Text and Photographs by K.B. DIXON

As with the portraits in the previous installments of this series, I have focused on the talented, dedicated, and creative people who have made significant contributions to the art, character, and culture of this city and state—in this case a choreographer, a poet, a painter, a director, and a musician.

My aspirations have remained the same: to document the contemporary cultural landscape and to produce a decent photograph—a photograph that acknowledges the medium’s allegiance to reality and that preserves for myself and others a unique and honest sense of the subject.

The environmental details have been kept to a minimum. The subjects have the frame to themselves and do not compete with context for attention. This provides for a simpler, blunter, more intense encounter with character. It is character that animates the image.

Sponsor

Jessica Wallenfels

Jessica Wallenfels is the Artistic Director of Many Hats Collaboration. She is a freelance director/choreographer and educator whose work is music- and movement-driven. She is currently an adjunct professor at Portland State University. Original works with Many Hats Collaboration include Great Wide Open, The Snowstorm, Find Me Beside You, Truth and Beauty, Rest Room, Mutt, Stages, and Break, Then Open. Her directorial work includes direction/choreography of The Wolves at Portland Playhouse and Into the Woods for Broadway Rose. Her choreographic work has been seen at Seattle Rep, Portland Center Stage, Artists Repertory Theatre and in southern California at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, The Old Globe Theater, and The Mark Taper Forum. She is a four-time Drammy Award winner for Outstanding Choreography and a PAMTA Award winner for Outstanding Choreography.

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Ryan Pierce

Ryan Pierce is a painter, printmaker, and educator. He draws on ecological theory, literature, and folk art to create scenes that portray the resilience of the natural world. He has received an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Oregon Arts Commission and grants from the Joan Mitchell and San Francisco Foundations. His has been an artist in residence at the Djerassi and Ucross Foundations and a fellow at the Jordan Schnitzer Printmaking Residency at Sitka Center for Art & Ecology, where he now serves on the Board of Directors. He is the co-founder of Signal Fire, a group that facilitated wilderness residencies and retreats for artists of all disciplines from 2009-19, and the founding director of Wide Open Studios, an arts and ecology field program. He chairs the low-residency MFA in Visual Studies at Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA). He has exhibited both nationally and internationally. In 2019 his work was showcased in the Portland Art Museum’s inaugural triennial of Northwest Art. He is represented by Elizabeth Leach Gallery in Portland.

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Valerie Witte

Sponsor

Valerie Witte is a poet and book editor. Her focus is on the intersection of words and other media such as visual art, music, and technology. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in various journals such as Storm Cellar, Barrow Street, VOLT, and Interim. Her latest book is A Rupture In The Interiors, which was a finalist for the 2022 Airlie Prize.

Isaac Lamb

Isaac Lamb is an actor, director, filmmaker, and educator. His directing credits include: Arlington, The Angry Brigade, The Music Man, and Annapurna (Third Rail); Once, Fly By Night, Adrift in Macao, and Ordinary Days (Broadway Rose); Grounded and the world premiere of db (CoHo); Mother Teresa is Dead (Portland Playhouse); Junie B. Jones and Ivy and Bean (Oregon Children’s Theatre); The Wizard of Oz (PHAME); Sweet Charity (Lakewood); Ordo Virtutum (In Mulieribus). He was the resident director for the National Tour and Las Vegas productions of Defending the Caveman, a show in which he also performed the solo role for several years on national tour; and the creator of viral video content with over 35 million views worldwide. A graduate of Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film and Television, he is a company member of Third Rail Repertory Theatre.

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Katherine Fitzgibbon

Katherine Fitzgibbon is a Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities at Lewis & Clark College. She has conducted choirs at Harvard, Boston, Cornell, Clark University, and the University of Michigan and has served on the faculty of Berkshire Choral International. In 2009 she founded Resonance Ensemble, a professional choral ensemble that presents programs to promote meaningful social change. She has partnered with numerous artists and community organizations including the Portland Art Museum, Third Angle New Music, and Portland Chamber Orchestra. She has commissioned major choral works from composers including Damien Geter, Melissa Dunphy, Mari Esabel Valverde, Jasmine Barnes, Darrell Grant, Judy A. Rose, Kenji Bunch, and Renee Favand-See. President-Elect of the National Collegiate Choral Organization, she holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in conducting from Boston University. A lyric soprano, she is a frequent recitalist and performer.

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Sponsor

EARLIER IN THE SERIES

• The Cultural Landscape: Part 15: Portraits of graphic design artist Chris Chandler, Miller Foundation leader Carrie Hoops, author and educator Evan Morgan Williams, Caldera leader Kimberly Howard Wade, and memoirist/essayist Steven L. Moore.
• The Cultural Landscape: Part 14. Portraits of novelist Lydia Kiesling, actor Charles Grant, multidisciplinary artist Emily Ginsburg, photographer Thibault Roland, and writer/editor Margaret Malone.
• The Cultural Landscape: Part 13. Portraits of jazz drummer Ron Steen, multimedia artist Pamela Chipman, musical-theater leader Sharon Maroney, filmmaker Jim Blashfield, and author and environmentalist Allison Cobb.
• The Cultural Landscape 12: Special Edition. Portraits of five trailblazing woman artists in Oregon: Lucinda Parker, Judy Cooke, Phyllis Yes, Sherrie Wolf, and Laura Ross-Paul.
• The Cultural Landscape: Part 11. Portraits of visual artist Marie Watt, percussionist and musical conductor Niel DePonte, dancer and choreographer Oluyinka Akinjiola, poet and storyteller Brian S. Ellis, and actor/producer Lauren Bloom Hanover.
• The Cultural Landscape: Part 10. Portraits of All Classical Radio President and CEO Suzanne Nance, poet Carlos Reyes, playwright and librettist Andrea Stolowitz, visual artist James Minden, and flutist and Aligned Artistry founder Amelia Lukas.
• The Cultural Landscape: Part 9. Portraits of illustrator and educator Kate Bingaman-Burt, visual artist Dan Gluibizzi, novelist and nonfiction writer Cecily Wong, essayist and journalist Aaron Gilbreath, and choreographer and Oregon Ballet Theatre artistic director Dani Rowe.
• The Cultural Landscape: Part 8. Portraits of writer and Portland Parks Foundation leader Randy Gragg, playwright/director/photographer Lava Alapai, mixed-media artist Erik Geschke, writer Erica Berry, and dancer/choreographer Samuel Hobbs.
• The Cultural Landscape: Part 7. Portraits of singer/actor Susannah Mars, violinist Tomás Cotik, Native Arts and Culture Foundation leader Lulani Arquette, sculptor Ben Buswell, and artist, costume designer, choreographer, and filmmaker Fuchsia Lin.
• The Cultural Landscape: Part 6. Portraits of Profile Theatre’s Josh Hecht, Pacific Northwest College of Art leader Jennifer (Jen) Cole, opera singer and teacher Hannah Penn, novelist Tony Ardizzone, and make-up, prop, and effects artist Christina Kortum.
• The Cultural Landscape: Part 5. Portraits of musicians Marv and Rindy Ross, artist David Eckard, actor Maureen Porter, and writer Todd Schultz.
• The Cultural Landscape: Part 4. Portraits of Oregon Symphony’s Scott Showalter, Renegade Opera’s Madeline Ross, theater leader Michael Mendelson, poet Genevieve DeGuzman, roots music legend Lloyd Jones.
• The Cultural Landscape: Part 3. Portraits of Reser Center Executive Director Chris Ayzoukian, Shaking the Tree Theater Artistic Director Samantha Van Der Merwe, Oregon Public Broadcasting President and CEO Steve Bass, photographer and head of Pacific Northwest College of Art’s photography department Teresa Christiansen, choreographer and interim artistic director of Oregon Ballet Theatre Peter Franc.
• The Cultural Landscape: Part 2. Portraits of musician and composer Kenji Bunch, opera leader Priti Gandhi, actor and theater director Dan Murphy, contemporary art leader Victoria Frey, dancer and choreographer Shaun Keylock, landscape and urban design leader Zeljka C. Kekez, visual artist Barry Pelzner, poet and editor Susan Moore, musician and composer Cal Scott, writer and indie filmmaker Kelley Baker.
• The Cultural Landscape: 11 Portraits. Portaits of theater leader Marissa Wolf, musician Darrell Grant, museum film leader Amy Dotson, Red Door Project leader Kevin Jones, bookstore owner Emily Powell, philanthropist and art collector Jordan Schnitzer, visual artist Jef Gunn, actor and singer Ithica Tell, guitarist Scott Kritzer, publisher Rhonda Hughes, and poet John Beer.