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 media artist, a painter, a composer, a bookshop owner, and a novelist.  

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.

I have returned to a more “environmental” approach in this installment. I have reintroduced the vestiges of context giving the viewer something additional to ingest and myself something additional to work with graphically.

Sponsor

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Rose Bond

Rose Bond is an award-winning media artist, animator, and filmmaker. Her work includes indie animations, installations, live projections, and VR theatre. She is currently collaborating with the Grammy award-winning band Roomful of Teeth, lauded composer inti figgis-vizueta, and Oscar-winning producer Melanie Coombs on a VR Theatre-Dome piece, Earths to Come, which was officially selected and exhibited in 2024 at the Venice Immersive Biennale College Cinema in Venice, Italy. Recent work includes large-scale, multi-screen live projections for symphonies with works by avant-garde composers Luciano Berio and Olivier Messiaen. Bond’s paint-on-film animated films have been presented at major international festivals and are held in the MoMA Film Collection. She has received support from The Princess Grace Foundation, Bloomberg LP, Prince Bernhard Culture Foundation, Creative Heights Oregon Community Arts, the National Film Board of Canada, Arts Council England, the Canada Council for the Arts, American Film Institute, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Chris Russell

Chris Russell is a painter whose work has been exhibited throughout Oregon, California, Washington, and Northern Italy. Working loosely within the genre of landscape painting, he explores our relationship with the natural world. His lush canvases highlight both a painter’s presence in their work and a society’s presence in the landscape. Russell received his BFA from California College of the Arts and is represented by the Russo Lee Gallery.

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Sponsor

Judy A. Rose

Judy Rose is a composer, director, performer, and educator. Her works have been performed across the country by innumerable choirs and chamber ensembles. Her choral compositions are published with Santa Barbara Music Publishing and Pilgrim Press. Her original choral arrangement of “Soon Ah Will Be Done” was published in 2023 in the Gary Packwood Choral Series at Gentry Publications. She has been featured on the popular All Classical series “Thursdays at 3,” the Moveable Do Podcast, and JW Pepper New Sounds. She has also received a grant from the Artist Trust and composing residencies at Centrum and at Hedgebrook on Whidbey Island. She has a B.S. and an M.Ed from Portland State University.

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Craig Florence

Craig Florence is the founder and owner of Mother Foucault’s Bookshop, an intimate, independent bookstore offering both new and used books. A slightly chaotic space, the store supports local artists and the local literary community with a wide and eccentric range of readings and events. It shares some of the physical and intellectual ambience of the bookstore that inspired it—Paris’s Left Bank icon, Shakespeare and Company—where Florence once worked in the 1990s.

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Rachel King

Sponsor

Rachel King is a writer and editor. She is the author of the novel People Along the Sand; the linked short-story collection Bratwurst Haven (winner of a 2023 Colorado Book Award, and a finalist for the 2024 Oregon Book Award); and two poetry chapbooks, Between Work and Light and City Walks. Her short stories have appeared in One Story, Northwest Review, North American Review, Green Mountains Review, and other publications. In 2022, after an extended hiatus, she resumed acting and is now represented by the Oregon-based agency Harris Talent.

EARLIER IN THE SERIES

• The Cultural Landscape: Part 16. Portraits of theater director and choreographer Jessica Wallenfels, painter and printmaker Ryan Pierce, poet and book editor Valerie Witt, actor and director Isaac Lamb, and Resonance Ensemble choral director Katherine Fitzgibbon.
• 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.