All posts by Bob Hicks

I've been observing Portland and its culture since 1974, for most of that time as a writer and editor at The Oregonian and the Oregon Journal. I finally left The O in December 2007 so I could spend more time hanging around coffee shops and catching up on good books. My journalistic wanderings have led me into the worlds of theater, dance, music, the visual arts, literature and food. I'll continue writing about those and broader cultural subjects for Art Scatter. They're terrific windows onto the great mysteries of life, and thinking about them makes the mendacities of our wayward national political culture a little more bearable.
Bob Hicks, General, Visual Art

Cars, beasts & museums: art by design

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"Flayed Man," Richard Barnes/Blue Sky GalleryRichard Barnes

By Bob Hicks

It’s Friday, the morning’s dead trees have been delivered, and they bear proof that Mr. Scatter’s been a busy beaver lately (although he does not claim responsibility for chewing through the timber that became the newsprint that bears his words).

1937 Talbot-Lago T150-C-SS “Teardrop” Coupe Lent by Arturo and Deborah Keller Petaluma, California Friday’s A&E magazine of The Oregonian includes Beautiful Bodies, Mr. Scatter’s cover story on the Portland Art Museum‘s new show The Allure of the Automobile, plus a review of Richard Barnes’s new show of behind-the-scenes photographs of natural history museums at Blue Sky Gallery and a brief look at the first group photo exhibit in the new gallery space at Newspace Center for Photography. Such a lot of stuff!

Since the cars are hogging the cover, let’s take a look at Barnes’s beasts first.

Continue reading Cars, beasts & museums: art by design →

Bob Hicks, Dance, General

A few conclusions on Obstacle Allusions

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By Bob Hicks

Mr. and Mrs. Scatter spent Friday night — or at least a short part of it — at BodyVox for the opening performance of Obstacle Allusions, Eric Skinner’s new half-hour dance for Skinner/Kirk Dance Ensemble.

skinnerkirkb2011It was the second recent new contemporary dance piece in town in which the music was an essential and equal partner to the dancemaking, defining and pushing the ideas as much as the choreography itself. (The first was Jim McGinn’s Gust for TopShakeDance, a piece that was woven inseparably with Loren Chasse’s score based on field recordings of the sounds of wind.) In Obstacle Allusions the music isn’t original: it’s taken from works by Haydn, Aarvo Part and the film composer Ennio Morricone.

But the performance — by pianist Bill Crane, who is always an enlightenment and a pleasure to hear — was a highlight of the evening and a welcome reminder of the essential partnership of music and physical movement in dance.

Continue reading A few conclusions on Obstacle Allusions →

Bob Hicks, General, Visual Art

YU, new art and the transparency issue

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UPDATE: Jeff Jahn, who has followed the fortunes of YU from its beginnings, has kicked in with his own take at PORT. He argues that YU has “a general art world sophistication several tiers above” some earlier attempts at a nationally linked contemporary arts center, but also that it is severely harmed by its lack of a community board — its three-member board is also its three-member staff. Row made the same point in his Oregonian story, and it’s worth stressing: an independent, unpaid board is essential. ALSO: Some excellent points from Barry Johnson of Arts Dispatch in the comments below this post. Be sure to give ’em a look. Of note: Is YU hamstrung by its main donor’s restrictions?

By Bob Hicks

The Oregonian’s D.K. Row set off a micro-explosion with his front-page story in this morning’s paper about the cloudy picture at YU Contemporary Art Center, the fledgling nonprofit in the inner east side’s old Yale Union Laundry Building. Central to the issues that Row called into question: the center’s three principal figures (four if you count the building’s owner, who is divorced from one of the founders) have repeatedly sidestepped questions about the organization’s finances and structure.

D.K. is taking a bit of a beating in the online version’s comments thread, with people accusing him of making something out of nothing or, worse, engaging in some sort of hatchet job in an effort to kill off a good idea. Yet there’s very little in the story that I haven’t heard a lot of arts people saying privately for months. Few people think there’s anything nefarious going on. A lot of people wonder whether the founders aren’t in over their heads, and question both how much money this project is going to cost (the building will be very expensive to operate) and where the money’s coming from. I’ve also heard more than a few people ask the exact question that is central to Row’s story: Why won’t the people at YU just say what the financial situation is? D.K. didn’t invent these questions. He simply had the impertinence to ask them in public.

Continue reading YU, new art and the transparency issue →

Bob Hicks, General, Visual Art

It’s First Thursday: can you see your art?

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Storm Tharp, Bokashi, 2011 softground print, edition of 12. 30" x 22"/PDX Contemporary ArtBokashi, Storm Tharp/PDX Contemporary Art

By Bob Hicks

This evening is First Thursday, Portland’s monthly movable feast of gallery-hopping, and Mr. Scatter published this guide in this morning’s Oregonian. Lots of options, and as usual it’s just part of the picture: a lot of gallery openings and other art events aren’t included.

Well, it’s a big town. You can list all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t list all of the people all of the time. And that’s probably a very good thing: no sense exploding your brain with too much information.

Hiroshige, from "100 Views of Edo," Wikimedia CommonsSo of the 40 zillion or so images we might show you, we’ve chosen just one: Storm Tharp’s Bokashi, above, a 2011 softground print in an edition of 12 in the group show Oomph at PDX Contemporary Art. And we’re showing this one not just because we like it but also because it comes with a small but intriguing art-history connection, as PDX’s Jane Beebe points out. “One can see the influence of Japanese prints and masks in the trajectory of Storm’s artistic thought and work,” she writes, and then adds: “also I think it is interesting that Bokashi can refer to swipe….. the swipe of the eyes in the print.” She passes along as evidence this image (from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo)  by the legendary 19th century Japanese printmaker Hiroshige, along with this explanation from Wikipedia:

Bokashi  is a technique used in Japanese woodblock printmaking. It achieves a variation in lightness and darkness (value) of a single color by hand applying a gradation of ink to a moistened wooden printing block, rather than inking the block uniformly. This hand-application had to be repeated for each sheet of paper that was printed.

The best-known examples of bokashi are the shadings of a color often used by Hiroshige on landscape prints to depict the sky at the top of the print.

Most of the galleries participating in First Thursday are open from 6 to 8 or 9 p.m. Put on your walking shoes. And remember two things. First, most of the shows will be up all month, so don’t worry about hitting all of them (or any of them, for that matter) tonight. Second, a lot of other good exhibits aren’t taking part in First Thursday at all. Weekend jaunts are good.

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  • Storm Tharp, “Bokashi,” 2011 softground print, edition of 12. 30″ x 22″/PDX Contemporary Art.
  • Hiroshige, from “One Hundred Famous Views of Edo,” Wikimedia Commons.
Bob Hicks, General, Theater

Jim Caputo memorial gathering June 14

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Marty Hughley writes in The Oregonian that friends and family of Jim Caputo, the veteran Portland actor who died May 12 of a heart attack, have set his memorial service for Tuesday, June 14. It’ll be at Lincoln Performance Hall on the campus of Portland State University.

That’ll be the evening after the Drammy Awards, Portland’s annual celebration of the year’s best theater work, and Jimmy will be deeply missed at that party. We’re guessing more than a few words will be said on his behalf from the stage. The Drammys are at 7 p.m. (drinks and socializing from 6) in the Crystal Ballroom.

Pretty much everybody liked Jimmy a lot, and that included crusty old theater critics: He was one of those people who exuded the vitality and spirit and joy of the theater scene. We wrote this post about him after he died.

The June 14 memorial will start at 6:30 p.m., gathering a half-hour earlier. As his widow, Karen Voss, posted on pdxbackstage: “Please no somber dress – let’s fill the room with the bright colors of his light and laughter.”

Marty also notes that the theater community has set up a fund to benefit Jim’s family. You can make donations to the James M. Caputo Fund at any Key Bank branch.

Bob Hicks, Film, General, Visual Art

‘The way research works is, it takes you down a road. You then follow that road.’

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By Bob Hicks

That quotation comes from Claudia Dreifus’s interview in this morning’s New York Times with Ellen Bialystok, a cognitive neuroscientist who’s spent almost 40 years studying the ways that speaking two languages keeps your mind sharp, even possibly delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms. (Does that mean that Europeans and Quebecois are smarter longer than most Americans?)

Mel Blanc gives himself a close shave for a KGW radio gig. Photo courtesy of Noel Blanc.It strikes Mr. Scatter that what Bialystok has to say about research is equally true for that branch of creativity we like to refer to as artistic. An idea takes hold. You follow it. It leads you somewhere that might utterly astonish you. But once you’ve identified it, you need to trust it to lead you where it will. It’s not blind faith. But it is faith. Which doesn’t mean it won’t sometimes lead you down a dark alley for an artistic mugging. But those are the chances you take.

That’s all, folks: Meanwhile, Mr. Scatter has a story in this morning’s Oregonian about the Oregon Jewish Museum‘s new show That’s All, Folks: The Mel Blanc Story, celebrating the life and times of the Portland kid who grew up to be possibly the greatest Hollywood voice actor of all time, supplying the sounds of cartoon characters ranging from Bugs Bunny to Pepe LePew.

Logo for the radio hit "Hoot Owls," which featured Blanc. Courtesy Mark Moore, NW Vintage Radio Society.Blanc made a name for himself in Portland radio with shows such as KGW’s Hoot Owls (it was a huge hit in the 1920s and early ’30s, drawing audiences of more than a million a show) before heading for Hollywood and cartoon immortality. Blanc was far more than bilingual: He spoke in about 400 different character voices, which, as Ellen Bialystok might have predicted, kept him alert and peppy until he died at age 81 in 1989.

One story goes that after a string of successes he asked his bosses at Warner Bros for a raise. No can do, they told him: We can’t afford it. So he asked that he be given a nameline in the credits and they said sure. That’s how he became the first voice actor to be featured in a cartoon’s credits, paving the way for the likes of Jack Black, Eddie Murphy and Robby Benson, the onetime teen heartthrob who revealed big-league Broadway chops as the voice of Beast in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.

So: No money, but you can have a byline? Sounds like blogging.

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  • Mel Blanc gives himself a close shave for a KGW radio gig. Photo courtesy of Noel Blanc.
  • Logo for the radio hit “Hoot Owls,” which featured Blanc. Courtesy Mark Moore, NW Vintage Radio Society.
Bob Hicks, Dance, General, Visual Art

Any way the wind blows: fresh air in town

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UPDATE: Barry Johnson reviews TopShakeDance’s “Gust” on Arts Dispatch.

TopShakeDance's Dana Detweiler in "Gust." Photo: Todd StephenTodd Stephen

By Bob Hicks

Feels like spring. Finally. Mr. Scatter is cavorting about town in short-sleeve shirts, anticipating the day after the Rose Festival’s Grand Floral Parade, when the rains might taper off for good and we can start thinking about summer. O gray, gray Puddletown: We’ve had about enough of you. Let the colors begin.

In this morning’s Oregonian Mr. Scatter reviews Gust, the new hour-long piece by Jim McGinn’s contemporary dance troupe TopShakeDance, at Conduit. Gust is also weather-driven: It’s about wind, which can be fierce in the skeleton of winter but really knows no season, and it’s quite good. Repeats tonight and next Thursday-Saturday, May 26-28. Tickets here.

Also recent in The Oregonian: In Friday’s A&E section Mr. Scatter reviewed the latest show by painter Jay Backstrand, one of the Oregon art scene’s grand old lions, and also provided a quick glimpse of recent work by a somewhat younger lion, Tom Cramer. Both exhibits are at Laura Russo Gallery through May 28.

The country ladder of success: Of course, around Puddletown a marginally nice day in spring is often an excellent excuse for a drive out the Columbia River Gorge, where the weather’s a little drier, the temperature’s a little warmer, and the views are slap-your-forehead spectacular. Plus, these days, there’s good coffee, good wine, and good stuff to eat.

Folks around Hood River have been busily promoting the valley’s spring charms, and one good bet looks to be Mosier artist John Maher‘s installation Running Fruit Ladders, a half-mile stretch of brightly colored 14-foot-tall orchard ladders that runs along Highway 35 (the back route to Mt. Hood) in front of the White House and Mt. Hood Winery. The ladders are continuing to run through May, so you still have a chance. Besides looking, we assume, really cool, the installation is a nice reminder of the high valley’s rich tradition of growing and harvesting some of the best fruit in the land. It’s also an obvious nod to Cristo and Jeanne-Claude‘s Running Fence, which famously rippled across Sonoma and Marin counties in the 1970s. Mr. Scatter had the great good fortune of running across that spectacular exhibition unawares, with no prior knowledge that it existed, and being utterly gobsmacked. The experience remains one of the artistic highlights of his life.

John Maher's "Running Fruit Ladders." Artist's rendition.

Photos, from top:

  • TopShakeDance’s Dana Detweiler in “Gust.” Photo: Todd Stephen.
  • John Maher’s installation “Running Fruit Ladders.” Artist’s rendition.
Bob Hicks, Dance, General

Doing the dance: Scatter’s back in town

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Barak Marshall's "Monger." Photo: Gadi DagonGadi Dagon

By Bob Hicks

After a whirlwind fling with white asparagus, Belgian beer, briny mussels, fish stews, canal-skimming tour boats and close encounters with the likes of Memling, Van Eyck, Rembrandt, Vermeer, De Hooch, Michelangelo, Cocteau, Picasso, Van Gogh, Frans Hals and Jan Steen in places where a church that began life in 1408 is known as the “Nieuwe Kerk” (the Oude Kerk, from 1306, is still hanging around, too) Mr. and Mrs. Scatter have needed a little jog to get back in the swing of things in good old Puddletown.

Fortunately, White Bird and Barak Marshall were on hand Tuesday night to do the trick.

Continue reading Doing the dance: Scatter’s back in town →

Bob Hicks, General, Theater

Jimmy Caputo: a good man goes down

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By Bob Hicks

We return to town to some terrible news that many of you no doubt have heard already: Jimmy Caputo, one of Portland’s best-known and most beloved actors, died Thursday morning from a heart attack. The Oregonian’s Marty Hughley has the story on Oregon Live.

Jim Caputo in "The Ghosts of Treasure Island" at Oregon Children's Theatre. Leah Nash/Special to The Oregonian/2008Jim was a terrific character actor, a good musician, an assured comedian with dramatic chops who could move with ease from the likes of David Mamet’s American Buffalo (which he performed years ago with the late, great Peter Fornara) to small-scale musicals like Pump Boys and Dinettes to a lot of kids’ shows, including his memorable turn as Smee in Peter Pan.

More than that, he pumped a prodigious amount of life into Portland’s theater scene. He loved being part of the theater, and he loved to entertain. Everybody knew Jimmy, everybody liked him, most everybody had a story about him — often about some little act of generosity on his part. He was always smiling, often laughing, filled with the exuberance of life in general and life on and behind the stage in particular. The last time I saw him was when I hit a rehearsal for Marv Ross’s musical The Ghosts of Celilo. Jimmy was playing guitar in the band. He greeted me, as he often had before, with a bear hug: glad to see a friend, glad to be alive.

Jim was 50 when he died. He’s survived by his wife, Karen Voss, their sons, Ian and Lorenzo, and six brothers. Our condolences to all of them, and may they remember the many, many good times.

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Photo: Jim Caputo in “The Ghosts of Treasure Island” at Oregon Children’s Theatre. Leah Nash/Special to The Oregonian/2008