You don’t have to have an art focus to benefit from art.
Posted inSpring Arts 2026
The Mercury’s 2026 Spring Arts Preview: We Need Art to Survive
The arts need us. And we need the arts.
Spring Arts 2026
Posted inSpring Arts 2026
The Save Lloyd Campaign Wants Some Say in What Happens to Lloyd Center Mall
This might be the last year for Lloyd Center.
This might be the last year for Lloyd Center. There’s a plan for what’s next, but a community that’s grown in the mall in recent years isn’t happy with it or the process of deciding Lloyd Center’s future. Urban Renaissance, the real estate development group that partly owns the mall, has a vision for what […]
Posted inSpring Arts 2026
NEA Cuts: One Year Later
Five local arts organizations on coping with the chaos of cancelled National Endowment for the Arts grants.
When Donald Trump reassumed the presidency in January of 2025, arts organizations around the country anticipated changes at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)—particularly those the president accused of having a “woke agenda.” But they were not prepared for the chaos that would quickly develop. Last spring, numerous organizations, including in Portland, received emails […]
Posted inSpring Arts 2026
David Hockney’s Restless Eye Is Revealed
The Portland Art Museum’s new exhibition shows the artist’s evolving style across 60 years and 200 artworks.
“David sees the world backward,” says Doug Roberts, a Los Angeles art dealer and longtime friend of David Hockney. Roberts was appearing on a panel about the artist, as part of Portland Art Museum’s (PAM) new exhibition tracing 60 years of Hockney’s work. He meant it as praise. Hockney, whose sunny California scenes somehow simmer […]
Posted inSpring Arts 2026
Jessie Rose Vala Channels Ecological Grief Into The Pollinators
“They are kind of moth-like and plant-like. But they also have neon coming out of their eyes.”
When you walk into Jessie Rose Vala’s show at Chefas Projects, you’ll quickly realize: These aren’t your average ceramics. Instead of raku fired pots or pastel hand-thrown vases, Vala’s work transforms clay into mission statements about the state of the world. Combining sculptural ceramics with neon and metallics, Vala’s pieces feel chimeric, bringing in elements […]
Posted inSpring Arts 2026
Reading the Room at Cooley Gallery’s IF
The new exhibition unites three artists, including a former nun.
What does it mean to write in space? At Reed College’s Cooley Gallery, new director and curator Derek Franklin thinks about it, bringing together three eloquent artists who take language into form. IF pairs serigraphs by Sister Corita Kent, a Roman Catholic nun who eventually left the order to devote herself fully to anti-war, pro-love […]
Posted inSpring Arts 2026
The Makers of Untitled Goose Game Hit a Different, Still Mischievous Note With Big Walk
House House’s new friend hang video game is beautiful, even if it made me dizzy.
Big Walk made me motion sick, but I want to play it again. The new video game invites players into an open world setting where they can talk to their friends, solve puzzles, explore, or—dare we say—kiki? We got a chance to demo the game at the Panic office in downtown Portland, and soon so […]
Posted inSpring Arts 2026
Find Your Passion for Graphic Design at Volumes
A library of design materials opens in Portland’s historic J.K. Gill Building this spring.
Volumes isn’t a library where you have to be quiet.
Posted inSpring Arts 2026
Kevin Sampsell’s New Novel Looks at the World Through a Baby in the Night
I’m jealous that the two-year-old in this book has late night dinner options.
When we find stuff to hate it means we’re becoming more like grown-ups.
Posted inSpring Arts 2026
Spring 2026 Movies To Put on Your Calendar
A season of films that rush in like Ryan Gosling sci-fi and out like Sheep Detectives.
ceaseless banter machine Ryan Gosling must remember his past to save humanity’s future
Posted inSpring Arts 2026
Portland Center Stage and Portland Playhouse Team up To Serve Fat Ham
The Pulitzer Prize-winning play is a Black and queer spin on Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Hamlet can be a lot of things: A sad boy who can’t make up his mind. A philosopher plumbing the mysteries of the human condition. A guy with some really weird feelings about his mom. Simba from The Lion King. In Fat Ham, playwright James Ijames reimagined the prince of Denmark as Juicy, a queer […]
Posted inSpring Arts 2026
A Mirror Shines Like a Kaleidoscope
The questions Sam Holcroft poses about making art under authoritarianism are certainly timely.
These are deeply worrisome times. Stability, democracy, countries, our neighbors—all seem less permanent than they once were. Sam Holcroft’s complex and frightening 2023 play A Mirror reflects this uncertainty. The play isn’t timely, nor is it meant to be. It’s more like a kaleidoscope—as is our current, fractured reality. We can look at this play and ask […]