"Squares" Photo Show at Emerson Space Case

 

  

Jennifer Jansons' Holga medium-format photographs (above) transport you into a softer world.  The Holga camera has a plastic lens with soft focus around the edges.

John Ryan Brubaker completed a project called Polaroid 366, in which he took a Polaroid photo every day for a year.  And not just any year - a year in which there was an extra day.  On display at the space are some selections from his year of  photos.

Brubaker is currently showing work at Albina Community Bank in Portland, as part of a show called The People Behind the Paper, a photo documentary project about the vendors of Street Roots newspaper.  He will also be embarking soon on a journey to Thailand!  I can hardly wait to see the resulting photos.

 

 

Amy Baker's "Mending" now showing

This month we have Amy Baker's spectacular large scale hand-embroidered artwork, in a show called "Mending." This show is a collection of portraits of people from Amy's life (including a self-portrait), all hand-stitched onto cotton, with thousands of threads filling spaces with color.

Amy is a graduate of the Oregon College of Art & Craft, with a major in Fibers.

This dazzling show will be up through October 26th.

 

  

  

  

 

  

 

Jamey Braden's "Self Helps" at Emerson Space Case

 
Seattle friend Jamey Braden is now showing work at our space!

The show is called "Self Helps," and is a series of watercolor works on paper, using text and lovely swirling color.

Jamey describes herself:  "I'm a drawing/shaping/performing artist and I live and work in Seattle. I run around and act confused and draw and think words because words come in and can't be decoded in any other form than the words they come in and make it on the page as such. I studied art at Western Washington University in dreary-beautiful Bellingham."

If you're in Portland, you should swing by and check out the show!  It will be up until September 21st.  Emerson Space Case is a row of windows in a white building on the corner of NE 30th & Emerson.

Jamie sets up the installation:

 

 

 

Also, have you ever seen a Giant Schnauzer?  We ran into some that day.  They're huge! (for a schnauzer)

Second Show: Comics by Ben Parrish

Ben Parrish is a comic book artist who lives in Portland, and creates a line of comics called "Summer 2005 Comics."

For the Space Case, he drew really large versions of them. They touch on such topics as life in Ocean Park, Washington as a teenager, an assemblage of characters in search of a lost Dr. Dre album, ZZ Top, and a dog who loves chips.

My favorite character of Ben's is a guy called W=VV, a sorry soul who thinks the letter W is two V's. If you're going to be in Portland at all in the month of August, you should check out Ben's show!

 

  

  

 

Emerson Space Case is a window art space on the corner of NE 30th & Emerson. It is viewable on all days at all hours, though it might be too dark to see between the hours of 2am and 6am, as the lights are timed to go off around 2, and the sun comes up around 6.

First Show at Emerson Space Case: "I Wish I Could"

With great excitement in our hearts, we present the first art show at Emerson Space Case, "I Wish I Could," which is a collaborative show between Stephanie Brachmann (that's me) and Ilan Schraer.

Here's the big idea.  We asked a bunch of friends, strangers, and acquaintances to anonymously finish the sentence, "I wish I could..." and drop their responses in this box:

 

After that, Ilan and I carved six linocut blocks of images of human hands, which would be rearranged to be printed in different ways.  Upon each print is written a wish from our box of wishes.  I completed most of the lino printing, and Ilan painstakingly performed the gorgeous cursive handwriting.  We decided on the motif of hands because they represent reaching, touching, doing.

And amidst all of this:  in the moments leading up to the installation of this show yesterday, we found out that Michael Jackson had just died!  So I like to think that somehow this show has something to do with him, as he was alive when we began, and had passed on by the time we were finished.

I really enjoy creating art that involves a sort of interaction with other people, or at least a reaction to people's real input, thoughts, and desires.  I hope I can create more art like this in the future.

Here are pictures of the show, which will be displayed until the end of July: