At Last, A Look Inside I've Been Framed

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This post is a looong time in coming; one pandemic wait plus one visit forgetting the camera.

I have never made any secret of my love for I've Been Framed, the Portland treasure of an art supply store that we visit on a semi-regular basis at 4950 SE Foster Road. We first went there in 2002, where I found a complete set of DaVinci gouache colors that I needed for an art course I was taking at PCC.

It's been a very satisfying relationship, which has become more than just a place we drop in on to get art supplies. We've taken to them and we fancy they've taken to us; they put up with our quirks as customers and we hit that place first when we're looking for something. They have been very good to us and we feel like they're more than a business we stop at but they're kind of our friends.

20 years a patron will do that for you, if you manage it right. 

The business was started by a fellow named Bob Brisack in 1955, powered by his love of wheeling and dealing art supplies. In about 2001 we went in there and I bought my first purchase, a proportional divider for drafting, which I still have. In 2003, the place was sold to his son, Mark. Mark was cool and a very welcoming person who was always very encouraging. Mark also saw the store through the tough beginning of the pandemic.

This last year, Mark retired in his turn, and the store was bought by Prairie Clark, who was running the store under Mark for a long time (at least as I understand it), and she's seeing the store through the pandemic (keeping it open and everyone employed and innovating a way to sell art supplies despite not being able to allow people in for browsing) and into its next era.

That era, having arrived, gives us a evolved IBF on Foster. In-store browsing is now fully enabled (to an occupancy level of 10 at a go) and there's been a retro-rebranding. It's all quite exciting.

In the below photo, which is taken from a spot roughly where the framing department was, the changes should be manifest.

There's more room to move about, better airflow, and rearranged departments. The counter that can be seen above describes an L-shape in the floorplan, behind which canvases and paper can be requested - you can't go back into the paper aisles any more but they'll get you whatever you want from them - and the collection of vintage art supplies, once limited to the glass cabinet marked as THE MUSEUM, has been greatly expanded.

Along the front windows there can be seen, from the right, the water color aisle, then the brushes, then the acrylic colors. Screenprinting inks are just out of frame on the left, and the oil colors have moved into the space once occupied by the childrens' art supplies.

Turning about, the store looks like this now:

There's modelling supplies immediately to our right; out of sight and to the right of the colored Canson paper rack there is the graphite drawing stock, which is actually more or less where it was before the floorplan revision. The generous space allowing for some social distancing is obvious here and the design of that is quite impressive.

The biggest change, outside of the new counter spanning the middle of the store, is the absence of the custom framing department. IBF still offers framing, by appointment, and the framing crew, I understand, has now fully relocated to the other IBF location, 2819 SE Ash St over in Laurelhurst.

This brings me to the real delightful detail of all this. I regard Prairie as a marketing genius for this, but she's done a bit of a throwback for branding this location.

I overheard Rosie, one of the retailers, answer the phone I've Been Framed, Art Supply Center. It clicked with me then. When Bob Brisack opened IBF its original name was simply that: Art Supply Center. IBF has two branches at present, and the functions have been sorted out between them so that now the Foster Road location has just art supplies. Why not reach back and reclaim some of that history? What a clever and delightful idea, in my blunt opinion.

So, welcome on I've Been Framed's Art Supply Center, which is an art store as Portland as it gets.

I have a few more pictures to share and will, in a subsequent post anon (but not too far anon). In the mean time, go get you some art supplies.

I just told you where to do it.

Veni, Vidi, Legere

3582Art on the chalkboards at Powell's City of Books is always splendid. This I enjoyed Imperially.

 

This board is on the stairwell going from the Gold Room to the Pearl Room, which is heaven because that's where the art instruction books are and it's wholly proper to ascend as unto heaven for that biz, and will doubtless be up for about two more weeks. 

[map art] JAMS: The Growth Of Portland Artistically Mapped At 82nd And Division

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On the SW corner of SE 82nd and Division is a building that's been there a long, long time. For a great many hears it was the SE Portland home of Banner Furniture (which is now merely a single location out in Hillsboro), and before that, it was SE Portland's Piggly Wiggly outlet (according to the indispensable Michael Long) - I would have guessed a Safeway, since Piggly Wigglys never got down to Silverton or Salem (as far as I knew) when I was a kid and the old Safeway on East Main had a similar design and footprint).

Currently it serves as a community event venue and center called JAMS (Jade/APANO Multicultural Space), which is currently being leased by APANO, and is one of the current and evolving features of the core of area along SE 82nd between E Burnside and SE Powell which has been dubbed the Jade District. A great number of east Asian-owned businesses and culture have come out this way to join those that were already there (the Canton Grill, the late Legin (once the Lung Fung East - the pagoda-styled building razed to allow PCC-Southeast to expand) and the FuBonn shopping complex, amongst others) to form a burgeoning outer-east Portland cultural community that is evolving by the day, it seems.

JAMS bills itself as a temporary step between here and there; the building while in good repair, is clearly venerable and ripe for up-development. Until then, it's the community center that this area needs, and while it's there, it's using the old front windows, facing SE 82nd, to good effect.

There are large posters there, and one series that has caught my eye in the past few months, in the top tier of the windows facing 82nd, is a series of posters that appear to show the territorial growth of Portland since 1845.

Here's the one for 1845:

... and Portland in 1875 ...

... and Portland in 1915 ...

... by now you're noticing three things. First, the information is minimal; the visual profile of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers are clearly recognizable, the city's apparent extent limned by a thick red line, the interior of the shape filled with a vigorous, energetic, rough cross-hatching that looks like it was made on scratchboard. Secondly, the presentation is not complex, it's simple as it is direct. And, thirdly, it's rather inaccurate. The city area seems outsized and shifted to the north and west of where it should be.

So, it's a map ... but it's as much art as map. It's beginning to give me a gut-level, subjective idea of how Portland grew and despite - or perhaps because - of the informational subjectivity, it's incredibly engaging.

Now, 1945:

... 1975 ...

... and, appropriately instead of any particular year in that decade, we have the 1980s. Not only was this a 'fuzzy' time when old Portland began to change into new Portland, I can't really think of one exemplar year that would do justice to the whole decade. It was so chaotic it so many ways politically, economically, socially, and artistically.

The map does have a particularly valuable insight, in that the uniform red boundary line elsewhere in the map expands to a region on the east, and the caption 'unincorporated East-County' seems to appear as an explanation. That's an excellent way of noting that culturally and economically, even though the area between 82nd/I-205 and Gresham was part of Portland in every way but governmentally; that area was still Multnomah County. During the 1980s, of course, that era swiftly closed out, as the unincorporated land between Gresham and Portland was divvied up between the two in a rapid series of annexations which left the only unincorporated areas of Multnomah County those northwest of Linnton and that east of Troutdale and Gresham by the turn of the 2000s.

The sequence ends in 2016.

This is Portland as we have it today, with six major freeways slicing it into six easy pieces. The freeway meanders reduced to pixel-like steps, the area of "Portland" spilling over into what's actually Vancouver, the informational inaccuracy is at once aggressive on the left brain but informative to the right. Portland always has been a state of mind, now more than ever, and whysoever the art was designed this way, it's very engaging on a mind and soul level.

[pdx_art] Murals Overlooking Beautiful SE Grand Avenue

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Whilst we were at the legendary Andy & Bax, finding a replacement messenger bag for the one I had that was wearing out (yes, I am a bearded man in Portland who carries his diary around in a shoulder bag, thanks for acknowledging that I fulfill the stereotype) I noticed, going in and going out, a couple of murals that I hadn't seen before. After finally settling on a properly effete and artistely poserly bag (the Rothco M-51 engineer's field bag, there, ya happy now, you judgemental bastards?) me and Wife™ returned to the car but since I was in dilettante art-blogger mode all of a sudden, I had to get some pictures, aren't I the nice one?

Anyway. Ahem.

These two beauties are on property looking out on SE Grand Avenue between SE Ash and SE Pine Streets. The first one caught my eye because it was kind of aggressive, the other, because it was soft and evocative.

Party of the first part:

The text reads NOTHING GOOD COMES EASY, and the legend is kind of its own indictment, because the good thing that doesn't come easy is an angle on that painting. Right, out of frame, the roofline belongs to a building that comes out all the way to the sidewalk on the east side of Grand, and obscures any sort of decent, direct view of it from there; another place it cannot be seen from is across Grand from there, and Grand is pretty wide for a Portland street, so at this point, I'm thinking that Olga Volo and Zach Yarrington, the attributed artists, while passionate about doing this painting, weren't too keen on actually having people see it, which actually kind of fits, because that's as Portland passive-aggressive as you can get.

I love the mural you guys, but I got a shot of it; I bested you. I won your little game.

The other one, much more accessible, was in the parking lot immediately north of that.

This one is so sweet and moody that it pretty much took the steam out of the bad attitude I worked up going up against the other creation there. If it references something, I'm not yet sure; but it's got a mixture of moody, melancholy, and calm going on that's quite seductive and appealing.

The artist is credited as Jade Rivera, and I fell in love with the painterly maker's mark, seen left in the small graphic, located in the upper left corner of the building's wall.

I enjoyed the chase and got a little bit of walking into my out-of-shape frame, which is kind of a bonus. But me and that other mural ... we're still gonna have words at some point. 

[art] Ink: Zoë At Peet's On Couch

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The Peet's coffee on NW Couch between 11th and 12th has begun to evolve into a pre-Powell's 'book church' stop for us. The coffee is good and we can get madeleines (most of the time … it was snickerdoodle this last Saturday) which have gone beyond a mere Proustian affectation to become something I have become simply mad about.

You don't have to love A la recerche du temps perdu to love madeleines, and dipped in the front of a salted caramel latte, they're celestially good.

Our barista today was this magnetically affable young woman named Zoë. Eventually, her lower arm tattoos caught my eye, I asked permission to photograph, and she granted this request.

The wide-screen view didn't work out, but the closeups, much better. This first one made me laugh inside because of its sheer irreverence with a dark tinge.

She said it was inspried by The X-Files. The truth is out there; it's that the show is timeless, at least so far. It was the other one that really touched my heart, though, in the best Oregon-emigrant sort of way:

The cartouche curls into the suggestion of an ocean wave. it merges into flora including a palm tree, then incongruously contains a sunrise over an evergreen forest, the skyline dominated by a snow capped mountain reminiscent of Wy'east. She explained this was to honor her homes; where she came from, San Diego, and where she calls home now … Portland.

Now, that's an Oregon-California merger I can get behind. Full of West Coast heart and soul. Delicious artwork, too.

We like Zoë, and we love that branch of Peet's Coffee. Next time you're in there, may we recommend two things: Donsuemor madeleines, and a hello to Zoë. And my thanks for letting me pict her ink. Quite an honor.

[art] Arttist & Craftsman Supply: New Kid On The PDX Art Store Block

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Our Saturday art-storin' peramubulations gave us a chance to check out a new kid in town.

Artist & Craftsman Supply is an art-supply store, thought the name might throw you off a bit; it sounds like a boutique-y name for a boutique-y Home Depot variant. But it is an art-supply store, I'm happy to say. One look at the front should clue just about anyone.

Decorated in vibrant designs resonant of 1960s 'Op-art', its tucked away on SE 21st Avenue just north of and on the other side of the street from Fred Meyer's home office, which is just south of SE Powell Boulvard. To find it, turn south off Powell at the Plaid pantry at the light at 21st (just west of Powell Park and Cleveland High School, just east of the railroad underpass) and look for it on the right. You'll have a hard time missing it.

A&C isn't a local company, though it is based in Portland … the one in Maine … and they do seem to be on a nationwide expansion kick lately. Its story is kind of interesting though. As the corporate legend has it, Larry Adlerstein was a renovation professional and in 1985 his mate was let go from her job. He took a renovated structure he had available in Yarmouth, Maine and they started an art supply store there, and it apparently took the name Artist & Craftsman because she was the first one and he was the second one. It apparently did well; in 1995 they moved it to Portland where it did even better. He enjoyed having he store but in the mid-90s big money started to move into the art supply world and from his point of view the way to survive was to grow. That led to A&C's second store … in Seattle, which if you're growing from Portland in Maine, well, you don't have to be a Forbes subscriber to know that's taking a huge chance. Now, in 2017, there are more than 30 stores nationwide (there are not one but two in our Portland, the other in North Portland at the corner of N Lombard St and N Atlantic Avenue (that's just west of the light at Denver) and as of the end of 2016, it's now a 100% employee-owned store.

Walking into the place we had our expectations. I was hoping there was Preppy fountain pens, of course, but there were none, however, they had a good supply of just about everything else. Drawing, painting, all sorts of media, papers … I even saw a wall display of yarn. Notable about the store was what I call the 'impluse purchase' section closer to the front; they have a surprisingly diverse selection of merchandise such as the kind Blue Q produces.

The clerks were nice, friendly, and quite helpful. Being a chain, you'll have to make up your mind how you feel about that, Portlander; but being an employee-owned business goes a long way with some of us, me included. I would come here to see if I couldn't find something that I couldn't find anywhere else, or if a favorite source is closed.

And sections of the front wall are back-album-cover worthy:

It's a nice place. Worth a visit.

[art] I've Been Framed, March 2017

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We began patronizing I've Been Framed, the funky art-supply store and custom framing shop, back in 2003, when I was shopping for a number of art supplies for graphic design school

I found an unopened, untouched box of DaVinci gouache for, while I don't recall the exact price, a very very good deal. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Over the years we've paid innumerable visits (and there have been some, one including a cat by the name of Jordie, documented by myself here) and have never fallen out of love. It's like walking into a color explosion, or maybe a tie-dye world. If IBF doesn't have it, then you probably don't need it. They have blank books for cheap, to continue to feed my diary jones.

Its combination of new and used supplies gives it a gallmaufry atmosphere, which is a most wonderful thing, what with things being as they are. You may have your mental-health days. Mine, you'll find me here.

The art being supported by the ladykin is one of my favorite things, and it always makes me smile whenever I see it. It was living in the back for a while, and now it's up front for a while, and I almost laughed out loud when I saw it.

The store goes back for a ways. Packed as always, an explosion of color, and back all the way to the back wall and you go left is a wall full of graphite drawing supplies, more than you'd need, including Blackwings. also, even farther back, the custom framing.

In a world where Art Media sells out to Blick and Muse goes away, if you needed an idea of why I've Been Framed is important and remains so, it's that this crazy gem has been going at it for more than 60 years now … and shows no signs of stopping any time soon. Other places may have the supplies, but when it comes to sheer character and pesonality, none tops I've Been Framed.

I felt brighter just for having stepped in.

Thanks for being there, guys. And staying there.

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

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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] It's OryCon 38, Day One

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Spent yesterday evening and afternoon at OryCon 38, at the Marriott down on Naito Parkway.

This is the 29th consecutive time I've attended OryCon. It's like a homecoming, it always is. And I have more than just a history of being a member, I've contributed: in the OryCon 30s, I've designed no less than six of the Souvenir/Pocket Program sets: 30 through 34, then 37 and 38. I'm most proud of that. I feel very invested in the past and legacy now. I wasn't there at the beginning, but I still remember when it was a very young convention. I feel as though it were a part of me and now, for better or otherwise, I'm a part of it no matter what else I do.

I've even left a legacy of my own, at least for now. The illustration on the left I did as a one-off for my first stint as publications designer, back at Ory 30. It's evolved into a semi-official-unofficial logo for the event; it is the profile picture on both the event's Facebook presence as well as its Twitter.

I never became the successful graphic designer I though I was going to be. That is a kind of a sadness. Life intervened and possibilities did not come to flower. However, the contributions I've done here are very sustaining to me and remind me that, if I didn't attain the success I've hoped for, I do have the ability to create under pressure and under deadline, and that it can be good. 

The first day of 'con is for settling in. I breathe the atmosphere, connect with old friends, meet new ones. I saw opening ceremonies, which culminated in the host getting led away by someone in battle armor over the quality of the script (everyone's a critic). I got a good look at the dealer's room; attended the Art Show reception for the first time (urbanely snacking on cheese and crackers whilst browsing the works is a terribly, terribly ennobling thing for someone as feral as I). I got to meet a favorite cartoonist, Roberta Gregory. I wrote several pages in my dairy at an unclaimed table in the gaming room. All good things.

Steeped in the company of such interesting people makes a good many things feel possible. It's a renewal and a spiritual refreshment.

As long as there's an OryCon, the world isn't entirely broken, yes?

Next we meet, I may have pictures, or maybe just impressions.

[art_in_PDX] Sharpie Art Cartoons in Powell's City Of Books

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Right now, on one of the endcaps on one of the aisles of graphic novel and comics rows in the Coffee Room of Powell's City of Books, there are 6 roughly drawn yet thoughtfully-done and skillfully-executed cartoons. Here's one set.

There are six of them (they're still there as of last weekend), three on one side, three on the other. They appear to be drawn on imprecisely-trimmed foamcore board with a Sharpie. They seem to be very zeitgeist inspired, some obviously, others more indirectly.

Here's the other set:

Let's take 'em one-by-one. Top, left:

BLM. No explanation needed by now, I trust.

Next:

The Political Is Personal. For a variety of reasons I won't expound upon here (though I will eventually elsewhere) I have learned this to the bone over the last year: to the bone. Not just last week's presidential spasm, but a variety of events, votes both local and national have tied the political to the personal in my life like never before.

Thanks to 2016, I'll never look at politics quite the same way again.

This next one is enigmatic, and I'll leave the meaning for the inconstant reader to decode for themselves:

A lot of emotional responses obtain for that one above. None of which I can really put into words, but then, sometimes, art should do that to you.

That was the left side. Top right, now:

A young, hip, modern woman reads from a book on whose cover are the rubrics IMMIGRATION, SAME-SEX MARRIAGE, TRANSGENDER, CLIMATE CHANGE, EDUCATION, ABORTION, WAR. 
Important issues before. Even more, after. It's fitting that a woman should be reading them, because I think we should be hearing more from women about things like this. We know they know a lot, but the last election strongly suggested that we don't really want to hear what they have to say.

I wish that would change. I think we're collectively going to be sorry that it isn't.

Another enigmatic one. Decode the meaning for oneself:

And this last one also spoke very loudly to me. I once aspired to cartooning; editorial cartoonists have long been heroes of mine, and I've gone on to be fortunate enough to get to know a few astoundingly well on Facebook (never let it be said that Facebook never did anything for me). And this is what they do.

A revolutionary act. Especially considering the info-tainment and ratings center that modern news seems to be evolving into.

A tiny, vital art gallery, in the coffee room at Powell's. Meditation during book church.
I highly commend it to you. 

[liff] The May Day Faerie Circle in Peninsula Park II: Y'lluria, The Faerie In Charge

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On May the 1st, 2016, in Peninsula Park, in Portland, Oregon, a group of blithe spirits were called together to do something daft and absurd and fun and happy and welcome in spring. You might call this peak Portland, but I call it liberating. This is the second of several posts, several because there were so very many pictures. 

Every group of seekers needs a guru, a leader, a teacher of some sort. There are many sorts of those. Some teachers are stern, demanding obedience and obeisance, others have a more gentle way of directing and guiding. It was the second type this group had in the inimitable Y'llura Watersong.

If you watched the news during the last heat wave, you saw her. April 20th, KGW's equally-inimitable Matt Zaffino had the interview-of-a-lifetime when he met her and her friend Una at Salmon Street Springs. This was not long before I would have the pleasure of her society.

Today, she was resplendent in blue and white, flowing skirts and pooka shells, and pure graciousness.

She was patient, encouraging, totally enabling, and kind throughout. And a ball of energy it was hard to keep up with. I'm no mind reader, but I'm sure she figured she'd get some like-minds together. I'll bet she was flattered and surprised by the final group … There were at least 100 people in that circle by the height of the ritual, and some had come from an hour-or-two's drive just to take part.

The moment that captured her splendidness is this next picture here. The young lady in foreground right is a young lady of special needs, for whom there was a small problem that was a big problem for her. The look of patience and human care on Y'lluria's face says a great deal about her generosity of spirit and character. To be totally there for that young girl is the story the face tells, and if I have no other memory of ever crossing paths with her, this would be the icon for it. 

There are some blithe souls that take the time to try to make the space near them one of kindness, in hopes that would spread out and go viral.

Y'lluria is one of those souls.

[liff] The May Day Faerie Circle in Peninsula Park I: The Circle

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On May the 1st, 2016, in Peninsula Park, in Portland, Oregon, a group of blithe spirits were called together to do something daft and absurd and fun and happy and welcome in spring. You might call this peak Portland, but I call it liberating. This is the first of several posts, several because there were so very many pictures. 

There comes the time in every serious person's life when one must do something delightfully absurd and extremely fun and wonderful. Like welcoming spring in at a Faerie Circle.

Being different in Portland is, of course, something we do to a fare-thee-well. But life is a terribly serious place these days. So very much to be in dreadful expectation of. And there are good ways to unhinge ones' self. This … this is something I recommend. Because you can't be good to the world if you can't be good to yourself, and being here is being good to yourself.

They let me be good to myself. They let me be the camera who witnessed. And this is what I saw.


From the slow gathering and assembly …

… Friends and assistants gathered, and learnt the the parts they were to play. Most of us had never met or known each other, but the ground rules were clear for anyone with eyes to see: Roll with it. Be good to each other. Trust in each other; you'll know what to do when the time comes.
 

It was ritual, but it was fun. 

It's hard not to be somewhat grandiloquent when remembering the day. If you wanted to show your faerie self, go ahead; whatever yourself was, you were welcome.

A splendid human to lead us through the motions was all that we needed. The rest was provided by whatever we had to bring.

All that was left for us was to open like a flower … and roll with it.

 

I fancied I'd gone there as a reporter. I'd let the memory mellow, because I'd really wanted to be an observer. the pictures are a story; the faces tell of a certain bliss; I'll let them speak for themselves.

 

All on a temperate, sunny Oregon day in May. 

In the year 2016.