Tamara English: A Real Conversation over an Imagined Cup of Tea

Written by Julianna Paradisi

On the opening evening of The Manor of Art, I wandered into the room transformed by artist Tamara English. In the center of the room, a canopy of mosquito netting hung from the ceiling. Inside the netting, Tamara served tea and a plate of small white cubes to three guests seated on large, brightly patterned cushions. Deep in conversation, Tamara seemed unaware of my presence. Despite the large crowd of people milling about, the scene felt intimate. I didn’t approach Tamara that evening. Not wishing to interrupt the spontaneously occurring performance, I quietly exited the room instead.

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Julianna Paradisi: Tamara, your room in August’s Manor of Art was clearly Moroccan. What inspired the imagery?

Tamara English: The focus of my room in The Manor of Art was the exploration of the visual vocabulary found in the mosques and tekkes (Dervish Lodges) of Turkey. You see similar motifs all over the Islamic world.  I work with this vocabulary in my oil paintings and I wanted to see what would transpire as I painted large scale with unfamiliar media.  Along with Persian tile-work, I incorporated the visual vocabulary of Christian illuminated manuscripts and electron tracings from particle maps.  I wanted to make an inviting place to stay awhile, a place that encouraged contemplation and reflection, echoing the rooms I encountered in the tekkes of Turkey.

JP: What were the little white cubes of food you served your guests in the mosquito netting?

TE: Turkish Delight.

JP: Tell me about your art. What are you currently working on?

TE: At the center of the oil paintings I do is how the unseen, that which is more than we are, moves in the world.  Within the work is the exploration of the idea of verticality in the horizontal of everyday life.  The vertical refers to the swirling layers of worlds beyond the physical world.  Think of the ocean as a model of the universe from a physics standpoint.  The physical world is the surface of the ocean.  And, there is all that exists under the surface: smaller and smaller particles that form more particles that form matter as we think of it.  What are these particles made of?

One project I’m working on is The Universal Book of Hours. It’s a sequence of thirteen paintings, all oil and gold leaf on paper, arranged into a book of hours, which were popular in medieval Europe.  Each painting is a page of the book, representing a specific time of day. The pages are collected together in a case when not exhibited. The project incorporates a visual vocabulary derived from sacred sites, texts, and belief systems of different cultures, exploring how these elements interact. The project originates from my interest in engaging with the wisdom teachings of many traditions, and finding a personal experience of the mystic beyond any particular belief system.  It’s a personal, illuminated manuscript.

I’m also writing a book about the experiences of professional artists, based on interviews with artists, curators, and gallery owners in Portland and all over the country.

JP: What kind of a connection do you seek when you make a painting? What do you look for in the work of other artists?

TE: In the process of painting, I seek a dialogue with what appears on the canvas. As I paint a body of work, I look for responses to the questions I’m asking:  where is the process taking me? What is learned in the doing?  When a painting nears completion, there is a particular quality, which tells me it’s done; the closest way to describe it is that the painting starts singing.

In the work of other artists, I respond to work that is vulnerable, dynamic and luscious, that has a sense of the sublime.

JP: You describe using Muslim and Christian symbolism in your paintings. Are you making a political statement or a spiritual observation?  Neither?  Both?

TE:  I use the visual vocabulary of Islamic tiles; Christian illuminated manuscripts, electron tracings from bubble chambers and abstracted forms from the natural world.  While there is symbolism in these vocabularies, my interest in all of these elements lies in their sense of rhythm and movement, how they depict the unseen moving in the physical realm, rather than working directly with the symbolism in the imagery.  The paintings explore what happens when these different sets of information meet and mingle.  What is happening beyond the sum of the parts; a new conversation.

Art, to me, is less about making a statement about something and more about offering a different or new perspective. My fascination in bringing these elements together focuses on finding a way to experience the infinite that is larger than myself, the Great Mystery, in my life.  This fascination is about honoring how each of us experiences Spirit in our lives: the questions we ask, the actions we take, our Ideals. The more we honor our personal dialogues, the more potential there is to honor the different wisdom traditions and the gifts each one offers.  I include the field of science in this dialogue because for many it is a path to Truth.  I study the intersection of science and spirituality.  It’s a busy intersection.  What if there is room for all these paths?  Look at all the wars fought by people believing their way is the only way.  The richness happens beyond wanting an ultimate, fixed, singular truth. Rather, it happens as we seek what is true within each of us, what our true selves are.

JP: That brings to mind a quote attributed to Albert Einstein:

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.

It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

Are you a Portland native?

TE: I lived in Berlin as a child, and then rural Connecticut.  I moved to Portland when the Pearl District was mostly warehouses.

JP: Did you live in Berlin when the Wall came down? If so, do you have any impressions of that event?

TE: I wasn’t living there when it came down.  We did live really close to the Wall for a while and could see the guards in the towers from our house.  Someone asked me recently if I had believed the Berlin Wall would come down in my lifetime. It was such a huge part of my childhood experience in Berlin; trying to understand why there was this wall.  Now the wall has come down.  What else is possible?

JP: What virtue do you consider the most overrated?

TE: Any virtue that one talks about and doesn’t act on.

JP: Which talent would you most like to have?

TE: The talent I most want to have is the ability to continue enhancing my skills as an artist and a human being.  My mentors emphasize that we are here to become more than what we are now.  Talent comes from a commitment to building skills.  And I want to be skillful in all aspects of my life.

JP: Where are you exhibiting next?

TE: My paintings are featured in an exhibition in October.  Mark Woolley is showing work by the PNCA alumni he represents, myself included.  This group show will be at the ANKA Gallery.  Mark is an amazing curator, and it’s a great space.  It’s going to be an engaging show.

In October 2010, I’m exhibiting The Universal Book of Hours at the North Portland Library.  This is an exciting exhibition for me because the series has a sense of narrative to it.  It will different from the way I’ve worked the past few years.

JP: Anything you’d like to add?

TE: Portland has some great resources for artists.  I feel fortunate to live in a city that has the likes of Portland City Art and pdxArtscene.

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Pulling a Rabbit Out of Her Hat: a Conversation with Anna S. King

Written by Julianna Paradisi

Artist Anna S. King has the kind of blonde beach bangs I envied as a teenager growing up. Her calm demeanor belies the life of a busy, multi-talented artist. Besides making art, she is a curator, and co-owner of Anka Gallery, in the Oldtown Neighborhood of Portland, Oregon.

I caught up with Anna recently, to discuss her upcoming exhibitions this August.

Julianna Paradisi:  Anna, tell me about you as an artist: What medium do you work in? What are your influences or inspirations?

Anna S. King: I work in mixed media, mainly with acrylics on wood panels or canvas. Many of my works are studies about colors, surface texture, and situations. Organic patterns get a lot of my attention, and it always amazes me how the combination of different patterns and colors can create such a beautiful and complete object within itself that represents dualities of beauty and chaos, the co-existence of wholeness and fragmentation. Sometimes I’m driven by figurative aspects that instill a story line into these rich, organic backgrounds, reflecting motion into a single instant, which is also an eternity.

JP: What is your background?

ASK: I’m a self-taught artist born in the town of Banska Bystrica, a charming mountain community in the Slovak Republic. After high school, I left to study art history in Italy and after several years, I moved to New York to pursue my art and learn about the relationship between art and fashion. After living though 9/11, I moved to Los Angeles where I lived for several years before moving to the Pacific Northwest.

JP:  I understand you have three shows up in August. Tell me about that.

ASK:  I have an opening on August 6th at Anka Gallery, as well as at the “Art in the Heart” art walk in downtown Vancouver, which opens on August 7th and 8th. Then I’m participating in the Manor of Art group show at Milepost 5, which opens August 14th.

JP: And you own Anka Gallery at the Everett Street Lofts. Why did you decide to open a gallery?

ASK:  My husband (Graylan King) and I had recently launched the pdxArtscene and were doing an interview with Jeremy Tucker, the owner of the Rake Gallery. During the interview, we discovered that he was going to close the Rake. We didn’t have much time to think about it; it was a spur of the moment decision. We decided to take the space along with artist/partner Chad Glass. August marks our one-year anniversary.

JP: What are some of the challenges you encounter as an artist and gallery owner? Do you find it difficult to wear many “hats” so to speak?
ASK:  Incredibly difficult! I spend a great deal of time operating the gallery, which eats into my available time to paint. I’m also a mother of a toddler, and for most of our first year, we had a 60-mile round trip commute every day.

John and I decided to collaborate on a new line of abstract paintings. It’s been a lot of fun and we’re thinking about continuing this collaboration on a monthly basis. Our goal at Anka is to show case Portland artists and provide high quality art at prices that reflect the current state of

our economy.

Anka Gallery
325 NW 6th Ave
Portland, Ore 97209

ankagallery.com
pdxArtscene.com
laxArtscene.com

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The Internal Dialogue of John Graeter

Written by Julianna Paradisi

It’s 107 °F outside and I am in the lobby of the old Baptist Retirement Manor at Milepost 5, watching the expressions on the face of artist John Graeter, as he handles several of his paintings, and tells me how each was made. Clearly, art making is a passion for John. His medium build and out-sized Clark Kent eyeglasses (the impenetrable disguise of Superman), would normally incline me to guess he’s a writer, rather than a painter. It turns out I’m not far off the mark: John’s paintings, with their delicate marks rendered in sumi ink, resembling words, reflect his love of languages, be they ancient, contemporary, or even celestial.

Julianna Paradisi: John, you and I met for the first time like a week ago at Anka Gallery. Are you from Portland?

John Graeter: I am originally from Washington, D.C. area. I moved here in 2003 by way of Santa Fe where I lived for two years.

JP: How did you wind up in Stump Town?

JG: I visited Portland in spring of 2002 and was amazed by the integrity, motivation and will of the people to put effort and thought into their community and be on the cutting edge of some mission, abstraction or revolutionary idea. And they weren’t just talking about it. They were doing it. That fired me up. It was compelling and intriguing for an outsider to witness. I had a wild love affair with Portland and hit the ground running.

I also love the art, mountains, rivers, woods, cozy coffee shops, the NW climate, good local food, taverns, books, bikes, thinkers and good humor, which Portland offers. Portland boasts a very keen, particular and subtle sense of humor, which I think might be attributed to the NW climate and our six months of rain. It’s a Richard Brautigan sense of humor. He grew up here. You gotta be smart to have a good sense of humor. You need a sense of humor to get through the 189th day of rain and bad days of work. Humor is everything. It’s the glue of a society. It sustains relationships and keeps them fresh. Portland and its people have a great relationship going and it’s refreshing to contribute to and be a part of it

JP: Your business card says you are the Director of Portland City Art. Tell me about that.

JG:   Portland City Art is a public charity 501(c)(3) non-profit, whose mission is to serve the art community of Portland, by building upon the aspirations, vision and mission of the greater Portland art community and the businesses, organizations and individuals who support them, through organizing, creating and implementing solo and group art shows, art events, art forums and community art venues for the advancement of the arts and art community here in Portland.

The vision of Portland City Art is to bring together a diverse array of both local emerging and professional artists, in an environment and dynamic, which positively facilitates their individual career paths and goals through art display, art sales and a community, supported social function. Portland City Art will create an environment for which artists may successfully and easily connect with one another, share ideas, pursue collaboration and merge resources for which to sell their art and further their art career.

With the support of local businesses, charities, corporations, organizations and individuals who sponsor and contribute to Portland City Art events, we will successfully implement tangible, sustainable and comprehensive art shows, art sales and art careers for artists and the Portland art community at large, while also advancing, securing and investing in the future operations of Portland City Art as a charitable and resourceful non-profit organization.

Creative Director for PCA is local artist and Portland native Chris Haberman.

I am Director and we officially incorporated Portland City Art in March of 2009.

JP: Wow. How did you get involved with the Anka Gallery?

JG:  My connection to Anka started when I submitted my portfolio to Anna King last year, and she graciously accepted my work. Anna, Graylan (King) and myself worked together to fill the Anka Gallery in May of 2009 with over 60 pieces of my new work.

During the months-long process of production, show construction and implementation, we worked very well together and realized the many positive benefits of our personal dynamic. Anna and Graylan were wonderful people to work with during that intense, often stressful process, and they each brought independent but critical vision to the table.

We formed a close personal and working relationship during that time and I think realized what a combined effort might afford in the future.

In June, Anna and Graylan offered me a partnership at Anka and I humbly and immediately accepted. We will be working together to manage and curate future art shows, art events and Anka events. Graylan and I are working to combine the visions and efforts of Portland City Art with Anka Gallery, PDXartscene and other collaborative business ventures. Anna and I will work very hard with local and national emerging artists to ensure a brilliant, positive and successful experience at the Anka Gallery. We have many exciting shows and ideas planned and I am very excited about my future at the Anka with Anna and Graylan.

JP: I read your artist statement on your website, johngraeter.com . Obviously, you have quite a sense of humor, but I have to ask, what’s this about the marks on your paintings being alien languages?

JG: I do believe that my writing and motifs are coming through me from somewhere else. I’m not set on any one place or thing as a source, and it may change every time I paint or sketch or make art.

The truth is, I don’t really know how or why it all works and I leave the interpretation up to the viewer.

My bottom line is that I can’t personally take full comprehensive ego credit for all my work, because sometimes I feel like the energy and forms I paint with come from a herd of neon green alien surfers singing roy rogers on a remote province off the andalucian galapagos.

Oh, and I never try and take myself too seriously.

JP: Yeah, that’s the sense of humor I’m talking about.

John, August is a busy month for you. What are some of your projects coming up ?

JG: I’m exhibiting my own work in four shows in August. I will be displaying 30 new collaborative works with Anna King at Anka Gallery for the First Thursday opening on August 6th. The same night, I have a painted door on display at a Portland City Art/ Art Institute sponsored event: The Portland Door Show, a collaboration benefit for the Art Institute Scholarship fund. Fifty Portland artists will do live painting from 3-9pm on NW 4^th and Davis, in front of the Art Institute. The paintings will be auctioned that night, and on display for a month at the AI gallery.  August 14^th to Aug. 23^rd, I have a room on display at the Portland City Art/ Milepost Five sponsored event: the Manor of Art.  One hundred artists each display an installation in a bare room of the old manor.  The 10- day festival is destined to be a historic Portland art event. There’s more information at this link,                                         http://portlandcityart.org/2009/06/26/the-manor-of-art/.

In September, I will have a few pieces on display for our Portland City Art/ Pulse benefit show at Olympic Mills Commerce Center.

JP: So, how do you envision these collaborations affecting Portland’s art community? What is your five-year plan, in a perfect world?

JG: I envision the Anka Gallery, Portland City Art, and PDXartscene combining resources, relations and integrity to take the emerging arts in Portland to unsurpassed levels. All three separate entities are exceptional in their symbiotic relationship and combined resources, and with the support from the Portland art community, I will personally dedicate everything I have to ensuring their sustainable, successful future. This includes and demands working with other local organizations, galleries, non-profits and business/ social ventures to sanction a solid foundation for emerging Portland artists.

In five years time, I envision a significantly strengthened local support base for emerging Portland artists, both socially and financially, as well as new ventures launched both nationally and internationally. I would like to bring the emerging arts and artists of Portland, OR to Berlin, Germany, and Berlin artists to Portland, and establish Portland as the sister city to Berlin. The two cities share much in common, and have a great amount to offer one another through our respective arts and culture.

I would like to do the same with many cities around the nation and world. Mexico City, Tehran, Baghdad, Islamabad, Kabul, Mumbai, Tel Aviv, Singapore, Detroit, Hong-Kong and many more. We have much more to learn about our respective cultures through the arts, than through headlines, bloody mug shots, drug wars and ten-second sound bytes. Cross-pollination of arts and cultures can produce an amazing opportunity for both the artist and community involved. Breaking down stereotypes and forming a new relationship based on furthering our respective arts and humanities is crucial if we want to bridge culture gaps and build an understanding about each other without having to speak the same spoken language. This is lasting, sincere and sustainable diplomacy from the ground up. I think it’s a mission for the arts.

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Gallery Spotlight:  Butters Gallery, Ltd.

Written by Julianna Paradisi

Butters Gallery is the flagship of the Oldtown’s contemporary fine arts community. For over twenty years, brothers Jeff  and David Butters with David’s wife Kristina have brought to Portland artists from as far away as New Zealand to as close as within the neighborhood.

The gallery represents a broad range of art that attracts all levels of collectors from the seasoned to the beginning collector. Asked about advice for new collectors, Jeff says, “It takes time and a LOT of looking. We are very open to anyone who walks in to discuss the art we represent and how it fits in to the greater art world… Most importantly for new collectors is to see as much art as possible to get a feel for what they are responding to most favorably as that will be key to selecting something they are going to want to live with.”

In May, painter Howard Hersh and ceramic sculptor Jim Kraft exhibit. In June Butters presents New Yorker David Geiser, whom they have represented for twenty years, and July features Japanese artist Jiro Yonezawa, who creates sculpture with bamboo.

Butters Gallery, Ltd. 520 NW Davis www.buttersgallery.com.

 

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Artist Spotlight: Matt Condron

Written by Julianna Paradisi

Matt Condron’s paintings accurately capture time in our modern society.  We think of time as past, present and future, but we actually experience it as anticipation, the present moment, and the present quickly moving forward into the past and beyond our control.  Matt’s paintings capture the intersection of this triad, that space where “the mild anxiety we all live with” resides.

Matt’s paintings of empty chairs in vacant lobbies, stations, and waiting rooms differ from his source of inspiration, painter John Register.  Matt’s use of strong contrasting light evokes a 1970’s Southern California, and creates a foil for the implied loneliness.  In Matt’s psychological interiors, there exists a chance that circumstances may improve. In this sense, his paintings relate more to David Hockney’s paintings than to Edward Hopper’s.

It takes Matt up to two months to create a large painting. With a slide projector, he transfers an image onto canvas stretched over panel. Using a limited palette of oil paint, he blocks it in before completing the painting with nearly invisible brushstrokes.

Matt has a show in September at the Peter Blake Gallery in Laguna Beach, California. Visit www.mattcondron.com to find out more.

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Artist Spotlight: M.C. Pasinski

Written by Julianna Paradisi

 

Morgan Cole Pasinski’s paintings have an elegant simplicity that belies their creation. Worked in oil, wax and pencil, her surfaces vary from transparent and glass-like, to so textural, they almost invite touch. Morgan acknowledges this observation: “I spend the majority of my time on the backgrounds by adding paint and scraping it off until it looks like nothing I could have done intentionally.” She finds inspiration in the yin/ yang of old walls and sidewalks, ugly and beautiful with their patinas of passing time. Finishing the background, Morgan then sits and stares at it until an image takes shape. Rendered in simple lines, sea creatures, figures, and familiar household items overlie the background surfaces of her paintings.

Morgan received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Western Washington University in 2000. Transplanted from Bellingham, Washington, her studio is in the Goldsmith Blocks Building in Old Town and is open to the public each First Thursday. In April, she is a participating artist in The Chair Affair, an art auction benefitting Portland’s Community Warehouse. Visit Morgan’s website, mcpasinski.com to learn more about her work.

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Gallery Spotlight: Anka Gallery

Written by Julianna Paradisi

Anka Gallery stands in the heart of the Old Town Chinatown arts neighborhood, both physically and metaphorically speaking.  Anka’s curator, Anna Solcaniova King and her husband Graylan, share a vision of adding to Portland’s arts community “A visual voice of the unexpected… a more penetrating exchange between artist and audience.”  Herself an artist, Anna’s love of process is evident in Anka’s shows:  Last fall, John Wiley Howington’s chromatic photographs included the recorded ambient sounds of the locations he photographed, using cameras he makes himself.

Anna and Graylan are the creators of PDXartscene.org, an art portal utilizing advanced web-based tools. They are launching a similar portal for Los Angeles to create a conduit of exchange benefitting artists in both cities.

Anna brings unique credentials to Portland: born in Slovakia, she studied art history in Italy.  Immigrating to New York, she developed her aesthetic sensibility by designing sets for fashion photo shoots with notable stars of the industry, and after 9/11, she moved to Los Angeles, designing sets for movies and working with Pop artist Steve Kaufman.

Anka Gallery, at 325 NW 6^th Avenue, is open for First Thursdays 6 pm- 9 pm.

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