade, or at least that's what it seemed from my point of view. At this point, it's hard to put it into any specific words (never mind how prolix I've gotten here) what effects this is having upon me. Every time I look over the experience, it opens up again like another level of a Matrioshka doll.

She did talk for a moment about fractals, come to think.

Crazy.

The experimental process that she took us through, though, suddenly gelled for what I think it was, and what it will forever mean to me: the most effective look at the fabled creative process that I've ever had and probably ever will. She, as nearly as possible, without excess motion, deconstructed her own creative process for us, let us in, then reconstructed it about us so that we were suddenly on the inside looking out. I can draw parallels between the way I create when I'm in the zone and what she does, and see where it's different, and I can't put any of that into any less than the most clumsy of ramblings, but it's there for me. Elegantly and economically, and it continues to have impact after the fact because it worked on so many levels that one can only see when in the rear-view.

She taught me something without actively teaching a thing. How rare is that?

Oh, and the 'bad' I was talking of? I realized, on review, that giving us the clay at the beginning was also an experiment, but with different terms. There's that Matrioshka doll opening, again. And every time I think I've come to a conclusion on a thought generated by this, no fewer than two paths shoot out.

Clay isn't my medium, but she just might be amongst the most important artists I'll ever sit in on.

And you'll please forgive the rambling; each time I go over the experience I am once again beMused. It's hard not to be distracted.

*The classic 5 vowels are, of course, A, E, I, O, and U. The sometimes-sixth would by Y, naturally. The unknown seventh was cited as W. It makes logical sense, when you think of the sound the Y makes, which is fluid like a vowel, not staccato like a consonant, and any Welshman or woman can tell you quite naturally that W is a vowel (consider that the Welsh spelling of the English house name Tudor is Twdwr). 

[art] Paper Zone Stores To Close

2737.It's with a heavy heart that we mark this passage, and deem it Not A Good Christmas Gift At All:

As you may have heard, we will be closing all of our Paper Zone locations. After receiving an overwhelming outpour of concern, we felt compelled to further explain our unfortunate situation. Paper Zone is a company with 20 year roots in the Northwest. We are based in Seattle, operating eight retail locations throughout Oregon and Washington. However, due to the current economic downturn, we have experienced three years of sales declines between 6%-8% annually. As a small local retailer we were unable to sustain these losses.

The economy eats another one, and it is a local business, at least local to the PNW, to Cascadia. We've enjoyed many a nice moment at the Paper Zone, they've always had good service and good selection. And local, like the other art-based businesses we prefer: I've Been Framed and Muse Art and Design.

Now, as far as I know, IBF and Muse aren't in danger of going away, but if you want them to continue, you'll continue to patronize them. Local people spending money locally, providing great local value (there's a whole lot at Muse and IBF that wont' break your bank, trust me here).

I'm not trying to lecture you guys … I know money's incredible-tight, and like me, if you can spend some, you do. I think this should make everyone aware of what happens when local businesses don't get the support they need.

They go away.

In the meantime, thanks for the memories, Paper Zone. It's been a good run. Shame it had to end.

If you want to, you can read the entire announcement at the Paper Zone's blog here, as long as it remains up.

[PDX_art] Illustrator Vaughn Barker's Little Women

3162.

Vaughn Barker is a Portland illustrator who I'm privileged to say I've met in the flesh. He can be found behind the register at +Muse Art and Design where we've betimes also found his art on display. He's one of those people who are the committed illustrator I should have been but I can't envy him his talent. I do think he should be much more widely-known than he is.

Of course, he may well be. I have a history of being somewhat late-to-the-party. But the art I've seen hung in the store is masterfully done and inspiring to look at. What has me feeling antic inside, though, are his little women.

Peep this, folks:

She's a mail courier fearlessly ascending a rope latter to her transportation. Fierce and adorable, she's letting nothing stop her. What is her mission? Hers and hers alone to know, but I'd trust her to complete that. That sort of confidence is stopped by nothing or nobody.

It's a scan of the central part of the print you see there to the right. The titles of it is Special Delivery and it speaks warmly of a dieselpunk, 1930s/1940s atmosphere, pulp stories, adventurers and daring exploits. I look at this and my mind flashes to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the 'gee-whiz' sort of story that young guys and gals would read from magazines made of rough, brown paper with covers decorated with dramatically-colored paintings.

There's a sort of theory I subscribe to about the transmission of taste and style down through the decades. To us in America, the 1930s and 1940s, despite a back drop of depression, misery and war, somehow remain the height of fashion and style with this stereotypical American dash … the fedora … the trenchcoat … the smartly-dressed tough noir fellow, in those stories, even the plain girls were glamorous, even the old matrons were stylish. As you went on into the 1950s, style renewed itself and could go any direction; but through the 60s, 70s, and 80s, it just got more forgettable. So, even now, in the year 2015, if you want debonair style mixed with your adventure, you go back to the 1930s and 1940s.

Vaughn's art seems to be inflected with this sensibility. He has another series of beautiful works, in which warplanes fill the sky while a Valkyrie-like spirit seems to float amongst them. Those are dashing in and of themselves, and I highly recommend them. But, maybe it's my intensifying attraction toward all things 'toon, his little women really excite me. Built on an abbreviated canon, they exude fierceness, smarts, attitude, an unafraid personality, and are impossible not to fall in love with. Made of thick shapes and ovoid ovals, they are never the less as cute as they are formidable, and even a little bit sexy.

You just want to follow them, to see what happens to them next.

I should hope we see more of them.

You can visit Vaughn's website (and buy art prints) at http://www.vaughnbarker.com/. His alter-ego, Valentine Barker, she of the small women, holds court at her blog, http://www.chalkyheart.com. Vaughn's personal blog, The 'Stration Station, is http://strationstation.blogspot.com/. 

#PDX_liff : Meditation On The Blanding-Out Of Old Portland

3464.

The closing of The Third Eye Shoppe has catalyzed a lot of observations into a clear picture of evolution and how things pass along during the years. Change is constant, and change is also bittersweet; you roll with the changes but the changes, sometimes, have no intention of rolling with you, indeed they are indifferent. And there is a little world-pain that comes with that. I suppose that it's something one much just acknowledge as best as they can and be as foxy and clever and find ways to be tenable in the evolved landscape.

I remember when me and Wife were new-again to Portland after spending a few years in Corvallis. We exploited every opportunity we could get to go downtown. Downtown was funky back then. They even had an Arctic Circle with a great view of Pioneer Courthouse Square (prole burgers and fries with a perch for the best people watching in town? Damn skippy!) There was a 'Dollar Chinese Food' place, a steam-table restaurant, in the first floor of the Portland Medical Center building at SW 10th and Washington. Django Records. Art Media for art supplies. Metro on Broadway at SW Broadway and Taylor, sort of a food-court-without-a-mall-attached.

Downtown has been sanitized and de-funked. When they wanted it as a live-in neighborhood, apparently they only wanted people earning north of $75K a year down there. Me and Wife fancy a trip downtown to see if there's anything interesting down there, but I think we know in the back of our minds there's nothing really worth going to any more.

Now, it's Hawthorne. Time was there wasn't a week where we didn't find some excuse to go down Hawthorne. Jambo World Crafts, Dollar Scholar, Muse Art + Design, those were our three regular stops, there was the big raggle taggle used bookstore at SE 33rd that morphed into a vintage shop, Murder By the Book, The Daily Grind, so much that was funky and welcoming. The only thing that would attract us anymore would maybe be Powell's on Hawthorne (actually eager to see how that's building out), and Zach's Shack and Pepinos (they always had the most fabulous steak and potato burritos). But Hawthorne is going the way of downtown, losing all move, groove, and attitude, and if the social push-out of the lower middle- and lower class out to Outer East wasn't real to any one yet, why, it should be now.

Old Portland can still be found, multicolored and funky, out 122nd way, out in what the kids call 'The Numbers' … for a while, anyhow. 

[pdx] Urban Archaeology: At SE 42nd And Hawthorne, Where They Once Sold Ice Cream

2797This was a pleasant find to stumble upon, all the more so because we weren't looking for it and it concerns the continued success of peoples we are quite fond of.

I have exulted the charms. of Muse Art and Design before. Along with I've Been Framed they are the two art supply stores you must know if you need art supplies here in town. Local, passionate about what they do, and won't break your bank wide open.

Last we, me and The Wife™ slid along to the corner of SE 42nd Avenue and Hawthorne Blvd, upper Hawthorne, and we were amazed to see this:

Muse's current location is one address east of this (more on that allusion perforce). Until recently that location was a quirky, cool vintage shop called Shadowhouse Collectibles who, via the vicissitudes of business these days, had to quit the location and move on (we don't know where yet – if you never visited, you've missed out, my friend. Keep up to date with them here, as they say they'll be back). Shadowhouse has been good to us, as the vintage KATU sign will attest.

Alas and alack, for now Shadowhouse is gone. This has opened up an opportunity for Muse to move into a bigger space, which can augur nothing but good; but until then, remodeling of the space happens. And that has uncovered and unexpected visual treat.

The building on the corner SE 42nd and Hawthorne has had her makeup removed for a newer application, and we find that this used to be an ice cream shop.

The Portland Ice Cream Company, to be precise. I don't know whether they made it there or had it brought in, but the old hand-painted typography on the facade brings up memories I didn't know I had (mostly because I wasn't alive in the 1940s).

The old paint work itself shows signs of revision. We peoples, we just can't leave things along, can we? I'm guessing that the half-covered signage probably said something like Farmers Ice Milk and Cream, but we are certainly guessing there.

Old-fashioned ice-cream parlors. Doesn't that just speak 'small-town America'? One wonders what the then-denizens of upper Hawthorne would think of the current, with the ironic bars and the organic markets and the incense-and-peppermints shops and whatnot. Probably think they were on another planet or summat.

It would be far amiss if I didn't mention something about the remodeler. The job is being done by an outfit called Michael Cordes Remodeling, and we met the man as he was cleaning up at the end of what was obviously a long, productive day of work. There are all sorts of builders revising Portland at the present time but I don't think I've ever run into one that has this keen a sense of history. Very, very affable fellow; had a few minutes to talk and we had a fairly fun chat. But, you tell me … what remodeler would care enough about history to post a picture of the building in its heyday? I'm not sure what year this was, but the old-style street-blades on the corner suggest the 1940s.

As far as I'm concerned, anyone who formats his business card and sign in lovely calligraphy is probably a cut above the rest. He can be contacted at mcremodel@rconnects.com, if you're of the bent.

He's said he has some more historic PDX photos to share after I post this, and i can share some, I will.

Keep your eyes open, peoples! History is right in front of you betimes.

[art] What Color Is Your Color? Color Names and PIgment Codes Explained

2574.It shouldn't surprise anyone from student level on up that not every red is identical, for example: this cadmium yellow will look a little different and mix a little different than this other one.

As Muse Art and Design has posted here (http://museartanddesign.com/2011/03/paints-pigment-codes/), there's more to the color in your tube of paint than just the artistly name on the front. For instance, I have in my hand a tube of Winsor & Newton Galeria Cad Yellow Medium. If you look on the back of the tube, underneath the color name is the line  

Pigment: Cadmium Zinc Sulphide (PY35)

All pigments are made of metals and/or various chemicals. Words like cadmium zinc sulphide, however, may seem too abstruse. But never fear - the code at the end, the PY35, is part of a standard coding system amongst producers of artistic paints.

It's rather simple to learn and not to difficult to understand. The letter P signifies "pigment", naturally, with the next letter signifying the class (R=red, O=Orange, Y=Yellow, G=Green, Br=Brown, Bk=Black, W=White, and M=Metal) of color. The number uniquely identifies the chemical combination that produces the pigment. To get really abstruse about it, the color PY1, or Pigment Yellow 1, can be marketed as Cadmium Yellow Hue, Hansa Yellow G, or Permanent Yellow Deep as well as Permanent Yellow Medium. But it's all PY1, a Monoazo, arylamide, with a CAS registry number of 2512-29-0. On the other hand, PY3 is also a Hansa Yellow, has been marketed as Arylamide Yellow, Bright Yellow Lake, Cadmium Lemon Hue as well as Cadmium Yellow Lemon Hue, but it's all PY3, an Organic, Monoazo, Arylamide, CAS registry number 6846-26-6.

That's quite a prodigious flood of info, I know, but the point is, look on your paint tube and find that pigment code number. For instance, the Cad Yel Med from Winsor & Newton, in both the student and professional ranges, come in PY35. Another manufacturer, Liquitex, has a color in its Basics value-student range called Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue, which is made of PY74 (Arylide Yellow 5Gx) and PY83 (Diarylide Yellow).

Once again, a lot of abstruse info. The point I'm making right now is not that you have to know what a Diarylide anything is, unless you're that interested in chemistry, but each and every pigment mixes a bit differently and behaves a bit differently. If you came to the end of your tube of W&N Galeria Cad Yellow Med and all you have around is a tube of Liquitex BASICS Cad Yellow Med Hue, you'll probably want to do a little mixing off-palette to see how it'll react.

This is also useful info in the way Muse's article expresses, that knowing how pigments mix to create the packaged colors you buy could enable you to create your own mixes in a pinch from what you already have on hand. And knowing how to read pigment codes goes a long way toward enabling you to make consistent paint buying decisions despite the sometimes confusing welter of names colors can go by.

Muse's blog article is here, again http://museartanddesign.com/2011/03/paints-pigment-codes/; and if you want to go really deep into what all these different pigments are, the Color Of Art Pigment Database can be had via http://www.artiscreation.com/Color_index_names.html