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, an actor/director, a visual artist, a novelist, and a theater director.  

I have used a modified “environmental” approach in this installment, but 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.

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Linda Austin

Linda Austin is Co-Founder and Director of Performance Works NorthWest. She began creating performance and dance work in New York City in 1983 and was an active participant in the downtown dance and performance community until 1998. She presented work at Performance Space 122, the Danspace Project, the Kitchen, and Movement Research at Judson Church. In 1998 she moved to Portland, Oregon, where she founded the performing arts nonprofit Performance Works Northwest (PWNW) with lighting designer Jeff Forbes. Her work has been presented at PWNW, Conduit, On the Boards’ Northwest New Works, Velocity, and PICA’s TBA Festival as well as in Mexico City and many New York City venues. Awards include the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Merce Cunningham Award and a Fellowship in Performing Arts from the Regional Arts & Culture Council as well as Fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the Oregon Arts Commission.

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Sponsor

William (Bill) Earl Ray

William (Bill) Earl Ray has been a director and actor for more than 40 years. His directing credits include Lonely Planet; No Niggers, No Jews, No Dogs (The No Play); Two Trains Running; Skeleton Crew; King Liz; AIN’T MISBEHAVIN’; A Raisin in the Sun; Having Our Say; Beehive: The 60s Musical; The Gin Game; Annie Get Your Gun; Agnes of God; Lilies of the Field; and others. His acting credits include The Whipping Man, Master Harold and the Boys, The Meeting, Driving Miss Daisy, Misery, God’s Favorite, Two Trains Running, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Dirty Work, Cobb, Miss Evers Boys, Audience, Of Mice and Men, A Streetcar Named Desire, and others. TV and film credits include The Tuskegee Airmen, Cadillac Ranch, The Temp, Terror in the Towers, Better off Dead, and Walker Texas Ranger. Ray, a graduate of the Evergreen State College, is a member of Actors Equity and the Screen Actors Guild.

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Rebecca Boraz

Rebecca Boraz is a printmaker and mixed-media artist. She works predominantly in relief and intaglio printmaking and ceramics. She uses a narrative-based figurative approach, employing forms, lines and imagery in a Rorschachian mélange.  She was trained at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston where she received her BFA. She spent a year studying printmaking in Florence, Italy. She has a Master’s Degree in Art Therapy from New York University and completed a residency at the Skopelos Foundation for the Arts. In late 2023 she opened Brave Atlas Printmaking Studio in Portland, Oregon.

Sponsor

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Daniel Nieh

Daniel Nieh is a writer and translator. He grew up in Portland but he has lived in China, Japan, Singapore, Mexico, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. He studied Chinese Literature at the University of Pennsylvania and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. His translation clients include publishers, universities, nonprofits, and museums around the world. He served as an interpreter at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and now works as a contract linguist for the U.S. State Department. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, and Esquire. He is the author of the novels Take No Names and Beijing Payback, a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection.

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Holly Griffith

Sponsor

Holly Griffith is the Artistic Director of Corrib Theatre, the only Irish theatre company on America’s West Coast. She has worked as an actor, director, writer, and theatre educator for over a decade. Her career began in Tucson, Arizona, where she was a resident actor at The Rogue Theatre and an Artistic Associate at Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre. She earned an MFA in Theatre Directing from The Lir Academy in Dublin, Ireland, where she collaborated with artists from all over Ireland and Europe. In addition to her MFA, she holds a Master’s Degree in English Literature from the University of Arizona and a BA in Writing, Literature, and Publishing from Emerson College.

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Go here to see the previous chapters in K.B. Dixon’s portrait series The Cultural Landscape, featuring more than 100 Oregon artists in a variety of disciplines.