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 BEST
FUNCTIONAL PUBLIC ART
From the Hawthorne Bridge to bike lanes to
Bud Clark, Portland has no shortage of institutions to make
a cyclist's pulse beat even stronger than usual. And it
keeps geting better. Over the past couple of years, a unique
series of bicycle racks have transformed otherwise mundane
pieces of urban hardware into opportunities for art and
humor. The rack outside the Lucky Lab Brew Pub (915 SE Hawthorne
Blvd.) features a dog's head. The rack in front of Fremont
Family Vision (2480 NE Fremont St.) is shaped like a pair
of glasses. Outside World Cup Coffee (1740 NW Glisan St.),
rests a steaming cup of java--you get the drift. The art
racks are the brainchildren of Merrill Denney, a Dundee
metal worker and industrial sculptor who built his first
rack because his favorite grocery, the Petrich General Store
in Scholls, had no place for him to tether his 10-speed.
An avid cyclist himself, Denney builds the racks out of
inch-and-a-half schedule-40 steel pipe, encased in a powder
coating that is baked in an oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
"It's tough as nails," he says. The Bicycle Transportation
Alliance is now working with businesses and neighborhood
groups to increase the number of art racks around town.
"This is a way to bring the delight of bicycling to people
where they live and work," says Diane Dulkin of the BTA.
"It's one of those things that makes Portland a fun place
to live." We couldn't agree more.
BEST
PLACE TO IGNORE A
NO TRESPASSING SIGN
Wander past the No Trespassing sign that marks
the threshold of the side yards between Il Fornaio and Northwest
22nd Place, and you'll find yourself at the home of Hazel
Hall. It's OK to loiter on the periphery of the late
poet's house. In fact, it makes sense that you have to set
foot in her domain to read the poems on view at her understated
memorial; when she was living, you would have had to drop
by her house if you hoped to meet with her. Hall survived
scarlet fever when she was 12 and spent the rest of her
life in a wheelchair. Her final home was at 52 Lucretia
Place--now 106 NW 22nd Place--where she is rumored to have
relied upon a mirror held at angles to observe the world
outside her windows. In a letter to her editor, she wrote,
"Writing has been everything to me. Sometimes it seems that
I must write my way out, and sometimes a flash of
feeling cries that I will."
 BEST
WRITER FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM
When this year's calender turns over, many people
expect major chaos ranging from screwed-up bank balances
to the end of the world as we know it. So it's no surprise
that apocalyptic mayhem has become a popular subject in
the world of literature. Fortunately, Portland has a writer
who not only has a firm grasp of post-modern angst, but
is poised to become a millennial media fixture in the next
few months. The movie version of Chuck Palahniuk's
Oregon Book Award-winning debut novel, Fight Club,
is being released in September. The story is about guys
who meet in basements to beat the crap out of each other.
The film stars such megastars as Brad Pitt, Edward Norton
and Helena Bonham Carter. This is coupled with the debut
of Palahniuk's third novel, Invisible Monsters, and
a book tour across the country. His second book, Survivor,
was published in the spring. With hype and hard knocks,
Palahniuk leads us into the unknown.
BEST
CD ART
When the CD first emerged as a force to be reckoned
with, many lamented the eminent death of album art. How
would anyone do anything interesting with such little space?
No one thought label owners like JJ Gonson of Undercover
Records would make CD packaging more dimensional
than LP sleeves. "The least noticed thing about music is
the packaging, and it's my favorite part," she says. "We've
done things in envelopes, and all of our singles are hand-silkscreened."
The best example of Gonson's design fetish is H Om,
Kevin "Bingo" Richey's debut solo album, an elaborate project
that required equally elaborate presentation. The expansive
nature of the music, which incorporates traditional American
country-folk and Indian ragas, is captured by mystical illustrations
and an intricate chart of Bingo's guest musicians and their
instruments. Mirrored images reflect the song "Sham Ba Q'allah,"
which sounds the same played forward or backward. Bingo
chose the imprints, including a constellation map and a
William Blake illustration, and Gregg Weiss silkscreened
them onto red card stock in black and gold ink. Gonson designed
a unique tri-fold package that encloses the CD inside a
pouch with a protective flap. Now if only there were some
way to get a life-size poster of Bingo in there...
BEST
AUDIO GUIDE
The ideal guide comforts and elucidates. John
Buchanan fits the bill perfectly. Last winter, as he
did earlier for the Imperial Tombs of China exhibition,
the Portland Art Museum's executive director used his wonderful
narrative voice and great subject knowledge to lead thousands
through Monet's late paintings of Giverny. Less understood
by museum visitors is the audio guide's other function:
to regulate traffic flow. Here, too, Buchanan's southern
drawl proceeded at just the right pace.
ANNE
RESSERBEST KNOCK-OUT MURAL
It all started three years ago. Silver Dollar
Pizza Company (501 NW 21st Ave., 227-1103) general manager
Angie Carver was sick of the heinous art on the restaurant's
wall. So she did what any self-respecting sports fan working
in a sports joint would do--she tore out pictures of her
favorite athletes from magazines, handed them over to artist
Larry Kangus and asked him to create a mural. What Kangus
created free-hand is a striking portrait of some the
world's most memorable sports images: Muhammad Ali slamming
into a world championship, Dennis Rodman going for the hoop
and Steffi Graf turning in some topspin. Kangus put faces
of various customers and former employees on some of the
other players. While a sports bar isn't always the most
soothing place to be, there's something comforting about
chomping into some pie with The Greatest standing guard.
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Willamette Week | originally
published July 21, 1999
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