Portland Art Museum & PAM CUT
Jess Perlitz’s Burned Beast is a mismatched creature, resembling an ill-fitted hobby horse with visible seams and dowels. The basswood has been hand-chiseled and sanded, and burnt in the final stage, at once creating a pragmatic and protective seal, while also signaling a kind of ritual act. The “shadow” is created by rubbing charcoal on… Read more
Emerging Zodiac is an exceptional example of Parkinson’s work and her dedicated interest in the human body in relation to the greater cosmos. The model of the dancing figure is artist Eiko Otake, a movement-based, interdisciplinary artist who has performed several times @picapdx. Inspired by Otake’s movements, Parkinson has documented these performances. Emerging Zodiac is… Read more
Shirley Gittelsohn’s Family Portrait is featured in the current exhibition, Portraiture from the Collection of Northwest Art. The painting depicts her adult children, the family pets, her relaxed husband, herself, and their Cannon Beach gathering place. I’ve been drawn to different details of this piece over time, most recently focusing on Gittelsohn’s self-portrait. She is… Read more
Labor Day weekend often represents an end to summertime vacations, but let’s hang on to that energy just a little bit longer through our writing this week. This painting by avant-garde artist and educator Maude Kerns carries the feeling of a late-summer road trip, with something new waiting beyond the bend in the road. Kerns… Read more
Created during his residency at Ash Street Project (@ashstreetproject) in Portland, Willie Little worked in ceramics for the first time, creating a series of shack structures based on his father’s grocery store/juke joint, Little’s Grocery. Text on either side of the structure indicates popular store items—penny candy and pickled pigs’ feet. Little used the grain… Read more
It has been more than one year since Write Around Portland and the Portland Art Museum began collaborating on weekly, art-inspired writing prompts to sustain our souls and our sense of connection during the pandemic. Write Around Portland staff and writing workshop facilitators have created over 60 writing prompts inspired by works in the Portland… Read more
Steven Young Lee describes how the coils of the large vessel of Jar with Dragon and Clouds came apart and the pot imploded in the kiln. Here the shards are put together in such a way to reveal both their exterior and interior surfaces. One can imagine how impeccable this vessel must have been before… Read more
“The shadow is both a part of our identity and apart from it. It is our counterpart and sometimes the truer part.” —Samantha Wall, 2021 Flayed is a drawing from Samantha Wall’s series titled, Shame on Me, hauntingly rendered as a self-portrait silhouette and shadow. Though much of the figure’s details are unknown, Wall beautifully… Read more
![[Image description: Requiem for a Ponderosa Pine, Anne Appleby, each panel 44 x 44 inches; overall: 90 x 90 inches, oil and wax on canvas. Four square panels, each a different color, grouped to form one larger square. The panels are arranged two over two. At top left, the first panel is a deep green and at top right the panel is reddish-purple. Bottom left contains the blackish-brown panel next to the faded orange or cantaloupe colored one at bottom right. The squares are hung so they are separated by narrow strips of the wall behind them. The panels appear to be solid blocks of color but closer inspection reveals subtle variations of shades and depth of color.]](https://nwfc.pam.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Anne-Appleby-1200.jpg)
Living in the Elkhorn Mountains in Montana, Anne Appleby has spent years closely studying the ecology, and more specifically, the trees that surround her land. Known for her “grid” paintings, Appleby paints the changing colors of trees that define their characteristics through seasons. Requiem for a Ponderosa Pine examines the variations of colors of a… Read more
Spring is approaching, and the clear skies and sunny days are a cheerful welcome. With the changing season, I am reminded of Childe Hassam’s two paintings and his impressions of the Oregon landscape on his second visit to the region, which was quite different from his New England hometown. In Afternoon Sky, Harney Desert, Hassam… Read more