PDX Art: "Fire in the Face"

FIRE no I don't mean the Fellowship of Independent Reformed Evangelicals and I don't even want to know what that stands for
but I am talking more about what Bruce Springsteen sings about in
"Fire" like words thrown carelessly like fire in your face or a soul fire like a drive by shooting with bullets that just missed you to let you go on as if nothing happened or fire as an element of alchemy that transforms you like only a paradigm shift can.
Fire as the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education fire as born out off and return to the source fire that belongs to all and made the rise of human consciousness possible.
There is a fire in me that burns in reaction to all influences I am exposed too and creates combustion in my heart to push me towards a meltdown of my resistance and towards unity.
Fire is the element for change a burning down of old facades that leads to renewed action and calls to built a better foundation.
Fire in Art represents destruction or enlightenment and is a call to mobilize all our strenght so we can test what we are made off.
Fire connects us to our lowest instincts and to our highest standards it bridges macro and micro cosmos.
All humans are small power plants burning fuel/food in a nuclear reaction to provide energy for our daily routines.

Energy itself is neutral not good or bad just is and so is life and its force.

Fire shows us the secrets of life and that only a blinded mind beliefs in his own judgements.
The symbolism of the Phoenix rising gives us a clue on how to behave in a 3D world with its possibilities and limitations.
Its up to us what kind of fire we are going to represent is it going to be an all consuming self indulged force or a flame that lights up the way for each other.
I attempt to be the fire that consumes itself to prepare the ground for the new crop and to resurrect itself to complete its cycle of life.

PDX Art: "Manor of Art" at Mile Post Five

The Manor of Art
Over 100 artists have been invited to turn the yet-to-be-renovated rooms of The Studios building into three floors of installations and exhibits. This 10-day festival will include live music by local bands, theater and performance art, artist round tables, and daily guided tours of the 100+ exhibits. The Studios is phase 2 of Milepost 5, formerly the Baptist Manor Retirement Home which was founded on the property in 1915.


8/14 Fri 6-10pm Opening Event
Milepost 5
900 NE 81st Avenue
Portland OR 97213
503.998.4878

Visual Artists
Adam Bailey, Adam Brock Ciresi, Ashley Costa, Adam Charles Ross, Alicia Rose, Amy Jorgensen, Amy Ruppel, Andrea Nelson, Anna Solcaniova King, Anni Tracy, Angela Gay, Appendix, Arringtond de Dionyso, Ben Pink, Brennan Conaway, Urban Eden (Bret Hostetler and Andrew Enna), Brin Levinson, Brooke Weston, Chris Haberman, Cris Moss, CJ, David Stein, Derek Ecklund, Derek Olsen, Eatcho, Erin Nations, Ezra Johnson-Greenough, Felicity Fenton, Gabe Flores (w Jerry Gilmer), Gabriel Decker, Gabriel Liston, Gary Wiseman, George Perrou, Heather Hawkins, Heidi Elise-Wirz, James Wood, Jennifer Doheny, J.Shea, Joel Barber, Jason Brown, Jason Graham, Jeff Fontaine, Jennifer Mercede, Jeremy Schultz, John Graeter, John Meyers, John Wray, Jonathon Hill-Jacquard, Jonathan Stanish, Julianna Paradisi, Karah Bruce-Larkin, Hypnokomix/Kate Fenker, Keith Rosson, Kelly Rauer, Moto Galore/Kenneth Wright, Klutch, Launchpad Gallery, Luke Heinrich, Maggie Casey, Marian Spadone, Mark Randall, Mart Schaefer, Marlena Simone, Matthew Haggett, Matt Schlosky, Meredith Andrews, Michael Fields, Michael Costello, Michael T. Hensley, Misty Ray, Muse Design, Nathan Bennett, Nicole Linde, Hypnokomix/Jason Squamata, Rachel J. Siegel, Rebecca Shapiro, Rhoda London, Richard Schemmerer, Rob Pellicer, Roscoe Hall II, Roxanne Jackson, Sarah Kamsler, Scott C. Johnson, Sean Joseph Patrick Carney, Steven Plount, Suzanne Elizabeth, Tender Loving Empire, Tamara English, Taylor Cass, Tiffany Lee Brown, Tomita Designs, Travis Taylor, Troy Briggs, Tyler Corbett, Walt Curtis and Friends, and many others.

Performances
The Risk/Reward New Performance Series is an evening length program that repeats The New Performance Series presents a platform for the Northwest’s finest genre-busting performing artists to share fresh, short-length new works in the Manor of Art’s performance space. Evening programs will feature a mix of dance, theatre, spoken-word and performance artists, with four 20-minute performances per night, and music sets before and after the shows. Please click here for more information.

PDX Art: when "Meaningful" becomes meaningless

What’s the meaning of it all or is it just plainly mean.

Recently I broke up with FB after a long 6 month of court ship with over a thousand dates of and on line. Sure I knew it was only an experiment a social net working Endeavour with a preset plug out date but secretly I hoped it would last for a life time at least a life cycle.
Now it still feels like prematurely aborted like you expected this fully grown Baby to emerge and all your parental instincts had already began to bloom and now there is nobody to dote over to cradle any more to teach and rectify to protect and to smother.
I know I am dramatizing in hind sight it’s like with graffiti especially when you see a good tag it gets you all sentimental and you think they are all just handicapped by society artists who can’t afford good paint and museum quality paper and have to make their mark on someone else’s home or business to make us aware of their plight.
Guilt is an easy weapon so some of my FB liaisons try to suckle me back into this web of deceit with its easy to consume bonbons of private history, its parfait of lurid details and its cocktail of communal exhibitionism like the food alcoholic who can’t frolic by himself but needs company like the parent who is unhappy with his life’s choices but still tries to superimpose his world view on his children.
Temptation comes in many forms and shapes like a mutating virus it infiltrates us and changes our behavior.
After only 18 hours, 43 minutes and 27 seconds I am showing already withdrawal symptoms and keep on going back to the FB site just to see if I am missing any important event or some new dirt on some ones relationship status.
Sorry for being such a cyber slot a pixel wuss a FB addict I guess that's what I am.
A friend of mine said and I mean a real one a live one that sits occasional across from myself and tells me how things are with me and how I have changed since I started this dangerous liaison with FB the one who says I told you so because he did because he knew better from his own experience and wanted to spare me the let down every addict goes through.
He said “the first step in the 12 steps is to acknowledge that you are an addict” than go to tell someone.
So that’s why we are here that’s what I am doing I am telling the world that I have become addicted to FB and that I am living this pipe dream that I have actual relations with these people/profiles and that I know them which of course is rubbish because they only show me what they have predigested as worthy for public viewing for whatever reason.
I didn’t go in there blindfolded and I knew the risks that I would fall hopelessly in love with FB but now I realize that I have been blind folded and cockadoodled and that I am still running around like a chicken without a head not knowing that FB beheaded me already.

PDX Art: "Is this a Recession, or aren't you just not that into me?"

"Is this a Recession, or aren’t you just not that into me?"

What do I know I never went through the boom in London or Miami where you had to be an idiot not to sell like fuckin bunnies as one of those ueber confident dealers quipped
I was here in Portland having 10 shows in 2007 in as many independent venues doing 8 shows in 2008 to polish off my street cred and having had already my 4th show in 2009 just to entertain myself and to avoid the letdown after every show all the while selling to cheap to too drunk off people.
My whole life has been a recession so am I worried God no I am a fucking artist no not a starving one I am a creating one and loving every bit of heart ship
Sure after helping getting Alberta of the ground making the East side to hip for its own sake after giving the Everett Station Lofts a bit of glamour back I could use a little love and money
but the Art world is obviously not that into me and has already moved on to the next best trend following the raddest of them all in search for the raiders of the lost he-arts.
No I am not feeling sorry for myself or any of the galleries that closed because that’s the nature of the beast.
When I signed up at heavens labor camp for a job as an artist they told me that nothing is promised that there was no field of dreams waiting for me and that I was going to have to be self reliable the whole way.
Just the way I like it just like a proud dog who doesn’t take hand outs from strangers because Art can live of air alone Art doesn’t have to be a production line with a marketing contract attached to it. An artist doesn’t have to be a label a crafty a toy maker a T-shirt designer a curator a gallery operator a fucking moron a whore or any concept that fits neatly into someones deep pockets.
Okay it is a recession but a recession of creativity that followed a long period of our deprivation of independence.
We are what we consume is true in more ways than this hollowed out statement communicates and we have allowed to let our mind become a third world country and I don’t have any intention to insult 3rd world countries which is of course also an oxymoron for our personal accountability.
Okay it’s me not you I stop the blame game to make myself feel better.
Honesty is always the last path of defense but always the best one.
It’s all my fault even though I don’t believe in fault or no fault but for your sake I give in.
What I am saying is “I am just not that into you anymore” and because it would be a waste of precious love juice I give you the option either you spice it up a little or I am out of here but as you know as well as I do we will always have our memories.

PDX Art: Soulbuster

there are images that bust your soul wide open like a clear day that was always there but a hazy smock covered it up with a impenetrable veil
My focus is on those moments that awaken my interest and beckon me to pay attention
to the curve of imagination that forgot that it is a curve doomed to return to its beginnings a curve that keeps on stretching out as if it could touch infinity in a blink of an eye




"Play"




"Limb"




"Landing"




"Scull & Table"




"Sleep Country"




"Racism is over"


copyright Richard Schemmerer 2009

PDX Art: New Beginnings

to start something fresh something has to give has to pass has to become only a distant memory
every beginning is abstract with its endless possibilities but with time a new order will find shapes to solidify a hierarchy which beckons to be destroyed anew
a beginning is only a first step in the cycle that circles around the concept we call life
of course their is so much more to it
that's why this is only the beginning of many more "Beginnings"




abstract 022



abstract 021



abstract 023

PDX Art: "Superflat" by Richard Schemmerer

Superflat or confessions of a truly bad artist

The world is my oyster so what are you doing in it.
Why am I paying respect to the irreverent maybe because I am loser.
I am on a quest not to find something to pay homage to someone but because it’s my nature to explore the shaggy ridges of the social skeletons over and over searching in “the Sculls &Bones” for the secrets of our family to get to its marrow and to suck it out of its holes so nothing gets wasted in this out sized over rated fast paced environment I call “The Rut” or life us it warbles out of sync with its own rules.
I can claim to be a good person that works on his good parts because it’s the only true value I can find that satisfies me.
Besides I am an artist a really bad artist and I carry this guilt around me no not like a badge of dishonor but instead I am proud of my guilt complex for various reasons.
First because it keeps me bound it keeps it real and honest for me because I am always reminded that there is room for improvement in my house of Self.
There have been many bad artists before me who are now famous. Sure most of them are dead and the irony is that guilt only has historical value but not in now time.
My guilt is like a membership to the club of have-nots, wannabemore’s and we are certainly in the majority but I have specialized my guilt even more so that even thou I am part of a majority I still can be unique in my failure.
The years are passing by like trucks with other people’s belongings while I am still harvesting my inadequacies like shriveled oranges from an abandoned grove.
Of course I could take courses study techniques decide on a style and trade in trademarks but what’s the point.
I am not in the business of pleasing so that makes me a big irritant to others who follow the same sprigs on the same ladder to reach the same heaven of fame to die the same artistic death to land in the same mindless hell.
Sure I am pissed mad upset that the world I was born into is a pile of steaming lumpia roles which the God of Denial keeps on pushing under my nose but longtime ago I decided that I don’t deserve this and that revenge was not beneath me and that my revenge would be not to be the average not the amazing not the superior not the subservient but to be a stray ray of hopeless activism the so inclined could follow.
I am the alternative to the alternative never identifiable but always present like a native alien that always lived here but nobody realized it because they were afraid to look in their own mind cave for intelligent life.

PDX Art: JIRO YONEZAWA at Butters Gallery

Butters Gallery does it in style

with
JIRO YONEZAWA, David Geiser and
NEW DISCOVERIES,

Matthew Craig, Nicolas Guerrero, Patrick LoCicero, and Arturo Mallmann.
contact www.buttersgallery.com

PDX Art: Sarah Cosman and James Proctor at Anka Gallery

James Proctor works primarily in steel and stone, jokingly he says "I prefer materials that are as stubborn as I am." His work is process oriented, with an eye for balance, material integrity and overall beauty.

Sarah Cosman enjoys making people think outside of themselves, as well as inside themselves, searching their own mysteries for answers.
more info at www.ankagallery.com

PDX Art: "Fine Art Inside Out" at the Goldsmith Building former PAC

The Nature of Now.

Gabriel Mark Lipper, Kevin Christman, Clifford Wilton explore with impecular craftsdmanship the concept of "Now"


Open July:

Tuesday-Friday 11-6pm & Saturday 1-6pm
Closing Reception Thursday, July 30th 6-9pm.
The Goldsmith Blocks (Former home of the Portland Art Center)

32 NW 5th Ave., Portland, OR 97209

Contact Info: 541.301.5738 www.fineartinsideout.com

www.artofgabriel.com

www.kevinchristman.com

www.cliffordwilton.com

PDX Art: Elizabeth McClellan at Appendix Project Space

Appendix wins another price for most innovative use by hanging
Elizabeth McClellan fairytale like drawings right into nature from which they drew their inspiration.
A brilliant stroke that payed back big as the setting sun started to back light the huge pieces of paper to give them an otherworldly glow.


Appendix Project Space
btwn 26th and 27th Avenues on NE Alberta St. (South Alley)
Portland, OR 97211
Northeast
appendixspace.com

Hours: Wed-Sun 3pm-7pm, Last Thursday receptions 6pm-10pm