Dear Liza,
Last Friday was Member Appreciation Day at our Portland Art Museum, called PAM. Since we are members, we went and got appreciated! Besides getting free, we got tote bags, buttons, and an extra 10% discount at the shop.
Quite a few galleries were closed, as PAM is getting ready for a huge construction project that will join their Main Building to the lovely old Masonic Temple Building, which was acquired in 1992.
Still, we were delighted with the Oscar Howe exhibit, Dakota Modern. Oscar Howe was a Yanktonai Dakota artist, born on the Crow Creek Sioux Reservation in South Dakota in 1915. The main works shown at PAM were painted in the 1950s and 1960s, but felt very contemporary.
With great talent and study, he proved that Native American art was not just pictures of buffalo hunts. We spent a long time enjoying the swirls of blues and oranges and powerful lines of his work.
But snack time called! We left the air-conditioned comfort of PAM and walked the block to Umbria for coffee and pastries, and then decided to wander a bit.
Heading toward the river, we were rewarded with this view:
Traffic lights, chatting people, the enormous and engaging Salmon Springs Fountain, and Mount Hood looming over everything.
Portland, for sure.
And just past the fountain was our Willamette, turned into a playground by the sunny weather. Motorboats, jet skies, and kayaks zipped along on the first of many play days.
We walked a few blocks and caught the Magic Number 15 bus back home, grateful for Spring, sunshine, and living in Portland.
alive,
Grandma Judy
Dear Liza 