The Volcano! Exhibit at PAM had so many treats for the eye, I have to share some more with you. This triptych of paintings by Ryan Molenkamp is inspired by the sequential photographs taken of the actual eruption.
This construction by Charles Arnoldi, showing the chaotic effects of the blast on hundreds of acres of trees, is an echo of this couple having an earnest conversation.
And these Christmas ornaments, made from volcano ash and accidentally fused, shows the power and the beauty of nature.
Here in Portland, we have a lot of stores that sell their goods out of trucks or trailers. That’s because property is very expensive, and a new business can start easier by renting a spot in a parking lot rather than a whole building.
Old digs ( Photo by Danger Garden)
For example, one of our favorite places to eat is cluster of food trucks on 28th Street near Burnside, and Auntie Katie has her first food truck, La Sabrosita, in her parking lot at Books with Pictures.
Solara, happy owner and plant lover
But I am writing this to tell you about a Flower truck that has now become a flower shop. Flower Bomb was a truck parked in the lot at SE 28th and Stark. Solara Schoeffler, the owner, had a smallish truck, an awning, and a rented garage across the street to keep her extra flowers in. We would see her out most mornings, pulling wagon loads of flowers across the street in the cold, rain, and heat. It had to be hard, but she was determined.
The flowers are calling us in!
This past Friday, after I left the First Friday party at SideStreet Arts, I got to walk into Solara’s new building, at SE 29th and Stark. It is wonderful. The large windows will let in plenty of sunlight, and the high ceilings allow for Benjamin ficus and fig trees to reach their potential.
High ceilings
“Look!” She said, sweeping her arms around in delight. “I have a roof! I have a door! I have HEAT!” Friends had come by to help celebrate, serving delicious mango-orange juice ‘mocktails’ , pizza and sweet treats.
Great ceramics
Stark Street Studios decorated the shelves with surprising art and customers walked out with summer in their arms despite the chilly rain.
Arms full of summer
I am so happy to see new businesses doing well in the neighborhood!
In May of 1980, when I was living in Eugene and expecting your Daddy David, Mt. St. Helens, a volcano in Washington, had a major eruption. We heard it from 185 miles away, and had volcanic ash coming down for a few days.
Greta Allen’s 1910 portrait of the peaceful mountain
Your great grandpa Lowell was trying to get to Ellensburg to visit his Mom, and couldn’t cross any of the rivers because they were choked with houses and trucks carried along by the boiling hot snowmelt and pulverized chunks of mountain.
Ryan Molenkamp’s “Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!”
The ability of nature’s power to absolutely dwarf humans was fully on display. And for the next few months, that power has returned, interpreted and revisited, at the Portland Art Museum.
Hank Pander’s “Eruption as seen from SW Cable Street” shows the view from Portland
But before we saw many paintings on the wall, the exhibit introduced us to the place where it happened, with National Forest maps and informational signs. The logo took me right back to camping trips with your great grandpa, and I could swear I smelled his All Spice aftershave lingering in the air.
The artistic portion of the exhibit is an interwoven collection of photographs, taken by both surveyors and artists, as well as paintings, glass work, and constructions made by artists in response to the power of the volcano. Some are as dry as the volcanic dust itself.
Barbara Noah’s “Tag III”, showing that the muppet has become a monster
Others are very personal, showing how the chaos and majesty of the eruption affected lives when the lovable mountain became a deadly monster.
I walked around, enjoying the bucolic, peaceful “Before” landscape paintings of the mountain when it was just a mountain, one of a dozen lovely peaks in the Cascade Range.
Then I rounded a corner to the gallery of eruptions, and smelled Old Spice again! Fearing for my mental health, I looked around and saw an elderly gentleman in a white shirt and tie. He stopped before every painting, talking softly with his companion. Trying not to be creepy, I walked behind him and softly sniffed. Yep. Old Spice.
So in a metaphysical way, great grandpa Lowell got to see all this art inspired by that amazing, inconvenient day, almost forty years ago.
I got to go to SideStreet Arts Gallery on Friday to meet Christopher St. Johns and see his work. It was raining and very chilly, but I knew there would be fossil shortbread cookies and other snacks, as well as the company of artists. So I headed out.
There wasn’t a big crowd at the gallery, maybe because of the weather, or maybe because being from Eugene, Mr. St. Johns isn’t well known here in Portland. But I think his art will be appreciated here.
Christopher St. John and his work
I particularly enjoyed his ceramics, mostly shallow bowls and figurines that feature what he calls “Shine” animals, adorable rabbits and delicately colored insects. These show his commitment to seeing nature as a vulnerable part of our world, and in need of our protection.
Shine critter bowls
I chatted with the other members of the gallery and enjoyed their work, including Alicia Justice and Michelle Sabatier.
Michelle Sabatier, her new encaustics, and Alicia Justice
This week also marks the second anniversary of the newly organized SideStreetArts Gallery. Auntie Bridgett made this nifty poster to show the members and some of the shows that were highlights of this past year.
Second Anniversary poster
The biggest one, of course, was the wonderful mural Gary Hirsch painted on the outside wall. I am very proud of Auntie Bridgett’s role in making this happen.
It was First Friday this past week, and there is a new show at the SideStreet Arts Gallery. I got to make a different kind of cookie for it.
Painted Fossil Cookies!
Between having more time and patience, more confidence from watching the Great British Baking Show, and better equipment, I have been getting more creative in my baking. A few months ago I made some sugar cookies that echoed the colors and shapes in the art being shown at the SideStreet Arts Gallery.
This month, for Eugene Artist Christopher St. John, I did something fun, too. Mr. St. John’s ceramics and watercolors reflect an awareness that we humans need to consider our actions carefully so we conserve our natural world and its treasures.
The recipe
Looking at works like “Shine Moth” inspired me to make cookies that could show the delicacy of insects. On Martha Stewart’s website, I found a recipe for “Fossil Cookies” and, with Auntie Bridgett’s artistic help, gave them an artsy spin.
Easy fixings
The dough is very easy to make and handle, and the toy bugs we picked up at Kids at Heart Toys on Hawthorne made lovely fossil-looking dents. The cookies are then frozen and baked at a low temperature so they bake into a shortbread-like, delicious cookie. With a fossil. A pretty, food color painted fossil.
Fossil Cookies
They are also delicious just patted out and cut with cookie cutters.
I have been reading a lot about Theodore Roosevelt lately. He was President during the time of my story, and my character, Clara, comes to identify with him. So I wanted to know more about him.
Theodore Roosevelt was the 26th president of the United States, serving from 1901 to 1909. I have always admired him for his work against corruption in business and government, and his drive to preserve the natural beauty of our forests and wild lands. He created five National Parks, including Wind Cave in South Dakota and Crater Lake here in Oregon. He hiked with John Muir in Yosemite.
Crater Lake, Oregon
I also admired his philosophy of personal responsibility. He was a great believer in taking charge of your own life and making it the best you could. “It is hard to fail, but harder still to never have tried,” he said. This idea that you make your life , one act at a time, echoed my own father’s belief, which I was brought up with.
But Mr. Roosevelt had some other ideas I don’t agree with. He was a ‘big game hunter’, which meant he traveled all over the world, killing animals and having them stuffed as trophies. I hate this about him. It turns this man I admire into a macho dude I can’t respect.
Theodore Roosevelt, big game hunter
I knew that he invited African American educator Booker T. Washington to dinner at the White House in 1901. This led me to believe he was ahead of his time in his racial thinking, and that he saw other races as equal to his own.
Booker T. Washington and the President
But reading more of his own writings and policies, I realize that in his dealings with Native Americans, Filipino people, Hawaiians, Japanese and African Americans, he fully believed that white people were the superior ‘race’.
He wrote that “The world would have halted, had it not been for the Teutonic conquests in alien lands.”
In other words, he believed that white people taking over North America, the South Pacific, India, and other places, made those places better. This belief is called “American Imperialism”.
Imperialist Teddy
So Teddy Roosevelt did not grant to different-looking people the respect he claimed as his own. He believed that you were the master of your fate, but only if you were a white, male American. Not exactly what I was hoping for.
So now, I have some decisions to make. Do I continue to have my character admire and relate to Teddy, with all his faults? Do I even mention his short comings? Or do I find a way to include my own ambivalence about him?
Being a teacher, I want to get the information right. Being aware of human failings, I know that any ‘hero’ I set up, upon the closest of looks, will be found to have faults. And I had not expected the story to have to deal with any of this.
I guess it’s back to the drawing board, as they say. I’ll keep you posted.
Last night we went out to a new place to hear some old music. First, we took the magic 15 downtown to Killer Burger for dinner, enjoying the warmth and lights and people watching.
Warm lighting at Killer Burger
We walked down a block to The Rialto Bar, which is also a pool hall. It had a surprising amount of space for downtown, where square footage is pricey. We got Guinness, Two Towns Cider and vanilla vodka, and headed downstairs to the Jack London Bar for the music.
The music venue had a lovely basement-y feel, low ceilinged, dark walled, and warmly lit. A bar ran on one side, small copper topped tables faced the low stage, and everything had an old-time jazzy feeling. This was completely appropriate, since we had come to hear some vintage music, ala Count Basie, Cole Porter, and Glenn Miller. And this eleven piece group of trombones, trumpets, saxophones, a stand up bass, piano and drummer, delivered.
Eric Olsen, trombonist and frontman
At the break I got to talk with Marco Pissarro, who plays alto saxophone. He gave me a little background on the band.
Ellen Vanderslice swings one out
Carrol Raaum was a semi- retired clinical psychologist when he came to believe that music had healing properties for those afflicted with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other diseases that effect the brain. He put the band together to play at retirement homes and memory facilities as well as parties and celebrations of all kinds. Mr. Raaum passed away in 2008, but the band continues his good work.
Lovely copper topped tables play with candle light
Ellen Vanderslice and Morgan Dickerson both play trombone and also do vocals. The band played classics like “ Take the A Train”, but also a new arrangement of Cole Porter’s “Love for Sale”. Some of the harmonies were hit and miss, but the overall effect was delightful.
Their ‘frontman’, the spokesman for the band, is Eric Olsen. He plays trombone and looks a little like Danny De Vito. After the show when I congratulated him on his ability to keep all those jazz musicians working together, he shook my hand and said, “Hell, I taught fourth grade for forty years. This is easy!” I can relate.
When it was nearly ten, the band was done for the evening, and so were we. We called a Lyft car and got home, glad to be out of the 32 degree night air and into our warm pajamas.
We like to have lots of art around at our house. Auntie Bridgett is an artist, so some of our walls are covered with her work. It is cheerful and sometimes silly, and it always cheers me up.
“Le Harold Agile“ by Bridgett Spicer
This past Christmas, Auntie Bridgett gave Grandpa Nelson and me a new piece of art! It is called “Let it Be” and was painted by Mark Dunst, whose studio we visited last fall. We like his work so much that Auntie Bridgett invited him to show his work at the SideStreet Arts Gallery, as well.
“Let it Be” by Mark Dunst
Anyway, Bridgett took some time Sunday and hung “Let it Be” in the hallway by the dining room. It nestles nicely next to Johnny Apaodaca’s painting of a Umbrian Lake. It is wonderful.
New art in our gallery…
We have other Portland art on our walls, as well. Sharon Jonquil’s encaustics greet us coming up the stairs.
One of Sharon Jonquil’s encaustics
But we actually got our very first piece of art by a Portland area resident in 1981, before we ever moved here! We were living in Eugene, Oregon, and a neighbor had decided he didn’t want his paintings anymore. He gave us our choice, and we chose this wonderful bicycle painting. He is now living in Troutdale, just east of town. Thanks, David Gettman!
Our favorite painting….
I wasn’t raised with art. My parent’s house had a Robert Wood seascape print over the stereo and my mother’s paint by number landscapes by the TV. I feel blessed to have real art, and real artists, in my life.
Yes, it is still grey and wet here, but new life is popping up out of the mud. Every walk shows me new things.
Some daffodils are blooming, but those up the street are still biding their time. They will explode into yellow in a few weeks.
Beauty springing up from the mud
Other bulbs are coming up, too. These tiny iris live just down the block and are making the most of any sun we get.
Only six inches high, but lovely
Laurelhurst Park’s ravine area is a flooded, muddy mess, with an occasional happy Labrador splashing through. But near the top of the hill, the camellias are blooming.
Two different varieties of camellia, celebrating
The first crocuses are up, having a week of delicate glory before getting pummeled by the rain.
Paper-delicate crocuses
And, as always, the moss makes everything soft, wet and green. This old portion of a sidewalk from 1911 has been rescued, moss and all, and been installed in a yard. I love that someone appreciated it enough to do that. I sigh in quiet joy.
The sign of The Frog, ( photo taken on a sunnier day)
After a brief flirtation with the sun, our faithful wet weather has returned. Saturday morning, we all ventured out for some coffee and pastry. Three sets of boots and three umbrellas went trudging down the hill to The Frog.
Ghosts of bookshops past
This funky old Craftsman style house at SE Belmont and 25th was called the Portland Coffee House for years, then became The Rocking Frog. The Portland Coffee House must have had a literary bent, too, because some of the books at The Rocking Frog still bear the stamp!
Auntie Bridgett bathing in books
We love it for the freshly made doughnuts and coffee, but mostly for the cozy ambiance. The walls are lined with bookshelves which invite reading, thinking, and literary loitering. The small copper topped tables are filled with small groups of soft voice chatters or silent readers.
New discoveries!
And on a wet chilly day, the warmth and conversation is irresistible. We looked at books randomly pulled from shelves. I found “ The White Cliffs”, a novel in the form of short poems. It was written by feminist author Alice Duer Miller, whose writing encouraged America’s entry into World War II.
Photos of winter topiaries
Next, I pulled up “Ultimate Topiaries”, whose pictures of sunny, and even snowy, gardens, raised my February spirits. Reading always leads to conversations and we had, and overheard, quite a few.
Conversations that feed the soul…
When it was time to leave, a young lady at the next table noticed my Hufflepuff scarf and we had a delightful conversation about how the world needs helpers, not just heroes. Griffendores get all the attention for their battles, but we Puffs clean up afterwards and make dinner.
We had more errands to run during the day, but we were fueled and warmed by our hour in The Frog. We could do anything.
Dear Liza 