Fall is in full swing this month and all I can think about is how quickly the months go by. Wasn’t it just the other day I was writing my first article for VizArts Monthly? Now it is already fall and the leaves are starting to change! While I have highlighted the theme of slowing down in the past, this month I want to recognize the passage of time in all its forms, (including the fall foliage)! 

Time’s passage figures into exhibitions all over this month. In Portland, Textile Hive has vintage fashion while Elizabeth Leach Gallery has Ann Hamilton’s exploration of vintage technologies. Institutional change features as well: the Hallie Ford Museum of Art in Salem has an exhibition of stoneware from the collection of the now-shuttered Museum of Contemporary Craft. Open studio events around the region offer the chance to engage with artists’ works in process.

Dakota Transit: Sonic Couture
Curated by Bryan Miller
October 1- November 17th
Textile Hive
516 NW 14th Avenue, Portland, OR 97209

Dakota Transit was the name of Andrea Aranow’s custom clothing store in New York City’s East Village. It aimed to show what high fashion should be: fun, bold, and expressive. The store opened in the 1960s and featured Aranow’s signature patchwork of suede, snakeskin, and leather. Aranow became a popular name in the fashion industry with designs featured in influential magazines like Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Aranow’s legendary designs will be on view at Dakota Transit: Sonic Couture curated by Bryan Miller. This is the first time in fifty years that Aranow’s designs will be on view making this a perfect opportunity to reflect on how changing fashions reflect the passage of time.

Then. Now. Future.
Don Bailey
October 2- November 2
Blackfish Gallery
938 NW Everett, Portland, OR 97209

Native American artist Don Bailey creates complex and elegantly colorful compositions on view in his new show Then. Now. Future. His mixed-media works, paintings, and sculptures tell the stories of his people as well as of individuals of different traditions and paths. Bailey says, “I paint our ancestors so today people will know our past to tell our stories in the future.” Also on display at Blackfish Gallery is Elemental by Benjamin Mefford. Mefford’s stone sculptures radiate the harmony of the rhythmic structures of nature and act as three-dimensional poems of the elements. Traverse the passage of time and remember Native American stories in Don Bailey’s paintings and explore the elements with Benjamin Mefford. 

Synthesis 
Sally Squire and Stephen Walter 
October 5- November 16
PDX Murdoch Collections Gallery 
2219 NW Raleigh St, Portland, OR 97210 

Sponsor

Synthesis is a joint exhibition featuring the Pacific Northwest artists Sally Squire and Stephen Walter. Both artists create sculptural works that exude a dynamic synthesis through organic and geometric forms, hence the title of the exhibition. Squire uses intricate compositions and patterns in her porcelain sculptures to explore themes of musical rhythms and the human heartbeat. Walter uses found wood to create biomorphic forms and ordered grids. These artworks in relationship to each other hinge on the themes of abstraction, mid-century modernism, and minimalism.

Becoming Peter Voulkos: Works from the 1950s
Curated by Jonathan Bucci
September 28- December 21
Hallie Ford Museum of Art
700 State St, Salem, OR 97301

Travel back in time and celebrate the career of Peter Voulkos during the 1950s, the period of time when he gained national recognition as a master of wheel-thrown stoneware. Formerly in the collection of the shuttered Museum of Contemporary Craft, these 12 ceramic works have rarely been shown to the public and are now proudly on display at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art. As curator Jonathan Bucci states, “Voulkos played a pivotal role in breaking down the barriers between traditional craft and contemporary art and the Hallie Ford Museum of Art is thrilled to share these rarely-seen early works with the public.

Multinodal Meanderings
Various artists
October 1- November 15
The Walters Cultural Arts Center
527 E Main St, Hillsboro, OR 97123

In partnership with the Oregon Chinese Artists Association, the Walters Cultural Arts Center presents a group exhibition titled Multinodal Meanderings. This exhibition features a blend of traditional Chinese cultural values and contemporary ideas through a variety of art mediums. This exhibition celebrates diversity and community with art forms ranging from calligraphy, puppetry, dance, drumming, and painting. Liu Weili’s contribution to the show is his signature  “go with the flow” calligraphy that explores his cultural roots and way of being.

The Color of Where We Are Not
Pamela Hadley
October 5- 28
Carnation Contemporary
8371 N Interstate Ave, Portland, OR 97217

Inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s essay “The Blue of Distance,” multimedia artist Pamela Hadley explores the theme of the comfort of letting go. This exhibit is an immersive experience of dark environments, abstract animations, project mapping, video, sound, and installation art. The Color of Where We Are Not invites viewers to create distance from the everyday and explore healing and resistance through the dark and slow nature of this exhibit. Delve into this immersive exhibit and reimagine your sense of time’s progression.

Sponsor

Yelling at the Sun
Jeremy Le Grand
October 5- 27
Well Well Projects
837 N Interstate Ave #1, Portland, OR, 97266

Visual perception and the illusion of movement and space through the use of repetition, layering, and color is the forefront of Yelling at the Sun by Jeremy Le Grand. At a distance the featured pieces are deceptively flat, however, when examined more closely, the paintings reveal themselves to be exceptionally layered. The repetition of masking and painting creates vibrating lines and thick textures. The laborious act of painting, cutting, and peeling concedes the passage of time.

Coastal Reverie
Natasha Ramras
October 11- December 1
Newport Visual Arts Center
777 NW Beach Dr, Newport, OR 97365

A blend of impressionistic landscapes of the Oregon Coast and abstracted representations of sea creatures is on view in Natasha Ramras’ exhibit, Coastal Reverie. Through blended representational approaches, these paintings tell a layered narrative of the interconnectedness of coastal life ecosystems. As Ramras states, “It serves as a poignant reminder of our responsibility to cherish and protect the delicate balance of our coastal habitats.” Also on display at the Newport Visual Arts Center is Kris Buenger’s collection of colorful and fun sea creature paintings titled Abundance of the Oregon Coast and Toby Wayne Larson’s Out of the Fire which features emotional saw-dust fired ceramic busts. Discover the outcomes of the passing of time with Natasha Ramras and Kris Buenger’s sea life paintings.

Gente De Río
Orlando Almanza
September 3- October 12
Froelick Gallery
714 NW Davis St, Portland, OR 97209

In these larger-than-life-sized canvases, Orlando Almanza features group portraits that explore his memories of moments of rest. The subjects depicted in his oil paintings are people he met during his early life in Cuba. Almanza celebrates the beauty of being surrounded by nature, loved ones, and community in his series Gente De Río. Also showing at Froelick Gallery is Jake Scharbach’s painting series called Treachery of Images. Scharbach describes his process as “…I am attempting to recontextualize our current moment, providing distance and a perspective into how the impulses of one age dissolve into the next.” Both Orlando Almanza and Jake Scharbach explore the theme of the passing of time through their engagement with past experiences, memories, and recontextualizing the past.

Figuring Luck
Ann Hamilton
October 3- November 2
Elizabeth Leach Gallery
417 NW 9th Ave, Portland, OR 97209

Sponsor

Ann Hamilton creates ethereal photographs of vintage porcelain enamels through vintage scanning tools in her new exhibition, Figuring Luck. Hamilton’s portraits depart from the ceramic figurines baked into King’s Cake on the Epiphany holiday, though the forms are only roughly rendered. Good luck is awarded to those who find the traditional figures inside the cake, nodded to in the show’s title. Hamilton continues her exploration of the serendipitous forms afforded by capturing photographs with vintage flatbed scanners and in this series.

Open Studios
Various Artists
October 12, 13, 19, 20, 26, 27, November 2, 3
Portland, Philomath County, Clark County

Open studio events are happening in the region all month long! Take this opportunity to support local artists and get an inside look at their work and process. Get a tour of Portland artists studios with Portland Open Studios on October 12, 13, 19, and 20. Participate in more open studio tours in Philomath with Philomath Open Studios Art Tour and Sale on October 19, 20, 26, and 27. Lastly, Clark County Open Studios Tour is back this fall on November 2 and 3 for self-guided tours. Each open studio has the opportunity to see the artists work and how they produce their masterpieces. All types of mediums from fine arts to artisan crafts can be explored this month with Portland Open Studios, Philomath Open Studios, and Clark County Open Studios.