In case you've been waiting anxiously to hear, we had an excellent little retreat in the aforementioned cabin. That is, if you consider walking on deserted country roads, finding the world's cutest tiny pine cones, and dueling with forest bubbles the ingredients for excellence - and it just so happens that I do.
It was rainy most of the weekend which actually worked out quite well considering we had lots of work to do inside. We were happy to spend our retreat time working on our pieces for the Boomshakalaka group show which opened at Land in Portland last week. The show, curated by one of Portland's nicest bearded fellows, Clifton Burt, revolved around 30 artists and designers interpreting the Portland Trail Blazers in whatever fashion they desired. (Ryan also participated in another Blazers themed show last month at the Compound Gallery. Who says artists and sports don't get along?)
Ryan's cabin drawing station above, my embroidery spot below (not too shabby!).
We decided our contributions to the show would revolve around the theme of "Hypothetical Origins" or, a fake history of the Trail Blazers during pioneer times.
We came up with:
A 19th century shadow puppet diagram:
A portrait of an imagined Bill Walton ancestor:
A heated coin-toss for Portland's naming rights:
That one was actually based on the true story of the Portland Penny. From www.pdxhistory.com: "Portland got its name when Asa Lovejoy and Francis Pettygrove flipped a coin in 1845. Lovejoy was from Massachusetts and he wanted to name the new settlement Boston. Pettygrove was from Maine and wanted to name the new town Portland. Pettygrove won the coin toss two out of three times and the rest as they say is history."
Ryan drew all the above and I like how he stuck to such a limited color palette. It was somewhat unusual for him considering he generally enjoys experimenting with colors. (You should be able to click on all those to see larger sizes, by the way.)
As for me, I did an embroidered piece based also based on the Blazer's logo.
I've been a Blazers fan since I was born (Maybe technically even before. My mom was pregnant with me for most of the 1977 championship season) and I have always imagined the logo as some kind of path. I actually did a bit of web research to make sure this wasn't actually the case and as far as I can tell, the design was conceived as a graphic depicting five vs. five players. I was glad to finally get this image out of my brain and fingers.
As usual, I did a terrible job of documenting the opening but luckily Pat Castaldo is really good at such things. You can see some of his opening night shots here.
Now Ryan is hard at work putting together his solo show opening next week (!) at the Grass Hut in Portland. It's called "Spectacularcade" and revolves around the goings-on of a fictitious carnival arcade.
We'll have some sneak previews from that real soon!
That embroidered piece is a thing of beauty! Is there any chance of getting that as a logo?
Great article - I really enjoyed seeing the "Walton Relatives" as well....
Thanks for sharing,
John
Posted by: John Gurnick | February 23, 2011 at 11:14 AM