Work in Progress

I find myself working in two directions in the art these days. One is a continuation of working landscapes and scenes into printed textiles and quilting them. The other, which has become an increasingly larger part of my art making in the last few years, is painting in oils. These are the works that are most in progress at the moment.

This spring of 2008 I have been painting Portland, my Portland, mostly around my neighborhood and, as often as possible, pleine aire. My approach is to decide, almost randomly, on a motif -- a building, a city element -- and then to work it until I can't see anything more to do with it. I began with the ubiquitous eastside traffic "calmers" -- roundabouts or traffic islands that calm the traffic by slowing it down. They are a big hit with pedestrians and street residents, not so with wheeled vehicles who are forced to slow down, nor with 18 wheelers who try to take shortcuts through our neighborhoods.

So I began with a traffic calmer in the foreground, benignly gazing over its city.

As I worked I had to fuss more and more about light and shadow. Sunlight in Portland is wan and pale these early spring days. It's a bit murky and diffuse. So I thought a bit of evening light might help.

And I decided to intensify the power of the circle -- its ability to slow people down might be worth painting:

I also painted the FISH Emergency Services building, a noble old pile that now houses good works.

I did a couple more FISH paintings, trying to capture the urban Hawthorne Boulevard scene, but then I moved north, to Morrison Street. There I am working on what I call The Pink House, which sits all by itself on a block owned by the City of Portland. It's doomed because of plans for a community center, but it's keeping up a good front. None of the Pink House paintings are ready for public consumption, but I complete the image of a bar diagonally across the street from The Pink House. It's called "Crush" and was a renovation of a low dive known as the Morrison Street Pub. I rather miss the cigarette smoke and stale beer that wafted from the pub's open doors, but the regulars from that era have moved across 14th street and two doors down, to Hal's Tavern, while the more upscale clientele now sip martinis. Or whatever the upscale are sipping these days.