In depth on the complaints about glassmakers that led two top officials to resign at DEQ. Also, we talk to one of the plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against Bullseye Glass.
We’re laughing on the outside and crying on the inside this week. The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Brings Copyright Law Into the 21st Century - 00:59 The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation announced this week it will no longer charge copyright fees except for commercial uses (did you know artists can sue you for posting a photo of their work online?). Producer Aaron Scott explains why this is a big deal and speaks with Rauschenberg's son, who just so happens to be Portlander Christopher Rauschenbe...
If Portland's stand-up scene can seem a crowded one, it's about to get a bit smaller. Amy Miller and Sean Jordan have been working their comedic magic for years in Portland, but the two are moving to Los Angeles this month, following in the footsteps of the city's other top-tier comics like Ron Funches and Ian Karmel (who Jordan will room with). The duo are doing a final gig on Sunday, Mar. 13 called Amy Miller and Sean Jordan's Friendship and Pizza Party. Joining them will be a number of vetera...
Mayoral candidate Sean Davis teaches writing at Mt. Hood and Clackamah Community Colleges. His memoir, "The Wax Bullet War", was published in 2014 on Ooligan Press. He’s also a U.S. military veteran. 2:00-4:21 Sean's work in arts: film, friend’s bands, an original opera, etc. 4:22-5:46 - On Portland’s unique art scene: “Artists happen in a couple different ways. People turn to art because all of their needs are met and they’re able to do art. The second group turn to art despite their needs not ...
The Portland glassmaker's emission problem sends ripples through global art glass community.
We are up to our eyeballs this week in Interesting. 00:58 Stēla Comics Digital comics are big business. Sales in 2014 topped $100 million dollars — and that was before Amazon acquired the main online marketplace Comixology last year. But have you ever tried reading a digital comic book? It's not easy. Which is why the start-up Stēla is developing brand new titles written and drawn to be read on a smart phone, and instead of charging per issue, they're offering it as a monthly subscription. A Net...
Mayoral candidates Jules Bailey and Ted Wheeler talk about architecture, urban planning, and design with Randy Gragg at the Bright Lights conversation series at Jimmy Mak's. Gragg took the candidates for a walk around to go further in depth: http://www.opb.org/artsandlife/article/a-mayoral-candidates-walking-tour-of-portland
Can a horror comic be beautiful? In the hands of Portland comic book artist Tyler Crook and author Cullen Bunn it can. The two have created a Gothic fairy tale called that follows a girl, as she deals with her connection to the town witch, Hester Beck, and to the undead that reside in the woods outside her small Southern town. Bunn's Faulkner-esque prose weaves together with Crook's watercolors to bring out a dark, haunting vision of the American South. The graphic novel collecting the first yea...
This week our resident architecture critic, Randy Gragg, joined mayoral candidates Jules Bailey and Ted Wheeler on walkabout. Gragg took the candidates through their paces, pushing them to get specific about the architecture and design issues facing our city. Wheeler, Oregon's state Treasurer and a former Multnomah County chair, elected to stroll through Montavilla, one of Southeast Portland’s increasingly rare beasts: a desirable yet still affordable neighborhood. Bailey, former state represent...
Digital startup Stēla Comics leverages Portland's talent pool to make made-for-mobile publisher/reader app.
The arts news is coming in size XL this week. Glass Houses In Southeast Portland, residents continue to reel from news that they've been exposed to unhealthy levels of heavy metals in the air. As we reported last week, environmental regulators admitted they didn't know how much cadmium and arsenic were coming out of the Bullseye Glass facility. That is, until experimental testing using moss revealed this pollution hot spot. A lot of people have been asking how environmental rules allowed these p...
The bloom of youth and the stillness of maturity hit the stage at Oregon Ballet Theatre this season with James Canfield’s take on "Romeo and Juliet," opening Feb. 27, and Nicolo Fonte’s "Beautiful Decay," set to open in April. Shakespeare’s remains the classic love story that ends in suicide, while Beautiful Decay takes on aging and death by contrasting OBT's young dancers with two 75-year-old dance veterans. Aaron Scott sat down with Canfield, who founded OBT in 1989, and Fonte to get some insi...
Irene Taylor Brodsky has made a number of award-winning documentaries, ranging from "Hear and Now," which followed her deaf parents as they heard for the first time after cochlear implants, to "Saving Pelican 895," which tracked the rescue of a single pelican from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Now, Brodsky has two very different films coming out in quick succession. The first, "Open Your Eyes," is about a blind Nepali couple who see for the first time after unexpected cataract treatment. It s...
Portlander Andre Allen Anjos is up for a Grammy on Monday for best remixed recording. He works under the name RAC, and he’s become the go-to guy for remixing indie bands, from The Arcade Fire to Foster the People. As a college student in Greenville, Illinois, Andre Allen Anjos didn’t aspire to be a globe-trotting artist and DJ whose songs have racked up millions of listens. “My highest aspiration was to be a studio assistant, where I could work with recording equipment and make a living, but not...
We are all feeling positively giddy because of everyone sending their nickles and dimes during pledge week. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU. Portland's Brittle Glass House One of the world’s top makers of art glass is reeling after revelations that its plant in Southeast Portland has been emitting vastly more cadmium and arsenic than previously known. Bullseye Glass suspended production of some products this week, and a second Portland-based glass-maker, Uroboros, followed suit. Earthfix's Cassa...
The Eugene Symphony pushes itself to a new level for its 50th anniversary season with three new commissions.
This spring we're sharing a series of candidate interviews regarding Portland's future and the arts. City council candidate Chloe Eudaly has seen a lot change in the arts community since she opened her bookstore, Reading Frenzy, in 1994. Listen in as she catches us up on that history and gives us a peek into her vision for the future of arts and culture in Portland. 2:32 - Portland's future and how arts & culture play into it. “If we don't have affordable housing for our low-income residents...
State of Wonder is starting a new series focused on architecture, design, and the changing face of the city with columnist-in-residence Randy Gragg. Gragg is the executive director of the John Yeon Center for Architecture and the Landscape at the University of Oregon, and previously worked as editor in chief at "Portland Monthly" and as the long-time architecture critic at the "Oregonian." For our first story together, we’re going to look at one of the most significant building projects going on...
It's pledge week, people! Of course we're putting out the good china: one of the season's most sumptuous films, a new way to look at a Portland icon, and the unveiling of the Portland 2016 Biennial artists. Portland's Second Largest Art Museum to Close - 1:14 Pacific Northwest College of Art is folding Oregon's 79-year-old Museum of Contemporary Craft into a new Center for Contemporary Art and Culture, laying off most employees, and selling the building. We hear some background and hopes/fears f...
The Museum of Contemporary Craft is no stranger to changes in name and location. It was originally founded in 1937 as the Oregon Ceramics Studio on SW Corbett Avenue. It went through several titles before settling on its current name when it moved into the Pearl District in 2007. MOCC now bills itself as the oldest continuously-running craft institution in the United States, and along the way, it developed a national reputation for its thoughtful, innovative exhibitions. Now the museum will unde...
One of a series of candidate interviews regarding Portland's future and the arts. Fred Stewart is an impatient Portlander. That’s why, he told us this week, he’s running for Portland city council. We talk to Stewart about about his ideas on housing for artists, public funding for art, and the policy issues he’s most impatient about. 0:30 - On art that's influenced him: “I grew up with an artist, my grandfather. So, I grew up in an artistic household. It taught me another way of communicating.” 6...
Getting a photo taken while sitting on Santa's lap can be awkward in the best of circumstances, but these misfit shots are another level of Christmas weird. John Strieder reports for us.
This week we moderated a candidates' forum hosted by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the Creative Advocacy Coalition. The purpose was to talk with candidates for mayor and council about hot issues like Portland's arts tax, city funding for arts organizations and projects, equity in the arts, affordable artist housing and more. Here's a breakdown of what we asked them with some highlights. 02:16 What arts and creative work have you checked out over the past two months? 07:10 What's your...
Do designers have a shelf life? That's the question State of Wonder guest curator, the user experience designer Elena Moon, asked that set us in search of a craft that only improves with age. Amy Hazel, who co-owns a fly fishing shop in Maupin, the Deschutes Angler, has traveled the world looking for great places to fish. But if you’re wondering where the best spots in the world—or just on the Deschutes—are, she makes it clear that you’re going to need far more than GPS coordinates. What you’ll ...
Ten years ago, the quintessential tiny house was a re-purposed shipping container, industrial-modern and proud of it. That was fitting for a movement whose rising appeal was tethered to the global financial crisis, but the aesthetic is changing. Just ask Abel Zimmerman Zyl, a Washingtonian whose company, Zyl Vardos, makes decidedly whimsical tiny-house caravans. The company specializes in organic shapes and has been happily installing undulating rooflines, circular Hobbit-esque doors, and bright...
This week we welcome user experience (UX) designer Elena Moon as our guest curator. She has this fantastic way of explaining what works and why, and she’s going to lead us through her own work and the designed world, from parking meters to space ships. User Experience 101 - 00:00 We kick off with a quick primer on UX. Whether you’re talking about everyday objects or brand new apps, solid design is anything but accidental. Elena explains why some brands stand out. Take Uber, for example. Whatever...
The Dandy Warhols first met Bowie because he was singing along. It was Glastonbury in 2000, and the band looked to the side of the stage during their set to see Bowie and his band, in their black suits, belting along. In 2002, Bowie headlined the Meltdown Festival in London, and he invited the Dandies to be the first band since Lou Reed to share his stage. Then he took them on tour as his opening act. Then he came out to shoot pool and jam with them in their Portland warehouse, the Odditorium. I...
While we were in Joseph for a show about art in rural communities last summer, we heard about a painter you might not expect to find in cowboy country, where most of the art leans towards landscapes and wildlife. “There’s a great artist here named Bob Fergison, who just turned 82, and he’s at least three-quarters blind,” said Seth Kinzie, the web developer at the Josephy Center for Arts and Culture. “He’s very Max Beckmann–like,” said the center’s executive director, Cheryl Coughlan. “Oil painti...
After a big 2015 finale to his mountaineering thriller, "High Crimes", Moustafa is back with a special issue of DC's "Doctor Fate".
