Meet the girls of Super Crafty!
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Susan Beal is a jewelry,
handbag, and trinket designer who divides her
time between Portland and Los Angeles. She writes
about art, craft, and fashion for BUST,
ReadyMade,
Venus,
and getcrafty.
Her jewelry and lip balms are sold in twenty
shops
nationwide and on her own website, susanstars.com.
Susan also collaborates on independent films and performance art pieces with
her husband, Andrew.
She loves coffee, reading, and making new things.
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Torie Nguyen is a handbag, t-shirt,
and accessories designer who lives with her husband, Quentin (of Monsieur
T.) in Portland. She learned to sew for the sole purpose of creating
fun, original handbags. Eleven months and many pinpricks and broken
needles later, she launched her handbag line, Totinette (toe-tee-net),
realizing a lifelong dream of owning her own business. Torie's bags
are sold in select small boutiques across the nation and she gets
website orders from as far away as Europe and Japan.
In her spare time Torie loves to craft, play with her dog Annie, read, learn
to knit and crochet, snowboard, and do taekwondo.
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Rachel O'Rourke received
her master's degree in art therapy from the School
of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is also the
design whiz behind Lucky
Loo Loo, jewelry inspired by the '40s, '50s,
and '60s with a modern sculptural twist, while her
hubby Danny is the sales, marketing, and website
guru. Lucky Loo Loo Designs was born in January 2003,
after Danny bought Rachel a drill press for her birthday.
Rachel started crafting at a young age and her mom
turned many of her and her brother’s drawings
into neckties her dad would proudly wear to work.
She was also quite well known for her backyard gourmet
mud pies that she would attempt to feed her younger
brother in the backyard. When she is not designing
jewelry, Rachel works as an art therapist with teen
girls and creates cool mixed media artwork. Last
but certainly not least, Rachel and Danny are proud
parents of Greta the bulldog.
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Cathy Pitters is
a mom, artist and seamstress who lives in Portland,
OR with her husband, 8-year-old son, and two cats.
She spends most of her time in her flamingo-pink
craft bunker, sewing and playing with small things.
Cathy runs Bossanovababy.com,
which features cool clothing for young and old
as well as assorted fabulous art and oddities.
Cathy’s favorite things to do are playing
with her son on the slip-n-slide, going to estate
sales and drinking coffee.
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…and our superhero
illustrator!
Ryan Berkley started
drawing superheroes when he was three years old.
As he grew up in Paradise, California, he developed
his natural artistic talents by drawing constantly
with the encouragement of his lovely mother, Nancy.
Artistic talent runs in his family as his grandfather
is an accomplished artist and his younger brother
Beau is also a gifted illustrator.
Comic books and movies have heavily influenced his personal style, but he enjoys
drawing a wide range of subjects. His illustrations have been used on pamphlets,
t-shirts, posters, and murals. When the women of Portland Super Crafty posted
an ad looking for superhero versions of themselves, Ryan knew he'd be a perfect
fit and he is delighted to be involved with the group.
He currently lives with his wife Lucy in Portland, Oregon.
See more of Ryan's work at ryanberkley.com.
Press
How We Met
Coming soon...
PDX Craft History
A Short History of Craft in Portland
by Susan
Beal
Thandi Rosenbaum, co-founder of the popular
Tuesday night craft circle held at the Delta Cafe on
Southeast Woodstock, visited New York recently. When
she told someone she was from Portland, he asked, "So
which is it: are you in a band, or do you do crafts?"
Nocturnal, an all-ages music venue on
East Burnside, also hosts a weekly craft night. Midweek
nights were slow when the club first opened in November
2002, and as art director and booker Seann McKeel explains,
"It started out as a joke. One Wednesday I looked
over to see the cook cutting out sewing patterns on
the bar while the waitress knitted, and I asked, 'What
is this, craft night?' We put it in our ads for the
next week, and suddenly it was so crowded!"
From informal craft circles in coffee
shops and parks to stylish fashion and furniture design
exhibitions in galleries and boutiques, craftmaking
is certainly abundant in Portland these days. But this
recent upsurge is just the latest chapter in the history
of Portland's rich, ever-evolving craft community. Through
the last century, this community has created and nurtured
schools, organizations and events that foster both traditional
and modern approaches to craft.
In the late nineteenth century, the Industrial
Revolution displaced the traditional work of craftspeople
and artisans; suddenly everything from dresses to chairs
was mass-produced in factories. The Arts and Crafts
movement arose in England and the United States in response
to this unprecedented shift, elevating well-designed
and finely crafted handmade work above common mass-produced
goods. Arts and Crafts also questioned the previously
rigid boundaries dividing fine art and functional craft,
later influencing the Bauhaus and other mid-century
art and design schools.
Unlike most industries and disciplines,
craft became an arena in which women could lead. Up
until this point, sewing, embroidery and other handwork
were done and taught privately in the home. The Arts
and Crafts movement opened up the first significant
opportunities for women to teach, discuss and exhibit
their work in public. And, for the first time, this
work was recognized for its artistic merit as well as
its craftsmanship. Here in Portland in the early twentieth
century, the hard work and remarkable vision of a few
women created a craft community that continues to thrive
nearly a hundred years later.
Julia Hoffman, Portland photographer,
weaver, painter, metalsmith and sculptor, founded the
Arts & Crafts Society (ACS) in 1907, undertaking
a mission "to educate the community in the value
and creation of fine craft." Society members hosted
classes and art events at their homes, and summer programs
brought noted artists to lecture and teach. Hoffman
also envisioned a gallery space to exhibit regional
craft.
In the late 1930s, as the ACS continued
to grow, Hoffman's daughter Margery Hoffman Smith began
a monumental task: designing the interior architecture,
furnishings and decoration of the new Timberline Lodge,
which the Works Progress Administration (WPA) was building
on Mt. Hood. At the time, Smith said, there were "no
ski lodges of any consequence in the Northwest, nothing
in which you could stay and be fed and be comfortable."
She brought in 126 unemployed people, "training
a great many of them" to make "the furniture,
the rugs, the draperies, the decorations, murals, wood
carvings, wrought iron… every type of crafts.
We wove thousands of yards, literally, of hand-woven
fabrics."
The work, using exclusively Oregon materials,
was done in a hastily thrown-together studio in the
First Commerce Building across from Skidmore Fountain
in downtown Portland as well as on site on the mountain,
where Smith nearly froze to death when she and a blacksmith
ran into an unexpected blizzard on one trip to deliver
finished pieces to the hotel. Timberline's luxurious
interior was finished just before President Roosevelt
dedicated the lodge in 1937. Smith said years later,
"It was really [my mother's] training of me that
made it possible for me to work on this big craft project.
My mother's idea was to bring artists and the public
together. So it was a natural for me."
Another Portland woman, Lydia Herrick
Hodge, founded the Oregon Ceramic Studio (OCS) the same
year with a group of her fellow University of Oregon
alumnae. OCS's application for WPA help in constructing
a studio facility was initially denied. But after Margery
Hoffman Smith loaned her support, saying, "I think
you are making a great mistake turning this down. It
will be using Oregon clays and it will have a future,"
the project was approved. The city of Portland provided
an empty four-lot site on SW Corbett Avenue at a nominal
price in exchange for Hodge's promise to fire all the
clay artwork of the city's schoolchildren, and the WPA
used leftover materials from Timberline Lodge to build
a modern wood and glass building. The OCS space was
used for ceramic studio work as well as exhibitions,
sales of clay and other art materials, and lectures.
It also had the largest public kiln west of Denver,
which served the Arts and Crafts Society's members as
well.
Launching this ambitious project during
the worst years of the Depression could not have been
easy, but as Hodge said, "We stick our necks out.
We are venturesome, willing to take the consequences
and take the bruises." By 1949, OCS had begun hosting
biennial ceramic shows as well as rotating craft shows
and had started an artist-in-residence program.
In 1952 the Arts & Crafts Society
merged with the Metal Guild and Allied Art organizations
and moved to a large home in Northwest Portland. Ten
years later the ACS purchased an old chiropractic hospital
at NW 18th and Hoyt, which became a crafts school offering
classes in a variety of disciplines. A small shop and
gallery showcased both students' and regional artists'
work--Julia Hoffman's dream was finally realized.
The 1960s also saw the expansion of the
Oregon Ceramic Studio's gallery and workspace under
the directorship of Ken Shores. OCS changed its name
to Contemporary Crafts Gallery in 1965 and exhibited
cutting-edge shows of textiles, glass and furniture
throughout the decade. The artist-in-residence program
was formalized, with each residency culminating in a
show of the work created at the studio. As the largest
population of Portland students ever, the baby boom
generation, sent their thousands of unwieldy small clay
animals and pots to be fired, CCG had to discontinue
the original arrangement. In its place, they pioneered
the popular Craftsmen in the Schools project (later
Artists in the Schools), which sent craft artists all
over Oregon to demonstrate, teach and lecture to children
about their work. As executive director David Cohen
says, "We found a niche in the community that needed
to be filled. In the 50s, 60s, and 70s, there were no
galleries in town, just Portland Art Museum, the Museum
Art School [now PNCA], the Arts & Crafts Society,
Contemporary Crafts and Arlene Schnitzer's gallery [the
Fountain Gallery of Art]-that was it. We expanded to
fit the need in the community." By 1975 CCG was
showing the work of over 175 craft artists each year.
The 1970s brought another community-based
experiment to the city. Sheri Teasdale and Andrea Scharf,
two craft artists who had sold their work at the Eugene
Saturday Market, envisioned a similar open-air food
and craft market in downtown Portland. The Metropolitan
Arts Council gave them a $1,000 start-up grant in 1973.
The two women also persuaded downtown parking magnate
Bill Naito to let them use his "Butterfly Lot"
(named after a colorful mural on an adjoining building)
at NW 2nd and Davis on Saturdays. Teasdale and Scharf
invited 35 craftspeople to sell their work at the new
Portland Saturday Market co-op, charging a $3 fee per
booth. Most of the early vendors sold handmade ceramics,
woven goods, clothes and jewelry, and as Renee Conlee,
promotions manager for PSM, says, "That first year,
you could throw a blanket anywhere on the ground, and
that was your stall."
In 1976, as the market grew, it moved
to its current location under the Burnside Bridge next
to a boarded-up building (and across the street from
the site of the 1930s Timberline Lodge craft studio).
The following year, as the steady stream of visitors
and shoppers continued, it began opening on Sundays
as well. Spaces became more and more competitive and
vendors would line up well before opening, darting to
the best 8' by 8' spots at 7 am sharp. Someone soon
realized that hurling chairs in the direction of a coveted
space was faster than running, and the "chair toss"
method quickly caught on. In 1977 the market switched
to a less hazardous method of site allotment through
a sign-up sheet.
By this time the Arts & Crafts Society
had outgrown its space as well. The back-to-the-land
movement had firmly taken hold, and craft classes were
full. In the 1970s, "production pottery was king,
there was a huge weaving department creating functional
rugs and cloth with an eye towards the home, and calligraphy
classes were offered six times a week," says Mardy
Widman, who has been with the school for 24 years.
The ACS school found its permanent home
in 1979, on a 7-acre hazelnut orchard on SW Barnes Road
donated by Tektronix founder and philanthropist Howard
Vollum and his wife Jean. The newly renamed Oregon School
of Arts and Crafts, comprising Hoffman Gallery and six
new studio buildings, began offering artists' residencies
in each medium. These visiting artists, most with MFAs
from RISD and other art and design schools, brought
a new philosophy and teaching style to the school. Widman
describes a definite shift in the focus of the school's
course offerings and shows during that period of expansion:
"Now craft as art, a new concept, came in. The
attitude about craft really changed-ideas, issues and
concepts became as important as making things by hand."
One early resident ceramics artist's emphasis on huge
sculptural slab-built work prompted the school to discard
many of its pottery wheels, which had been used to create
more functional pieces. In the weaving classes, newer
techniques such as surface design rose to the forefront;
teachers and students moved away from creating yards
of material for decoration and towards the idea of fiber
as art. Calligraphy gave way to a book arts program
with emphasis on one-of-a-kind artists' books.
Contemporary Crafts continued to exhibit
group shows involving work from outside the Northwest,
such as the 1984 "International Tea Party,"
which drew artists from Canada, Japan and Scotland.
Meanwhile, the Artists in the Schools program had grown
so much that the Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC)
assumed responsibility. OSAC also expanded during the
next decade, first offering credit classes through Marylhurst
College, and then receiving independent accreditation
in 1988. Saturday Market was thriving as well. After
the MAX light-rail went in, the Skidmore Fountain stop
became one of the busiest of the entire transit system.
As the neighborhood revitalized, the buildings near
the market attracted companion shops like Made in Oregon.
There are now 400 vendors, and over 15,000 people (many
of them tourists) visit the market on an average Saturday.
Saturday Market celebrated its thirtieth
anniversary in 2003, marking the milestone with a season
of weekend parties, street performers and, yes, a chair
toss competition. The market is still run like a co-op,
with members voting on which new vendors to accept and
charging fees based on sales, and the board is currently
considering a move to another, larger, location in Old
Town.
OSAC began granting BFA degrees in 1994,
and two years later the school changed its name to Oregon
College of Art and Craft to reflect that shift. Twenty-three
graduates received BFAs in craft from OCAC in 2002.
In 1999 OCAC hosted the first Craft Biennial,
"an exhibition that stimulated artistic excellence
in craft and encouraged artists to explore issues as
well as further their creative expressions," says
curator Arthur DeBow. OCAC offered its third craft biennial
in September 2003, showing work from 56 Oregon and Washington
artists. The college envisions a centennial celebration
in 2007 in conjunction with their fifth craft biennial,
which will include artists from Montana, California,
Idaho, and British Columbia. Lisa Conway had ceramic
work in both the Craft Biennial and the Oregon Biennial
in 2003; she is the first artist to show at both biennials.
Conway, who studied at OCAC and did an artist's residency
at Contemporary Crafts, appreciates the environment
for craft artists in Portland. "Critical mass has
been achieved. There are great schools here, and people
see enough handmade work out there that they don't have
to settle for commercial mass-produced stuff. It's not
like this everywhere." Contemporary Crafts still
follows its original mission, "excellence in fine
craft and educating the community." As executive
director Cohen notes, "We haven't changed our focus
in all these years: traditional materials and process
used in a totally new way." The organization underwent
a recent name change, adding the word "museum"
to its title to reflect its permanent collection of
more than 700 works in clay, fiber, glass, wood and
other mediums. Last year CCMG inaugurated the first
biennial Excellence in Craft Awards, honoring six Oregon
artists at a gala reception.
Meanwhile, the grassroots craft movement
in Portland is also flourishing with shows, sales and
hands-on events taking place each week. The opportunities
to learn craft skills are certainly numerous as well.
OCAC's Studio School serves over a thousand people every
year; in the age of Photoshop, graphic designers are
still drawn to letterpress and book arts classes, and
even though digital work has become the cutting-edge
standard for photography, many photographers continue
to develop and print from their own negatives. There
is certainly a distinction between picking up knitting
for the first time at a craft night and earning a BFA
in fiber arts, but the urge to work in a tactile medium
remains constant.
The more things change, the more they
stay the same. "The Arts and Crafts movement was
a reaction against industrialization; in today's technological
world the perpetuation of fine hand craft is equally
important to keep us in touch with our creative minds
and hands," says Bonnie Laing-Malcolmson, president
of OCAC. The latest permanent exhibit at the college,
Julia Hoffman's well-worn and well-loved metalworking
tools from the turn of the century, closely resemble
the ones students in the metals studio use today.
Another blend of the traditional and the
innovative is the upcoming thesis show for the 2004
Oregon College of Art and Craft graduates. Contemporary
Crafts and OCAC are presenting two concurrent shows:
the Hoffman Gallery will exhibit eleven artists' work,
opening May 13, while the other thirteen artists will
show at the larger CCMG space, which opens May 14. The
collaborative show is the largest in OCAC's 97-year
history, and marks a new era of partnering with CCMG
to contribute to Portland's dynamic craft community.
Delta Craft Night,
Tuesdays at 10pm
4607 SE Woodstock in Portland
503-771-3101
Nocturnal Craft Night,
Wednesdays at 7pm
1800 E. Burnside in Portland
503-239-5900
nocturnalpdx.com
Contemporary Crafts Museum and
Gallery
3934 SW Corbett in Portland
503-223-2654
contemporarycrafts.org
Oregon College of Art and Craft
8425 SW Barnes in Portland
503-297-5544
ocac.edu
Portland Saturday Market
Under the west end of the Burnside Bridge, Saturdays
and Sundays March-December
503-222-6072
saturdaymarket.com
A version of this article originally appeared in the
September 2003 Organ
Review of Arts. Copyright 2003-2004 by Susan Beal. |
