Friday was fun.  A certain art historian and I went to Portland to see a couple of shows.  First the Art Gym at Marylhurst where two shows “Dregs” and   “The Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things” were on (on view until Feb 11th).  “Dregs” was an artist’s (Brandy Cochrane/Paul Middendorf) use of the material of three life-times left behind in a house of a friend.  She wrenched the mountain of stuff into a series of fascinating pieces. ( Some hit pretty close to home though as we’re trying to clean out our own house):

this series of hanging balls used different groups of things found in the house i.e. ribbon, plastic flowers, fabric, games pieces:

The second show “The Imaginative Qualities of Actual Things,” by Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulsen, concerned the remains of a house fire where the two artists lived

in fact everything that was left after the fire is contained in this space:

On to 12 x 16 where Cary Doucette was showing his new found object pieces which are wonderful

Back to Salem we “stormed” (it was pouring) in time for the opening of a new show at SAA’s Bush Barn Gallery, “Dialogical.”

Four artists, four writers, the combination of literary and artistic creation and expression, critical discourse and just interesting work and things to think about.  Here’s curator Pat Boas with writer Kristi Negri:

the work of artist Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulsen (writer Ellen Santasiero):

Artist Michelle Ross (writer Ann Staley):

Artist Helen Reed (writer Kristi Negri):

finally a terrific performance piece by Michael Reinsch (writer Mack McFarland):

the piece is called “Maypole and was a fascinating take on the stulifying horrors of recessional unemployment (I KNOW it doesn’t look like that, but it was moving actually):

intertextuality, creative reuse, just plain color, words and images.  Pretty interesting stuff.  The show at Bush Barn is up until Feb 28th.  Go have a look.

PS: apologies for the dark and bad photos–it is what it is.