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The landmark "Machine" mural on North Williams Avenue, painted by Portland artist Tom Cramer in a much different neighborhood in 1989, will be demolished to make way for a new building called Parallax—most likely this year.
Back in September, Tom Cramer had vowed to protect his mural from destruction using a little known 1990 Federal Law called the Visual Artists Right Act—potentially setting up the law's first test.
But it appears that won't be necessary. The two parties have settled amicably, and a new Tom Cramer mural will take the place of "Machine" when the defunct warehouse it's painted on is demolished to make way for the mixed-use building by William|Kaven architect and developer Daniel Kaven.
Kaven says there was never any intention of excluding Cramer from discussions about the future of the site.
"I had been trying to talk to Tom since we started," Kaven says. "The reason Tom knew the project existed, the first thing I did was call him."
Cramer says that while he wanted to protect the mural, it finally didn't seem feasible.
"Of course I wanted to save the existing mural but it wasn't realistic" Cramer says. "So I decided to settle with them and the proposal is to do another smaller, more updated mural on the outside part of the new building, and another one in the lobby of the building."
Cramer has full artistic license on the new murals, says Kaven. "If he wants to paint the exact same thing there, it's his choice."
But Cramer says that's unlikely—and that he will update the mural for the very changed neighborhood it sits in, and the very changed artist he is.
"First, people would think, 'Are you gonna do another in the same style? Of course that would be impossible. It's like asking somebody, 'What were you like 30 years ago? You're not the same person. It's improvised, and it's a year out, and it'll be updated."
Cramer says he would also consider the mural's new context in the impending Parallax building—shown here with the current "Machine" mural. Kaven says the building will have sections made with six different shades of blue so that it looks different from different angles.
"It's kind of a collaborative process," Cramer says. "I don't think they want anything too controversial, but I like my art to uplift people. There are a lot of things to be upset about in the world with Portland getting more dense and overpopulated and the homeless thing. My goal would be more content oriented, try to do something uplifting, to unite people rather than have people shouting at each other all the time."
Cramer says the irony of the "Machine" mural's hand in both helping gentrify the neighborhood—and the new money's role in causing the mural to be changed out—is not lost on him.
"When I did the original mural in 1989, most people will tell you it was kind of a rough part of town, there was high crime. In some ways it was great—it was free and liberated," Cramer says. "I'm not taking any credit, but the mural went up and pretty shortly after that in 1989, the neighborhood started—most people would say—improving. By which I mean more people were interested in moving in. The big irony is that one of the change agents in that neighborhood was that mural. Now it's going to be taken down as a result of those changes."
But while he mourns the mural, Cramer also says that the mural has been greatly defaced, especially in recent months.
"It's gotten a lot of vandalism," he says. "I've sort of given up. There's vandalism all over town."
Cramer says he hopes to hold a party for his nearly 30-year-old mural before it goes down.