This is the third in a series of interviews of the artists, designers, architects, and musicians that live in the South Waterfront neighborhood. The interviews are conducted by Zara Logue - a Portland-based designer, John Ross resident, and member of the SOWA Art, Culture, and Science committee.

The third interview is with Heidi McBride, an art consultant and owner of Heidi McBride Gallery who lives in Meriwether West.

(Zara Logue) Tell us about your background – where you grew up, where you’ve lived…

(Heidi McBride) I’m a Portland native. I went to high school here, then moved to San Francisco for college, taught for a year in Japan and traveled around Asia and wound up back in Portland. I lived in New Jersey briefly. I’ve been to Europe several times, Thailand, South Korea, Guam, China, Amsterdam. My college degree is in communications and business but I’ve always been interested in art, design, and fashion. My parents are art hobbyists, my dad’s an oil painter.

(ZL) How would you describe what it is you do for a living?

(HM) It’s a blend of a traditional gallery and design consultancy. I look at the art-buying process as fluid and personal. I escort people on a path to buy art that moves them. I believe that owning original artwork and having it around you can shape the way you live – either in business or in a personal setting. I’m an art match-maker. I believe in presenting a unique and wide perspective but my number one priority is to help people discover what they’re really connecting with. Sometimes that’s a finished piece of art and sometimes they envision something and we end up commissioning a site-specific piece.

(ZL) Going back to what you just said about having artwork around you and how it affects you – you literally live among the pieces you represent – they’re all over your home and in all of your rooms. How does the artwork affect you?

(HM) I’m sensitive to energy. Being around the work is like being among stories. These are all original, authentic stories being told by each artist. I get to have experiences with each piece of art because I’m constantly moving things around. I develop relationships with each of them over time. And I enjoy creating different moods in different rooms – a peaceful environment in the bedroom, more dynamic in the living spaces. For people new to my practice, it’s a really rich environment. It takes them a moment to orient themselves when they come over. And I should say that it’s a private gallery and the visitations are by appointment, it’s not a public showroom.

(ZL) It seems like a really brave venture to go out on your own and create a practice that is meaningful to you without any existing business model. How did you get the guts/inspiration to do it?

(HM) Over the course of my lifetime, I’ve developed a sense of where art, authenticity, and life connect. I was looking for a place where those values and my skills could come together and didn’t see anything. I literally started having dreams about this thing that would connect my interests and passions. Then I started asking for it and things just starting coming. Even though it didn’t seem like the right time. Financially, I wasn’t in a place to start a business but my job was laying people off so I took the opportunity. I’ve always been someone to follow my gut and I just went for it. It wasn’t strategic, I wasn’t saying to myself, “oh I want to start a business – what should it be?” it was more intuitive.

(ZL) How did you end up in the South Waterfront?

(HM) I had an idea of the layout of the space I wanted. I wanted something where I could have a holistic experience, both for myself and clients. The culinary arts where a part of that – I wanted to be able to host people for gatherings around food and art. I also wanted the business aspect to be integrated with my life, not a museum. I saw the listing for a place at the Meriwether and really just came down to see it so I could check it off my list. I didn’t know a whole lot about the area. But when I saw the space the first time my heart started beating and I knew it was right. And everything going on the area was just right, things were emerging.

(ZL) Are most of the artists you represent local? How do you find each other?

(HM) I have art and artists from around the world but there’s so much talent here that doesn’t get enough attention. I’m beginning to focus on Pacific Northwest artists, though. Lots of artists are doing well in other markets and don’t have representation here in Portland. In terms of how I find artists, the talent seems to find me. I’ve always attracted talented people to me, somehow. My role as a curator means selecting the strongest pieces of work and artistic voices to make as options for my clients.

(ZL) How do you keep up with what’s going on in contemporary art and design?

(HM) I’m lucky to have an amazing network of friends and colleagues that help keep me informed. I do my part, reading the paper and the magazines, visiting museums and other galleries and reading blogs. Although I have to admit, there is so much happening in the arts around the world, that it is nearly impossible to keep on top of it all.

(ZL) How can people get in touch with you to learn more?

(HM) I’d encourage people to visit my website, http://heidimcbridegallery.com or send me an email at heidi@heidimcbridegallery.com.

I work with anyone with an interest in owning original artwork, from seasoned collectors to people just getting started. And the range of work that I have reflects that. I also do a lot of work for people in their homes and businesses. And site-specific installations and custom pieces as well. You can see an example of a site-specific glass piece at the South Waterfront location of Le Hana. My goal is to make outstanding & meaningful original art available to anyone who is interested in owning it.

The 20/20 Art Culture and Science committee is gearing up for the second Art Exchange in early September. With a stronger force of involvement and a year of learning under our belts, we predict this year is going to be even better than 2007’s laughter and friend-filled, albeit, windy and slightly rainy Exchange.

Essentially an art-focused garage sale and swap, the event is a way for new, tenured and future residents of the South Waterfront to find new homes for pieces of artwork that no longer have meaning or don’t fit the aestetik of their condo. We originally designed the event because we realized many of us were downsizing and redecorating and that a lot of perfectly nice artwork was being displaced in the process. We thought, wouldn’t it be wonderful if others from our neighborhood or from outside the community could adopt those pieces?

Re-use | Recycle… right?

Last year, each selling participant got a plot of land to turn into their own little showcase space. Some people had a few pieces to display, which they set on blankets on the ground, while others had many works to sell and used the cyclone fence along Pennayor as a gallery wall. Prices were all over the map and the ‘vendors’ each handled their own exchanges.

This year, we will offer a similar scenario. Those selling can set up their niche in the best way to suite their collection. They will staff their area and will find it fun to haggle and tell the stories behind their artwork to potential buyers (man, did we hear some stories last year). In addition to earning a bit of extra cash, those representing their own art will find it to be quite the social scene. (In other words, bring your yard chair, a cold beverage and make yourself at home.. it’s going to be a lot of fun!)

If you cant afford to spend your day talking oils and prints, we are setting up an art pool that enables the seller to include their pieces in the group section. Participating pool sellers will each take a shift during the 11-5pm open hours or helping break down the event.

This is also a charitable event (sort of).
Any unsold art that is not collected from the pool will be donated to a local non profit. Net profits raised from the fee of admission will be applied towards future Art, Culture and Science activities.

Those choosing to participate as sellers will get more information closer to the Saturday, 6 September Exchange date. (You must register to become a seller by 31 July. artculturescience@gmail.com for rsvps)

I look forward to tales from last year’s participants, questions or comments in response to this posting!

I hope you will want to be involved in the exchange.. by the way, even if you don’t have art to sell, we would love your help and/or support.. please spread the word to others in the community and invite your friends and colleagues from outside the waterfront to the sale!

-HM

In July, the South Waterfront Artist in Residence Program (AiR) is excited to welcome Bill Will, a Portland-based visual artist and educator who is well-known for his public work, satirical sense of humor and installations that are often politically charged in nature. Beginning July 1, the artist will be on-site to create 20 x 20, a site-specific installation of simple materials in the 200’ x 400’ lawn that is the future home of the South Waterfront Neighborhood Park. With the installation, the arrangement of repeated elements will call attention to the site, its simple proportions and subtle topography. Will intends to emphasize the movement of the sun and wind throughout the day, and the changes that occur amidst the natural phenomena of sunset, dusk, and moon rise. The process of constructing the installation will entail ongoing experimentation as the piece grows and changes weekly in preparation for its formal opening as the set for PROMENADE, a large-scale public performance that the artist has been developing in ongoing collaboration with dance artist Linda K. Johnson since September 2007.

The completed installation will be on view July 19-29, 2008 at SW Moody & Curry.

Opening Event: Saturday, July 19
PROMENADE: Gathering begins an hour before sunset and ends at moon rise. A free public performance featuring the work of Bill Will, Linda K. Johnson, Bill Boese + Seth Nehil.

Closing Event: Tuesday, July 29
Collaboration in Context: Contemporary Art’s Potential in Creating Community

A Curious Conversation amongst Randy Gragg, Bill Will and Linda K. Johnson
7 – 8:30pm at the AiR Studio (3623 SW River Parkway)

This is the second in a series of interviews of the artists, designers, architects, and musicians that live in the South Waterfront neighborhood. The interviews are conducted by Zara Logue - a Portland-based designer, John Ross resident, and member of the SOWA Art, Culture, and Science committee.

The second interview is with Billie Buford, a painter who lives in The John Ross.

(Zara Logue) Give me a brief history of your background – where you were born, where you’ve lived, and how you ended up in the South Waterfront.

(Billie Buford) My husband and I were both born in the South but because of his job we’ve lived all over the country. We lived in Singapore for three years before retiring in Portland seven years ago. We moved here to be closer to family. We had a house in the southwest hills before deciding to downsize. We also wanted to be a part of a more urban setting and be near public transportation.

(ZL) Can you describe your work? Are you a painter? A printmaker?

(BB) I do both. I make monotypes but I also mount prints on a painting surface and combine the two.

(ZL) Your work has a lot to do with color. All painters do, I suppose, but you seem to have a sensitivity for it-you’re a colorist.

(BB) Yes, color is important but it is often intuitive. I’ve been asked to do commissions with specific colors and I’ve never accepted because it doesn’t feel like something you can force. I’ve also been told I’m a designer. I do think I have a strong sense of composition, although I usually start out with a mess and keep honing it down to a more refined thing. I’ve always felt like a frustrated architect. I guess there are two ways you can work: make a mess and organize it or start out with a plan and mess it up!

(ZL) Your paintings definitely have a graphic quality. Do you feel there is a relationship between art and design?

(BB) Maybe people like me would have been good designers, graphic designers. Mainly, I’m interested in simplicity. I’ve simplified my life, my surroundings, and my work has simplified as well. I love abstract art. I once had someone at a show tell me, “I think your work is very cerebral.” I think art can be cerebral or emotional-I’m definitely on the cerebral side.

(ZL) What or who are some of your influences? Are you influenced by living in the South Waterfront?

(BB) I’m a bit of a clean slate when it comes to art because I don’t have a background or degree in art or art history. My degree was actually in business administration. I’ve always been attracted to minimalism and abstract art even before I knew much about it. Two of my favorite artists are Robert Rauschenberg and Richard Diebenkorn. One of my favorite quotes is from the artist Louise Bourgeois. She once said, “I don’t feel I have to explain or defend my art to anyone.” I think that’s true, you have to do what comes out of you.

I’m not necessarily influenced by living in the South Waterfront because my studio is elsewhere but you can’t help picking things up from your surroundings.

(ZL) Where do you make your artwork? Would you be interested in artist studios here in the South Waterfront?

(BB) I have a studio over at ActivSpace (between the Pearl District and Nob Hill). I take the streetcar there, usually three times a week. I used to have a studio attached to the house before we lived here but I like having a separate space to work in. I go into another zone when I’m working. I wouldn’t mind having some workshops here in the neighborhood, though.

(ZL) What do you like most/least about living in the South Waterfront?

(BB) I really enjoy the people here and meeting new people. There’s a great sense of community because everyone is new to the neighborhood- it’s very different than moving into an established neighborhood of homes. You do have a little less privacy than in a home (motioning toward the wall of windows in the living room) but it’s a trade-off for the views.

(ZL) How can people find out more about your work?

(BB) I’m represented by Caplan Art Designs. It’s an art consultancy run by Amy Caplan. I’ll have a show at the Daily Café in the Pearl in December but until then people can see some of my work on her website http://www.caplanartdesigns.com/CAD_files/Buford.htm.

This is the first of a series of interviews of the artists, designers, architects, and musicians that live in the South Waterfront neighborhood. The interviews are conducted by Zara Logue - a Portland-based designer, John Ross resident, and member of the Art, Culture, and Science committee.

The first interview is with Jerry Inscoe, an artist, designer and competitive cyclist who lives in The John Ross.

(Zara Logue) Give me a brief history of your background - birthplace, upbringing, when you started making work, what you do for a living.

(Jerry Inscoe) I was born in Washington DC where I was raised till I was in my early twenties. As a kid I lived with my Mom and my Auntiemame (Grandmother) on Wisconsin Ave just across the street from the National Cathedral. My Auntiemame (named so because she was kind of eclectic like the character Roslyn Russell played in the movie Auntiemame) was very much into art and the social lifestyle of a city woman. She collected modern art and modern furniture and encouraged me to be artistic at a young age. Honestly, I don’t even recall having that many toys to play with as much as I did have colored pencils and sketchbooks. So I always drew as a kid to pass time. As time moved on my Mother and I moved around a lot, always in the DC / Virginia area but I always ended up in a different school district. Making new friends became a bit of a chore so as usual I kept my nose in my sketchbooks. Those early years were spent drawing Ace Frehley and Gene Simmons as much as possible. When Battlestar Galactica aired everything switched over to drawing vipers and cylons. And it went on like that for years. Just drawing what I saw.

I don’t think I really concentrated on making “work” till high school art classes. Most of what I did was modern or abstract…probably inspired by what I saw in my Auntimame’s house as a kid. In 1985 I started doing graffiti so I could have something to do since my Mom worked two jobs. With no parent at home during the night…I had full reign of the streets. In the early ’90s I moved to San Francisco and met up with some old school graffiti writers out there. A few of them were in to doing this really abstract and organic style of graffiti, and I found myself really attracted to the idea. I’ve been in that genre of the subculture ever since. In 2001 I had my first solo gallery show at The Compound which is located above Just Be Toys in Old Town Portland. I had made a few canvas pieces for group shows in previous years but I had never had to create a whole bunch of work for a solo show. The show was a huge success for me. I sold everything on the walls and was even commissioned by Mark Parker (of Nike) to create some artwork for his office. The success of that show led to many other shows and helped me realize just how lucky I really am as an artist.

I currently work full time for a major Northwest retailer as a Visual Merchandiser, which includes a lot more than just fussing with mannequins all day long. There’s not a whole lot of artistic ability needed to do my job but when I first started doing it sixteen years ago it was all different. The ‘display crew’ (as it was called back then) designed, built and installed all the window displays. Over time that creative outlet was taken away and now we’re basically a carbon copy of companies like Gap, Inc.

To compensate for the change I’ve tried to take up graphic design a little bit. I’ve learned that it’s a profession that isn’t as easy as it looks and totally takes a visually creative person of a different sort. I’m more of the kind of artist who is good at doing his own thing and not trying to think up something clever for someone else. I’m not sure what kind of artist that makes me. I’ve been lucky enough to do some stuff for companies like Burton, Nike and Nordstrom as well as a bunch of little things for friends and others. I enjoy working on the computer and teaching myself the programs but I don’t have the time to really buckle down and make a living from it.

(ZL) Do you consider yourself an artist or a designer? How do you connect to or deny those categories in your work? Do you think those kinds of categorizations even matter?

(JI) I would consider myself an artist before I would consider myself a designer. However, I draw a lot of inspiration from graphic design, web design, industrial design and architecture. I’ve found that I really connect with clean and simple images, very color-blocked images. There’s just something about design that I find very inspiring.

Categorizing art is a way for people who aren’t artists to put artists in their place. I think an artist is an artist, no matter what genre they fall in to. I’ve recently become really interested in typeface design…mostly cursive script. A new font called Burgues was just released and it’s amazingly beautiful. The time and energy that must have went into the design of that font has to be immense. I designed a font myself of just my regular handwriting and the work that went into it took a while…and it’s as simple as it gets. I can’t imagine doing something complicated.

(ZL) Graffiti seems to be where you got your start in terms of making your work public. Do you still consider yourself a graffiti writer? What role do you think graffiti plays in culture now that it’s been mainstreamed?

(JI) I still identify as a graffiti writer but I no longer partake in the actions that would label me as one. When you spend 22 years of your life connected to a subculture - even when you leave that subculture behind - you’re still going to be involved somehow. For me, it’s to be aware of my environment around me. The writing on the wall, the stencils and wheat pastes. And within the last ten years the mainstream has latched itself on to graffiti writing as a way to connect with folks. Even when an ad has a subtle hint of graffiti, it stands out to me. I haven’t yet decided if it’s a good thing or a bad thing for the subculture of street artists but I do know it’s opened doors for (graffiti) writers to become graphic designers and web designers. This has helped lead the way to amazing publications of books and magazines related to street art and of street art/graffiti. These books aren’t just images on a page bound together, the books themselves are pieces of art.

(ZL) How did you end up in the South Waterfront?

(JI) I’ve always lived in a city environment since I was a kid. I’ve learned to be very comfortable that way. My wife Rachel and I saved up to buy our first home by moving out the suburbs to save on rent. When we had enough for a down payment on a home we realized we couldn’t afford a modern home like we wanted or something close in to the downtown Portland area so we bought where we could. We got lucky and bought in an upcoming area and the value of our home rose over a five year period. When we saw what was happening in the South Waterfront we really liked the idea of a modern development that we could be a part of from the ground up. The more information we got on the buildings planned for the area the more we wanted to be a part of it. We looked into the Meriwether buildings but all in our price range were sold out. So we put our name in for any info on new buildings being developed. We got some mail about the John Ross building and the opening day sales and we were one of the first in line to buy. It’s great to see the area grow slowly and to be a part of that.

(ZL) What’s the best/worst thing about living here? Has the neighborhood influenced your work in any way?

(JI) For me the best thing about living here is its location. I feel like I live downtown without the hassles of living downtown - the traffic and the noise. I have easy access to most points in the city by hopping on the streetcar and if I feel like a jog on Council Crest I can take the tram uphill! There are some things that bother me but they’re mostly personal. There’s not much the community can do about them - the community has no control over the kinds of vehicles people drive or the laziness behind some folks’ recycling habits. I just hope that living in a green community will start to rub off on people and the efforts of a few will pay off.

I haven’t created any work since moving here but I have played around on the computer with design using elements from the neighborhood. Nothing I’ve saved or anything…just playing with the tools that come with the software.

(ZL) How can people find out more about your work? Are you represented by a gallery, have any upcoming shows, a website?

(JI) Currently I have no representation or website. About a year ago I decided to take a break from creating work due to a stagnant rut I was in. I hope to get back to creating pieces again soon as art is one of my biggest passions. I constantly doodle and sketch ideas so thankfully I have a stash of ideas tucked away so when it comes time to work…I’ll have a good head start.

Our own Linda K. Johnson and this month’s guest artisit, Adam Kuby, had a great interview in the Willamette Week this week regarding the Acupuncture Project.  Please read it here: http://wweek.com/editorial/3419/10668/