By Bob Hicks

In Down the rabbit hole: Melody Owen makes a book, which is new on Oregon Arts Watch, I tell the tale of … well, of Melody Owen making a book. Actually, it’s more about the publication party for the Portland artist’s new book, Looking Glass Book, at Publication Studio, in a tuckaway corner downtown. The book consists of collages inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland books, and the whole thing makes for an interesting tale.

Also well worth checking out at Oregon Arts Watch is ‘My Flashlight Was Attacked by Bats’: Farewell to poet Marty Christensen, in which Leanne Grabel, Doug Spangle and Mark Sargent offer heartfelt, eloquent and only mildly profane tributes to the late poet, who died January 5. Farewell to another cantankerous player from the old and gritty Portland.