Chasing Jessie Applegate, a new solo show at Ford Gallery, is a visual art exhibition of work created by Portland artist Kirista Trask. Through the abstract exploration of place the artist seeks to reconcile her genealogy as a seventh generation Oregonian in relationship to her families long struggle with inter generational trauma. Chasing Jessie Applegate visually speaks to how trauma does not dissipate in its effect but rather can trickle down from generation to generation. Chasing Jessie Applegate will also allow the artist to share the stories of the women in her family visually as often words are out of reach. Generating a visible representation of pain that is often unspoken or invisible. To give pain a place to rest and to allow stories of hope and resilience to stand alone in its place. Chasing Jessie Applegate features twelve paintings that each represent the untold story of a women in her genealogical line. These twelve paintings span eight generations of women, going all the way back to the Oregon Trail.
Opening Reception Saturday, October 26th 6-9 PM
Coming up this Saturday at the Ford Gallery! Kirista Trask discusses her current solo show, Chasing Jessie Applegate, and the process she went through creating a body of work that is so intimate and personal yet so important. During the talk you will learn a little more about each of the women in her family and how trauma directly affected their lives. Kirista will be breaking down how each plate relates to the symbols in each of the paintings, as well as spending a good amount of time talking about how important it is, especially for female artists, to tackle difficult and somewhat painful subjects in their art.
Artist Talk Saturday, November 16th 3 PM
About the Artist Kirista Trask translates subtle moments and landscapes into swirling abstraction, blending saturated, opaque colors with translucent washes to evoke moment as an emotional experience. Her work is created using a variety of materials, including acrylic, ink, charcoal, pencil, oil pastel, chalk and coffee, in order to react to the spirit of the location at the moment. These abstract works exist somewhere between presence and memory, giving the viewer a moment for pause. Her best work is done plein air style in stunning locations all over the world and especially in the Pacific Northwest. As a seventh generation Oregonian Kirista finds a deep connection to place and incorporates that into her work.
Kirista Trask was awarded a project grant from Regional Arts Cultural Council which provided the funds for this project.
Just in time for the autumnal equinox, Ford Gallery is excited to present “From the Forest, From the Furrows, From the Field”, a group show inspired by folk horror, a sub-genre of horror in which rural, isolated communities assume their folklore and superstitions to be true, often revealing the continued practice of sinister, ancient pagan beliefs. In some folk horror tales, creatures said to lurk in the woods are very real, hexes and enchantments have genuine effects, and the old gods do indeed grant bounties and bring punishments, but often the community’s rituals reflect only the failings of tradition, and evil in the human heart.
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 28th 6 – 9 PM
Participating Artists Include: AJ Hawkins Alicia Justus Alison Grayson Angela Myers Arún Joseph Ragan Caren Rockwood Dusty Ray Elizabeth Massa-MacLeod Elodie Kahler Erika Rier Esmeralda Rupp-Spangle Heidi Elise Wirz Holly Cappello Lisa Laser Liv Rainey-Smith Lorren Ashley Lowrey Maria Mangus Mavis Leahy Melissa Monroe Mrrranda L. Tarrow Natalie Wood Pip Simon Ramon Martin Rebecca Artemisa Sam Hutt Tera Stenzel Trisha Shozuya Troy Hileman Woodland Shrine xochi_pilli
Curated by Mrrranda L. Tarrow
Live music by May Dirt 8 PM
“An experience like crawling on your belly through moist fertile soil with a bone rattle clutched in one hand and a book of faerie tales in the other.” https://www.facebook.com/pg/MayDirt23/
Custom faire-style cutouts, as designed by over a dozen local artists.
F.A.C.E. will exhibit roughly 15 large-scale pieces, each designed by a different local artist. Each piece features a roughly face-shaped hole somewhere on the canvas, where you and your pals can join the composition and selfie yourself into oblivion.
CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS Justine Verigin Matt Hopkins Amanda Baker Keith Henderson Beth Austin YouCantSitWithUs Maddison Bond Hannah Bearden Cynthia Reinhold Logan Welliver Jamie Middleton Chaya Bogorad YaPouring Kate Straube
Curated By Anya Bogorad
All Ages, though 18+ recommended.
Come for the novelty, stay for the music, “gift shop” (small items table), and of course Little Red’s Bakeshop cookies! We’ll open our door at 6:00pm, and then kick alla y’all out so the artists can chillax and high five at 9:00pm.
Entry for opening night will be $5 at the door – CASH PREFERRED.
Just in time for the autumnal equinox, Ford Gallery is excited to present “From the Forest, From the Furrows, From the Field”, a group show inspired by folk horror, a subgenre of horror in which rural, isolated communities assume their folklore and superstitions to be true, often revealing the continued practice of sinister, ancient pagan beliefs. In some folk horror tales, creatures said to lurk in the woods are very real, hexes and enchantments have genuine effects, and the old gods do indeed grant bounties and bring punishments, but often the community’s rituals reflect only the failings of tradition, and evil in the human heart.
Artists may submit up to three pieces in any medium; we must ask that no single work be larger than 36″ in any dimension. Space for 3D work is limited – let us know if you require a podium or special display requirements. Work must have been completed within the the last three years, and have not already been shown at the Ford Gallery. There is no entry fee, but the Ford Gallery takes a 40% commission on work sold.
If you would like your art to be considered for our promotional materials, please send images of finished work by Sun, Aug 18. Please confirm your participation by Sat, Sept 15. Work is due at the Ford Gallery (2505 SE 11th Ave, Portland) by Sat, Sept 21.
Intrigued, but unsure if your art would fit? For a better sense of the folk horror aesthetic, check out these films and books: The Wicker Man, Midsommar, Blood on Satan’s Claw, Children of the Corn, The VVitch, November, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, “The Great God Pan” by Arthur Machen, “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, “The Ritual” by Adam Nevill (and its 2017 film), “The Loney” by Andrew Michael Hurley, “The Owl Service” by Alan Garner
Submissions Due: Sunday, September 15th
Opening Reception: Saturday, September 28th 6 – 9 PM
The world around us, twisted, shifted and transformed through the minds of four artists. Join us for an exhibition of surrealist works by these talented local painters!
Please join us for a night of poetry, art, food and drink as Ellen Petruzzella and Lindsay Martin show their work in the exhibition: The Habitual and The Novel: Magic, at the Ford Gallery on Saturday, January 26 from 6 pm to 9 pm. Poetry Reading begins at 7 p.m. Please find more details below.
Opening Reception Saturday January 26th, 6 – 9 PM Poetry Reading at 7 PM
Gather. Retain. Modulate. Materialize. Share. The Habitual and The Novel: Magic showcases Ellen Petruzzella and Lindsay Martin’s thesis bodies of work created at Oregon College of Art and Craft. Both revel in sensory experience, image, and poetic memoir. Their practices focus on transforming the everyday into the extraordinary with material and perception. This work exists in partnership with the fated and coincidental alignment of material and time, of body and spirit.
Ellen Petruzzella focuses on building relationships and understanding through material and sensory encounters. Lindsay Martin uses painting to create a poem via imagery, searching for a new visual language from place and experience. She grapples with place, pulling it apart and putting back together to form new potentials, the casual and the wonderful, in the present. Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, this show seeks to share stories via poetry, object and image to create something new and thus, creating something magical.
Artist Statements
Ellen Petruzzella My interdisciplinary work explores intimacy and knowledge, provoking curiosity regarding the unity of mind, body, and environment. I explore exchanges of understanding and trust through perception, corporal comprehension, and intuition. Investigations of the senses and habitual patterns allow for a vivid experience of the present and a connection of people and place through discovery and attention. I design sensory experiences, which promote slowness, require physical presence, explore preferences and aversions, and question what is biological instinct and what is cultural construct. Through conscious experience of physical self, we access the unconscious space between the known and the felt.
Lindsay Martin I want to map out the world through painting by turning. The turn is not transformation, yet. By turning, one is slowly changing a situation, viewing a slightly altered perspective. A transformation happens after many turns; when I arrive at a location, my place transforms from home to beach. My work focuses on the wonderful subtle movement, the leap before home to car, car to gas station, gas station to highway, exit 5, rest stop, diner, beach. Place is both general and detailed, it is permanent and temporary; place is a fluid illusion. Painting emerges as material algomation of the body’s translations of memory. I am curious about comparing the psychological perspective of interior, exterior imagery and the symbolism of architecture. These challenges are met with the language of painting and ideas of expansion in painting through material. Paintings are poetic anecdotes, an escape window, a doorway to the past, a barrier between interior and exterior.
Ford Gallery celebrates our beloved Ford Building artists and makers this December!
Join us Saturday, Dec 8th for an opening celebration and mixer,
featuring the artists and makers who call Ford Building their home!
Alexandria Levin
Amy Ponteri
Annamieka Davidson
Arletha Ryan
Christopher Scott
Claire Browne
Dan Kvitka
Jan Rothermel
Kenneth Sellen
Midge Williams
Nicki Beiderman
Ryan Imogene
Sara McCormick
Sue Friesz
Thérèse Murdza
Opening Reception & Mixer!
Saturday December 8th
6-9 PM
Be a Subject in a Neuroscience Study at the Opening Reception
This one-of-a-kind installation reveals paintings designed both as a coherent body of artwork and as scientific stimuli. When you enter, you become part of an experiment.
Opening
Saturday, October 27, 2018
6-9pm
INTO A STUDY is both an art installation and a carefully planned neuroscience study. It began in early 2017 when painter Paul Rutz called neuroscientist Amanda Hampton Wray with a question about how to study the ways people view new paintings. After more than a year spent debating, compromising, fundraising and building a stellar team, that question has blossomed into an immersive exhibit using state-of-the-art research technology to transform the gallery experience.
At the opening—one night only—visitors to Ford Gallery will become subjects in a special data collection event. Many will be fitted with biometric equipment, and all will be shown a series of precisely crafted paintings designed both as a coherent body of art and as stimuli for a neuroscience study.
This is not art inspired by science or vice versa. The exhibit practices both art and science together, which is no small feat! Merging the two cultures has been a difficult yet rewarding process, a dialogue full of give and take—and learning—on both sides. This is a growing niche for art, not only as a site for the artist’s self expression, but, importantly, as a guide for how to engage with the world differently.
Immediately after participating in the study, viewers can enjoy a Q and A with the collaborators and see behind-the-scenes video of how it all came together. Next year the exhibit will be tweaked before it travels to Purdue University and beyond.
A Note on the Subject Matter by Paul X. Rutz
Our symbols for “female” and “male” come from the ancient Romans, but they don’t reference the level-headed Minerva and Apollo, the gods of wisdom, art and self control. Instead they refer to Venus and Mars, the gods of sex and war. The “female” symbol depicts the handheld mirror of Venus, while the “male” circle with arrow represents the shield and spear of the war god.
Looking at those symbols on bathroom doors got me curious about our culture’s parallels to Rome beyond the political and military similarities. A quick online search shows that ancient Rome celebrated some surprisingly complicated and flexible images of femininity and masculinity, much like we do today. It turns out that Venus, the goddess of erotic desire, and Mars, the rampaging, pillaging war god, were just two of many forms of these gods. Romans kept making up new versions of them over the centuries, establishing new names, rituals and temples. Soldiers of the Roman Empire sacrificed to Mars Gradivus—the marching god, god of good combat—but when Rome was not yet so big and powerful many people worshipped the agricultural god Mars Silvanus. He gave farmers good harvests and made them into good fathers. As guarantor of treaties, Mars Quirinus precariously held on to peace. Venus Obsequens—Indulgent Venus—was the ancient Romans’ image of the perfect wife, while Venus Genetrix, the pure feminine parent, brought out the best qualities of motherhood in her people. (Julius Caesar’s clan, the Julii, claimed this version of the goddess as their ancestor.) Some ancient writers say the city also worshipped Venus Calva—Bald Venus—for motivating Roman women to sacrifice their hair for the common good, such as during a siege of the city when women cut off their hair and wove the strands into bowstrings to fight off the invaders.
The ancient Romans believed the gods drove people’s behavior. Personified in statues, paintings, prayer and ritual, Venus Obsequens was healthy erotic desire. When you felt it, you knew she had found her way inside you. The paintings in this exhibit show these versions of Venus and Mars as I found them living in us today.
Paul X. Rutz paints pictures in oil on canvas and carved panel. A former Naval Officer and ballet dancer, he holds a Ph.D. in visual culture. His exhibitions include solo shows at the Oregon Military Museum and several academic galleries, as well as group shows at Mark Woolley Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution. A former reporter for the Pentagon’s press service, he has contributed to HuffPost, Modern Fiction Studies, The Smart Set, and Cincinnati Review, among others, and he writes features for Military History and Vietnam magazines.
Amanda Hampton Wray, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, is an Assistant Professor of Communicative Sciences & Disorders and director of the Brain Systems for Language Lab at Michigan State University. Her research program examines relationships between cognitive and linguistic proficiencies and life experiences. Her work employs measures of brain functions mediating language and attention processes in order to understand the development of these skills in populations with typical and disordered developmental trajectories, including children who stutter and those with SLI.
Ford Gallery, Portland, OR
Jason Babcock of Positive Science, LLC
Laura Annalora and Queens’ Suite
Brian J. Clark Productions
Dar Meshi, Ph.D., and Courtney Venker, Ph.D., of Michigan State University
Megan Heiy, Esq.
A series of large scale paintings created in relation to healing from post trauma dissociation.
Opening Reception
Saturday, September 29th
6 – 9 PM
Journal entry…on painting 2015
Songs to myself…another chapter of work. All paintings in progress. All writing in progress. The end is nowhere in sight. The fundamental organ. Can’t separate the organ from the bone. There is no story. Color, line movement are all without thought..I find you in everything. I write to myself and I am writing to you. Now I feel hunger. I am your second half, third , and fourth. There is no whole.” six rivers the ocean…”my only hope is that if I keep creating looser, bigger, more, that the understanding will reveal itself without interpretation. My painting will become more real, more full for its lack of interpretation.
Songs for my child. Songs for myself is a body of work created during the last 15 years as a study of self. When I started these paintings and stretched the first large canvases I wasn’t cognizant of what there was to uncover. It’s been an unexpected journey. I knew I was lost and I understood wanting to use my painting practice to build a deeper relationship with self. But what I didn’t realize was how seperated I was from my actual body. Repeated rape, torture, and abuse experiences as a small child had really left me divorced from myself physically and emotionally.
My painting practice required hours of daily meditation in order to find the willingness to show up. Nausea and migraines became daily studio routines. I’ve laid on the floor and tried to surrender to the feelings of grief, pain and betrayal at least hundreds maybe a thousand times.
And I’m still not finished. I’ve done much of this on my own, and I’ve had help along the way. Talented therapists, acupuncturists, and body workers have patiently tried to help me untie these knots. Loving friends and family have reached out and supported me when possible.
I share this work and my process, because it’s important.
Everyday I struggle. Each of us does in their own way. I’m grateful for the time, space, and courage to find myself. And if sharing my process helps even just one other person in the way that it has helped me, then the pain of sharing this experience was worth it. Being alive is beautiful. Part of being a painter is knowing when to stop. There is always more to say, and there’s other paintings to be made.There is blank canvas there to hold my space. I think of these paintings as my pretty monsters. They aren’t about being raped. They’re essentially about who I’m becoming and what I experienced after, and some days in the best of moments, I hope my painting describes the peace of one single lovely instance of being alive.
Journal entry…on being a girl child 2018
Here the air is warm and thick. I walk around and feel like a fissure. A not there. I know at any moment someone could grab and press in to me. And the groups of people are always pressing.
-side note. To feel like a little girl is to be a walking vagina. To be pressed into. Grabbed at any moment and taken. But maybe that would be ok if I could be warm and loved. Not locked in this cold cellar feeling less than. Crumby, not clean, in dirty clothes and worn out shoes, and at least today I have my clothes. Even my bones are cracked because of this stupidness. The shame of knowing that I’m less than. Especially in my vagina…which is no longer the same…and despite my constitutional quiet. Everyone will know and see that something was very wrong. Not with what happened to me. But with who I truly am.
Bio
Jolyn Fry was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She graduated with honors from Pennsylvania School of Art and Design in 1996. Since moving to Portland, Oregon, the following year, she has exhibited her continually evolving body of work in many group and solo shows. Whether depicting literal, physical landscapes or abstractions of a more personal, emotional nature, Jolyn says, ‘Surrendering to my artistic process grants me the kindest perspective of myself and the life that moves around me.’ Jolyn is a mother, maker, teacher who works as an Art Educator at Radius Community Art Studio in SE Portland.
Journal entry-2004
On the day I was raped I was not alone. I became one with my sisters, my ancestors. I became nothing and whole at the same time. I became hate. In losing myself I became something I never was before. In losing myself in surrendering I became hate, I became animal, I became sex and rage in my very vulnerability I became humane. I was a child human. Human. Small and insignificant. And it wasn’t until today that I knew as I paint these paintings these pieces of myself, of women, these stories they become me and they become above and below and around me. It was yesterday that I was so sm…small so insignificant. as I am today, but I am all of these things at once small and big. Pain and joy. And I live. I will live. Everything up until this moment has been past. An unfathomable past and I live as life is meant to be for today for a moment with utter knowingness, and a trust that I have never understood before and today becomes a day just like any other day in any other lifetime and that is what makes me rise and fall. That is why I breathe and laugh and cry because of the insignificance of it all.
Self care in mental health is hard work that takes constant effort and a good deal of self love. The artists in this exhibit share their experience as neuro-atypical peers while illustrating the tools they use to cope with works inspired by their own personal self care regimen. Artists share their story of depression and discuss methods they have used to live with or overcome depressive symptoms.
Through this exhibit, we aim to provide those who are starting out with self care useful knowledge, helpful resources, shared experience, and to see that they are not alone.
Participating Artists:
Alexandria Levin
bugsea
Devin Bernard
Doug E. Smith
Elliott Wall
Elodie Massa
Hazel Glass
Jen G. Pywell
Julia Urow-Hamell
Kate Ampersand
M3AT
Melissa Kojima
Michael Espinoza
Mo Alcott
Patricia Kalidonis
Rachel Wallis
Sienna Morris
Wayne Twombly
White Oak
OPENING RECEPTION:
November 4th, 6pm-9pm
Ford Building, 2505 SE 11th Ave, Portland, OR 97202
SKILLSHARE BOARD The specifics of depression and self care are different for everyone, and not any single technique can be said to work the same for everyone. On display for the duration of the show, this board is a place for attendees to share their own personal tools in self care with others. These can be common or off the wall. Whatever has worked for you, we hope you’ll share them with us!
Featuring Live Presentations on Self Care:
7:30 pm – Movement and Vitamin D on Depression and SADs by Sadiq Sheraze and Ryan Hansen
Ryan Hansen received his B.S. in Exercise Science from Western Oregon and a B.S. in Biology from the University of Western States. He is currently completing his Doctorate in Chiropractic Medicine and a Masters in Sports Medicine and Exercise Science. Ryan was born and raised in Dallas, Oregon. He is a seasoned athlete and has practiced almost all forms of sports ranging from soccer, baseball, football, dance, and gymnastics. Ryan has a strong passion for the way the human body moves and he inspires to teach people the benefits of movement.
Sadiq Sheraze graduated from Baylor University with a B.A. in psychology and a B.S. in Biology form the University of Western States. He is currently working towards a Doctorate in Chiropractic Medicine and a Masters in Nutrition and Functional Medicine, also from the University of Western States. Sadiq loves everything nutrition and believes health starts with mindset and that food is medicine. He takes a particular interest in Mind-Body Medicine and strives to educate individuals on the interconnectedness of our body systems.
Ryan Hansen and Sadiq Sheraze are currently Chiropractic interns at the University of Western States and the owners of Optimal Alignment, a future healthcare clinic centered around movement, mindset, and nutrition. They educate individuals on how to optimize both your internal and external environments to best serve your goals and your health.
8:00 pm – Mindfulness and Nature on Depression with Brittan Alperin and Sienna Morris
What do the brainwaves of a depressed person look like? How can they be changed?
Brittany Alperin, a behavioral neuroscience graduate student at OHSU, and Sienna Morris, an artist and science enthusiast, will talk about how mindfulness meditation and self-care can not only decrease depressive symptoms, but can also produce measurable change in your brain! Join us for a discussion of Sienna’s journey through mindfulness practice, take a look at how her depressive symptoms and brain waves changed over time, and see the art that this experience inspired.
