With only a few weeks of dry weather left to enjoy, it's time
to take a few last glances at Portland in beautiful mode before
the rain hits. Of course, you'll want these precious sunlit
memories to be of the highest quality, visually striking and
personally meaningful. You might consider taking a tour of
fine art in the public realm. But how do you avoid gravitating
to predictable tourist traps such as the Ira Keller Fountain
or the ever-so-slightly unstable Portlandia?
Follow us. We present a walking-biking-driving tour that
focuses on the public art that is probably passing unnoticed
under many of your noses every day. Take a look at the many
organic (and inorganic) art forms that have grown up in
the neighborhoods south of I-84 and east of I-5. Some of
them are public only in the sense that you can at least
get a look at them without too much hassle, and a few of
them have a questionable relationship to the notion of art.
But they're all worth a look and a quick mental snapshot
for a rainy day.
Joan
of Arc
Emmanuel Fermiet
Traffic Circle at Northeast 39th Avenue and Glisan Street
Your tour begins with the historically significant Joan
of Arc. Originally commissioned by Napoleon III in 1874,
Fermiet's Joan is a masterpiece of martial sculpture
depicting the martyr on horseback, preparing to lead her
troops into the 1420 Battle of Orléans. Portland's
casting of Joan is one of eight extant in the world
and was commissioned in the early 1920's by Portland's Dr.
Henry Waldo Coe, who was also responsible for donating a
series of presidential statues to the city: one of George
Washington, located at Northeast 57th Avenue and Sandy Boulevard,
and figures of Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt anchored
in the South Park Blocks.
Today, Joan has been cut off from the world by an
orbit of commuters and obscured by the overgrowth of decorative
bushes. Proving that even the most stiff bit of public art
is susceptible to spontaneous reinterpretation, Joan
strikes her most impressive poses during holiday seasons,
when she is ritually capped with a Halloween pumpkin or
a cheerful Santa hat.
Bowling
Ball Garden
Terry Luehman
3608 SE Washington St.
From the imposing monumentality of Joan, we turn to the
constantly evolving Bowling Ball Garden. Six years ago,
Terry Luehman and his roommate were looking for something
to give their yard's landscaping some flair. In a moment
of terrestrial inspiration, they turned to the supply of
cheap, used bowling balls at the local thrift outlets. Pearlaceous
orbs were soon peeking out from every odd corner of their
yard, some half-buried in mounds of sod, others perched
regally atop plaster pedestals.
Tales of the magical-looking garden made their way about
town, and at some point people began showing up and offering
their own leftover bowling balls--and even a few pins for
linear contrast. Although the donations were unsolicited
(and sometimes have had a tendency to pile up), Luehman
and his roommate amiably embraced the participatory bent
their project had taken, and they continue to incorporate
new objects into the garden as they're able.
Title
Unknown
Jim Russell
lobby of the Pacific Plaza Building, 2950 SE Stark St.
During the course of your tour, be on the lookout for "community
murals." The form is probably already familiar to you: the
side of a Plaid Pantry, painted by a small army of fourth-graders,
depicting "neighborhood" children playing in a magical space
where Mount Hood and an impossibly dense city center somehow
meet. Recall this fantastical space where far-flung geographies
kiss when you look at the piece by Washington artist Jim
Russell installed in the lobby of a squat office building
sometime in the early '70s and all but forgotten by its
caretakers at American Property Management ever since. It
depicts a scrappy-looking shack and daunting, rectilinear
urban skyline, both barely protected from a bloated sun
by the arching branches of a tree. Despite being isolated
in time and space from the community murals, the forcible
introduction of shed to skyscraper recalls the geographic
compressions of those other works. The vaguely menacing
solar orb threatens to consume the man-made structures it
licks with rays of light and heat, however, and seems to
be a kind of cautionary response to the cheerful overcolonization
of space depicted in other murals.
"Art
Fills the Void"
Gorilla Wallflare
The Price is Right Discount Store, 1125 SE Division St.
"You want to tell the world about my banana?" Price is
Right owner Carl Torell asks with mock incredulity. Carl
regards with mischievous good humor the mural that has adorned
the side of his store since 1982. Its various pervy and
groan-worthy puns seem to be right up his alley. According
to Carl, the mural was in fact the work of anonymous artists
working in secret, who offered only a final, gut-wrenching
pun by way of signature: "Gorilla Wallflare" "I came back
after one weekend, and it was just there," says Carl. He
apparently took the mural's sudden appearance in stride
and has done what he can to keep the inevitable taggers
at bay. Nonetheless, he'd like to have the artists return
for a professional touch-up, so Mr. or Ms. Wallflare, if
you're out there, pay the man a visit.
Belmont
Dairy Mural Project
Gregory Cosmo Haun
Southeast 33rd Place between Southeast Alder and
Southeast Morrison streets
The Belmont Dairy Mural Project is a good example of the
bad things that can happen when a developer with a propaganda
budget meets a big blank wall. The "mural" is not much more
than a street map writ large onto the long side of a building.
It traces the path of the now-defunct Belmont trolley line
and offers several sets of paired photographs--one historical,
the other contemporary--of stops along the way. Each pair
of photographs is combined within a lenticular screen, designed
to reveal first one, then the other photograph as the viewer
moves around it. First you're looking at a horse and buggy
being pulled out of the old Belmont fire station; then,
next thing you know, there's an Acura in its place. This
optical trickery is more familiar in the form of kiddie
stickers, and the device seems trite in this context. As
each lenticular pair waffles between "then" and "now," a
half-century of untidy history is seemingly erased, mainly
from the minds of the condo residents who are its primary
audience.
St.
Francis Park
St. Francis Parish and various
volunteers
Southeast Stark Street between 11th and 12th avenues
The last stop on the tour is a site rather than an object,
but a landscape so utterly unique that it is without doubt
a work of art. Founded in 1969, the St. Francis Park has
slowly evolved under the care and protection of St. Francis
Parish. It features a waterway, built in 1976 by Bruce West,
that leads downhill from a stair-stepping fountain to a
small pool. The pool is overlooked in turn by a 35-foot-tall
mast, salvaged from the destroyer USS Spencer, that once
supported a working windmill capable of supplying power
to the park.
What the park is really known for, however, is its population
of transients. The parish, which operates a dining hall
for the homeless on the grounds adjoining the park, has
worked long and hard--through a hail of neighborhood criticism--to
insure that their clients are able to enjoy the park harassment-free.
The parish's logic is simple, according to dining-hall director
Julie Cusumano: "If you give people respect and dignity,
they won't mess it up." St. Francis clients are able to
lie down on the grass during daylight hours without fear
of being "swept" by cops or armed security guards. Without
freely accessible public spaces, there can be no truly public
art, so there's no better way to show your appreciation
for everything you've seen and learned during your tour
than to head down and take a quick nap with the other wanderers
in St. Francis Park. Enjoy.
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Willamette Week | originally
published September 8,
1999
|
