Art Hive

Mayor Sam Adams wants to establish Portland as a mecca
for young creatives, though as with any idealistic vision—however
attainable—Adams’ dream Portland has a ways to go before it can
become a reality. While we’ve got plenty of places to display art and
Oregon is ranked 11th in the nation for total arts employees, housing
is expensive in prominent arts districts, and young creatives will need
incentives if Adams wants to keep Portland’s fresh minds local.

Milepost 5 (MP5), a nonprofit established by ArtPlace Development (a
partnership between Portland Affordable Housing Preservation Trust and
Beam Development), is Adams’ brainchild, offering “affordable”
live-work spaces for artists, musicians, graphic designers, and those
often lumped under the umbrella term “creatives.” MP5 consists of a
building called the Lofts, which opened in June of 2008, and another
called the Studios, scheduled to open in August of next year. Future
plans include an on-site restaurant and performance space.

MP5 currently offers amenities such as dedicated parking, close
access to public transit, and most importantly, a budding community of
like-minded artistic types—though several problems remain.

First off, “affordable” is a relative term. Many artists aren’t
ready to buy a live-work space for $99,995-274,995—and the sales
numbers evidence this reality. According to Claire Paris, MP5’s real
estate agent, there are 54 units in the Lofts and only nine have sold
so far, with “one unit occupied by our artist in residence and a few
others [leasing] on an interim basis.” Ten units in the Lofts are
currently being leased, “and those people [leasing] will be transferred
to the Studios once they open,” says Gavin Shettler, MP5’s creative
director. The Studios will be rental only, ranging from $200-450 a
month (and there is a waiting list 200 people deep).

While affordability is affecting MP5’s success, so is its
location—at NE 82nd and Holladay, an area known for its hookers
and broken windows. The location’s semi-nefarious reputation isn’t the
only drawback. It’s farther out than many young creatives want to live,
away from popular galleries, music venues, and
restaurants—whereas Everett Station Lofts, a similar live-work
space, is all location, towering in the epicenter of the First Thursday
art walk and the Pearl District.

MP5’s attempted solution to the location issue is smart—they
let the owners of the condos author their community, augmenting the
space to create an area where residents will want to spend time. Paris
explains, “The developers have done their best to [avoid prescribing a
community] by being as fluid as possible with the development. One [of]
the residents really wanted a vegetable garden and the footprint of the
property allowed them to create a huge community vegetable garden.”
Flexibility is part of the mission—but it’s going to have to keep
bending.

Part of establishing an open-source arts colony is hosting
open-source art events—a great way to show potential tenants what
MP5 could look like in full swing.

In May of 2008, Chris Haberman, creative director of Portland City
Art and curator for Beam Development, curated the art show 30
Rooms at MP5. At the time, MP5 had sold two units. Since then,
they’ve seen new leasers and buyers. According to Shettler, the
connection between large-scale arts events and community growth is “one
of the reasons why we [host art shows]—to show activity and to
create interest. We see a direct correlation.”

Haberman is also curating MP5’s upcoming festival Manor of
Art, featuring upward of 100 artists and 20 bands, running from
August 14-23.

“I gave the artists full creative freedom and trust them to create
something good,” explains Haberman. “I don’t know what the show will
end up looking like.”

The artists involved in Manor of Art display a wide range of
mediums and aesthetics—each got their own room in the Studios, an
old retirement home—and left to their own devices the
possibilities are nearly limitless.

Shettler says Manor is already generating interest in MP5:
“Every day there are 50 more hits on the website. As Manor ramps
up we have all this activity—I have three to five people signing
up on the waiting list for the Studios each day.”

Upon exposure to MP5, many artists are ready to ignore its location
in order to immerse themselves in its creative community, but, though
the most interest is in the rental spaces—”that’s where we see
the spikes,” says Shettler—there are no plans to convert units in
the Lofts to permanent rentals, and the Studios are still a year out
from opening their doors. So while Manor of Art may prove a
tantalizing introduction to the community, artists interested in MP5’s
most affordable housing options will just have to wait.

INSIDE THE MANOR OF ART

Gabriel Liston’s room at Manor has a grandma’s-attic
vibe: a comfy-looking broken chair stands by a table that’s covered in
antique books; an old doll and a set of kiddie skis sit next to a
bookshelf, while Liston’s paintings are almost lost in this foreground
clutter. Liston’s work has a children’s-book quality—circa
Blueberries for Sal or The Snowman—though
subtleties add quick depth. In one piece, a boy holds his hand against
the sky. Upon a closer look, the boy is actually plucking a
cloud from the atmosphere, forcing the viewer to notice a dry-brush
technique that renders portions of his shirt and arm transparent. The
boy is dotted with patches of blue, as if being absorbed into the
heavens. Many of Liston’s works confront substance—the unholdable
held, the solid giving into its inevitable
deconstruction—communicating an impermanence and the organic
confluence between human and landscape.

Richard Schemmerer is all over Manor. Not only does he
have his own room—Room 257, tentatively titled Drawing from
out side of the line—but he is also co-curating a group room
with Haberman, titled Alter Nation, which displays a series of
altars. The altars created by Schemmerer are 3D collages, constructed
with just about anything he could get his hands on. For one altar,
Schemmerer positioned a dozen or so mirrors along the wall and floor,
arranging them into a backdrop and pyre-ish shape. Dividing the mirrors
into multiple planes, stacks of masks, paintings, stained glass, beads,
and other objects are formed into tidy columns. At the top of the
piece, a doll head is found within a circular mishmash of colored
glass, wings rising from these center elements. Compounded with the
title of the room, Schemmerer’s altars make gods of strangeness and
abstraction, celebrating our political freedom of expression outside of
constraint—when the onlooker sees multiples of their own image
trapped in Schemmerer’s assemblages, they are forced to examine their
relationship with freedom.

Gary Wiseman and Meredith Andrews, a self-described
“collaborative team in life and work,” were the artists in residence at
MP5 from March to May of 2009. They’ve come back to create a
yet-to-be-titled installation for Manor, incorporating materials
found in the building along with video and architectural components.
Wiseman explains the project as “a film set turned inside out [with]
the surface and the support infrastructure exposed to the viewer,”
which the duo intends as a symbol for “the internal construction of
self.” While some artists scoff at MP5’s location, Wiseman says, “The
only thing that would prevent us from going back to live at MP5 are the
ghosts.”

Another artist who feels the presence of past tenants from the
Studios’ retirement-home era is Nicole Linde, whose paintings
have an entheogenic quality similar to Alex Grey’s iconic works. Linde
will display paintings, as well as site-specific murals that she is
painting on and around the doors of her room.

“When I first sat in my room I felt the energy of older people
living there, and often times this was right before the final days of
their life,” says Linde, who continues by explaining that she “wanted
to paint the idea that these doors were portals to unknown worlds.” One
such door displays hive, floral, and vine patterns streaming from a
person’s head. Above the door, synaptic patterns spill down the wall in
rainbow-colored gradients.

Possibly the most fitting show for an old retirement home, Marian Spadone is displaying her biodegradable burial shrouds and caskets.
Using two rooms and the connecting hallway, Spadone takes on death as a
transition, “using organic materials to create a quiet, earthy
meditative environment in the first room [while the] hallway will
feature a lighter tone, [leading] to a room that suggests how a ‘home
funeral’ might play out.” While many artists take on death and the
spiritual, Spadone does so directly, without hesitation, bringing
calmness to the transition.

While visual art is the bulk of Manor, music and performance
aren’t overlooked. Bands will play throughout both weekends of the
event, including Boy Eats Drum Machine, Jeffrey Jerusalem, Atole,
Chores, Blue Skies for Black Hearts, and Church. Church plays the first
Saturday night (August 15). Their coming-of-age show at this year’s PDX
Pop Now!, with the addition of a horn section, illustrated just how
much their music has matured recently; electric pianos twinkled and
lingered between war drums, cavernous guitar balladry, and lyrics like,
“We’ll drink champagne in heaven when we die,” which left gorgeous yet
uncomfortable visceral impressions.

On Wednesday, August 19, and Thursday, August 20, the Risk/Reward
New Performance Series is going down. Both nights will feature
20-minute pieces by Joe von Appen (dark, comedic monologues), Angela
Fair (performing Hot Live Action—more monologues), Faith
Helma (performing a sound-based piece, Undine), and Hand2Mouth
Theatre.