In about two weeks, Andy McMillan and Andy Baio will welcome several hundred makers what may be the last XOXO Festival. The Fest is a mere four years old, but during that short run it became a premier destination for discussing creativity and technology. Over the years, attendees included a huge range of creatives: blog stars from Boing Boing, DJ sensation Dan Deacon, design fiends of all stripes, the makers of Cards Against Humanity, and social thinkers like feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian, as...
Aug 26, 2016•6 min
Aug 20, 2016•9 min
Aug 20, 2016•6 min
It’s set to be a blistering weekend, so we’re going to do our best to cool things down this hour with classical music in the woods, golden harmonies soaring over the Willamette, and a brilliant, new blue pigment. Classical Music Meets Silent Disco At Stunning WPA Sites The pianist Hunter Noack is harking back to the Works Progress Administration era with a concert series called “In A Landscape.” He has invited such musical luminaries as Pink Martini’s Thomas Lauderdale and China Forbes to join h...
Aug 19, 2016•52 min
Filmed in Cottage Grove, Buster Keaton’s 1926 silent film, “The General,” is considered one of the greatest movies of all time. Telling the story of a blundering train conductor who inadvertently saves the Confederate Army during the Civil War, it mixed a then-unique blend of Keaton’s trademark slapstick with action and drama, not to mention one of the most ambitious stunts of the silent era. In a celluloid coincidence of cosmic proportions, the Hollywood Theatre is also celebrating its 90th ann...
Aug 05, 2016•10 min
This week, on State of Wonder: a multi-city birthday party for Oregon’s milestone in silent film history, Buster Keaton’s "The General," with a brand new live score; moments of reckoning as the Oregon Shakespeare Festival responds to threats against black actors, and opens up about dealing with resistance to its equity work; and Erin McKeown drops in to bend your mind, taking gospel music into the bathroom stall. Love It Or Loath It - Portland Newest High-Rise: The Yard The new chocolate-brown h...
Aug 05, 2016•51 min
Not since Big Pink or the Interstate Bank tower has Portland produced a highrise that so many people have opinions about. We’re talking about Yard, the chocolate-brown, 21-story apartment tower recently finished at the east end of the Burnside Bridgehead. We check it out with State of Wonder's Columnist-in-Residence, Randy Gragg, of the University of Oregon's John Yeon Center for Archtecture and the Landscape.
Aug 05, 2016•11 min
This week on State of Wonder, we take a break from our summer reading to look back at last year's Wordstock book festival. We'll hear from three authors with fascinating backstories lay out the singular works they delivered in 2015. This year's festival is set to begin on November 5. Jesse Eisenberg Made His Name Playing Neurotic Characters. Turns Out He Can Write Like Them Too. Jesse Eisenberg is best known for starring in movies such as “The Social Network,” "Batman V. Superman," and “Zombiela...
Aug 04, 2016•51 min
There are a lot of reasons to visit Joseph, Oregon, beginning with the spectacular Wallowa Mountains. But for ceramic artists, there’s one very specific reason: a residency program that some have called the Shangri-la of ceramics. But the LH Project is not the mental image you might have of an artists’ residency. There are no glasses of merlot, no berets, no still lives of lilacs and persimmons. LH is pure rock ‘n’ roll clay-slinging that attracts artists from around the world, including a group...
Jul 30, 2016•10 min
It's the art road trip of the summer! Work on view in 13 Oregon cities. Milwaukee-based artist, academic, and curator Michelle Grabner curates this year's Disjecta Portland2016 biennial - we follow her process and she tells us her approach.
Jul 29, 2016•16 min
This week, the vacation comes to you! We've got excellent road trips to some of the most beautiful and inspiring parts of Oregon and the creators who work there. Pack up, grab a bag of sunflower seeds — we're hitting the road. Veterans Chase Rock 'n' Roll Ceramics And Granite Peaks at the LH Project There are a lot of reasons to visit Joseph, Oregon, beginning with the spectacular Wallowa Mountains. But for ceramic artists, there’s one very specific reason: a residency program that some have cal...
Jul 29, 2016•55 min
State of Wonder's Columnist-in-Residence, Randy Gragg, talks to designers of three new icons in the Portland Skyline: Park Avenue West, The Cosmopolitan, and Indigo @ twelve | west. To see some gorgeous drone's-eye views of all three, find the article at our website: http://www.opb.org/radio/programs/stateofwonder/
Jul 29, 2016•25 min
A show at Jeffrey Thomas Gallery addresses issues of memory through the work of 16 West Coast artists who emphasize or deny color in their work.
Jul 29, 2016•4 min
Visual artist Arvie Smith talks to us about his decades of work interpreting and subverting mainstream images of black life. His work is on view at the Portland Art Museum's APEX Gallery July 30th-November 13th.
Jul 29, 2016•9 min
Portland’s comedy scene is incendiary, and one of the prime movers we have to thank for it is Shelley McLendon. She’s the mastermind behind Bad Reputation Productions, which has staged hilarious adaptations of movies like "Road House" and "The Lost Boys;" she's a member of several of the city’s top sketch groups, including the Aces and the Liberators; and she’s the proprietress of the Siren Theater, a new downtown venue dedicated to sketch comedy, improv and the zanily theatrical. In preview of ...
Jul 22, 2016•52 min
In a world where we think we’ve seen everything, the videos of the shootings of Alton Sterling and, especially, Philando Castile were shocking because of the intimacy they offered. Anyone who watched Diamond Reynolds calmly addressing the police officer who shot her boyfriend, Castile, as he lay dying beside her, will never forget it. Across the country, people took to the streets and to the internet. People mourned and raged on social media. And a number of prominent local writers shared an ess...
Jul 18, 2016•7 min
This week on State of Wonder, we’re going to spend the hour exploring how the region’s artists are using their work to process the hurricane of emotions that erupted after last week’s deadly shootings of two African American men in Louisiana and Minnesota, and five policemen in Dallas — although as several of our guests point out, it's nothing new. What's Race Got To Do With It? We begin the show at a recent event organized by a group called the Color of Now on Monday night, where more than 150 ...
Jul 16, 2016•52 min
We sat down with Rasheed Jamal and Mic Capes to talk about their writing, and next steps after Minneapolis, Baton Rouge, and Dallas.
Jul 15, 2016•16 min
Every summer, writers from all over the country head to the base of the towering Wallowa Mountains for Summer Fishtrap, a conference about writing and the West. This year, the festival runs July 10–16 with a slew of workshops, public events, and a keynote talk by the award-winning nature writer Robert Michael Pyle. In anticipation of the event, we're going to listen back to a live show we did at the festival last year, where we talked with the National Book Award–winner Timothy Egan, several fou...
Jul 07, 2016•53 min
When Bonnie Laing Malcolmson started as a 17-year-old student at the Museum Art School at the Portland Art Museum in 1970, there wasn’t much of a Northwest art collection. Malcolmson graduated and pursued a career in arts administration. She eventually served as the director of academic affairs at the Pacific Northwest College of Art and then the president of the Oregon College of Arts and Craft, where she spearheaded a nearly $15 million dollar expansion. By the time Malcolmson returned to the ...
Jul 02, 2016•9 min
All those new apartment buildings going up all over Portland? They're not all created equal. What exactly are developers paying for when they engage architects to design a building? Our columnist-in-residence Randy Gragg peels back the layers with a look at the Lower Burnside Lofts, designed by Vallaster Corl Architects PC.
Jul 02, 2016•9 min
Dozens Of Artists Displaced After Sale of Troy Laundry Building For nearly 40 years, dozens of artists have worked out of the historic Troy Laundry Building. It's the oldest cooperative art studio in the city, but now the building has a new owner, and most of the artists who had studios there are searching for new homes. We bring you the latest in the story after talking with artists, real estate developers, and government and city officials. Writer Sherman Alexie On His First Children's Book- 1...
Jul 02, 2016•52 min
For nearly 40 years, dozens of artists have worked out of the historic Troy Laundry Building in Portland’s Central East Side. It's the oldest cooperative art studio in the city. But now the building has a new owner, and most of those artists are searching for new homes. Read the full story: http://www.opb.org/artsandlife/article/portland-troy-launry-building-studio-co-op-sale/
Jun 26, 2016•12 min
Hey people! It’s summer! Time to hit some shows. And to help you get your calendar arranged, this week we're cranking up the volume on some of the best bands we met in studio sessions this year who happen to have shows in the area, plus a super fancy, exclusive concert premiere. You can find videos of all these performances at www.opb.org/stateofwonder . Iconic Supergroup case/lang/veirs Teams Up Neko Case, k.d. lang and Laura Veirs finished three years of work on a lush, soulful new record and ...
Jun 24, 2016•51 min
More on what's happening to hundreds of independent record labels left in the lurch by Allegro Media Group's liquidation.
Jun 17, 2016•6 min
Portland Pride Stands Up For Orlando After the shooting at the Pulse night club in Orlando, leaders of Portland Pride and community members have organized several candlelight vigils, and many artists, arts groups and pride parties are re-configuring their plans to lend their support to the victims of the tragedy. We talk with Don Horn, the founder of Triangle Productions, a theater well-known for producing LGBT plays. Currently, they're sending a percentage of ticket sales for "American Idiot" (...
Jun 17, 2016•52 min
In 2008, Bend-based Delia Paine found herself swept up in a moment that fused art, message, and community. She told us this story when we visited her to discuss her part in an installation at the High Desert Museum. Take a listen.
Jun 11, 2016•11 min
Contemporary Artist Allan McCollum and Bend button czar Delia Paine, talk about their collaboration for an installation on view through October 2.
Jun 10, 2016•8 min
Katie Proctor's vision for a more inclusive experience in a brick and mortar comic book store. Her shop, Books With Pictures, is the latest iteration of a national discussion about women as readers and vendors.
Jun 10, 2016•6 min
It's been one of those weeks when we almost got lost in the sheer enjoyment of the prep. 1:10 Books With Pictures - Portland has a new comic book shop, officially open for business. Books With Pictures is a cozy storefront in southeast Portland with a mission to be Portland’s most welcoming comic book shop for the people outside the industry’s marketing plan — the LGTBQ community, families, women, people of color — complete with gender neutral restrooms and comics with female protagonists and pr...
Jun 10, 2016•53 min
