Holy Crap!

What a week! Let me explain. I hit the ground running after Portland, mid terms at CFCC, assignments to grade, stuff due for a magazine, deadlines for my upcoming book. Too much on my plate. Anyway, I made it through everything until yesterday. I had a day long photo shoot for the book with the photographer. He rented a larger space for us to work in. I was up til 2 getting everything ready. We were on board. Then mid morning I get this CRASHING headache. Nothing new I get headaches all the time. I pop some sudafed and Ibuprofen and go on. Then I start getting nauseous. I run home to pick up some stuff and eat but its worse! So I made a fruit smoothie with protein powder thinking that was palatable. By mid afternoon I was bad off. I was shaky, guts roiling, dizzy and about to pass out. How humiliating to have the photographer and his assistant lay me down with ice packs as I shook. I managed to call Robert. I could barely walk! It was horrible. Photo shoot ruined, I was driven home and slept most of the night.I won't go further in to detail but whatever it was is gone now.

So with a crashing headache still, we go to pick up my car downtown. Robert turns on NPR there is an interview going on with this brit with an outrageous accent. He was hilarious, brilliant, riveting! I turned it up.
OMG!
If you do anything else today, listen to this interview on the Treatment with Russell Brand. If you know me, you know I don't participate in contemporary pop culture. I just don't have time or itnerest. I'd rather make stuff. I don't watch cable TV and haven't for 7 years. So I had never heard of this guy, and had only vaguely heard Katy Perry's name but had no idea what she looked like, or what she did to claim fame. This interview was AMAZING! I think it fits in perfectly with the "shift" that is subtly happening in the world. Trust me, this is a BLAST to listen to. I wish I had it on CD to give to everyone I know. I'd hand out to random people on the street and say, "here listen to this brilliant, ex-heroin addict spew forth about life, existence,enlightenment and falling in love". CS Lewis is quoted, Ram Dass is mentioned... even Jung, geez, I could go on and on....
Put on your seat belt:
The Treatment interview with Russell Brand
I'm running right out and buying this book!

Book Signing

So then after walking for 5-1/2 hours my feet were DONE! I realized I was so close to the Museum of Contemporary Craft so I HAD to take a quick look. Wish my feet could have stood more. They have a great sales gallery with LOTS of gorgeous metal work.


Ah well, it was back on the MAX line train to get to Traci Bunker's book signing!
Her work is great!!! I adore her Print & Stamp Lab book with Quarry and she has a new one coming out very very soon! Traci's journals are an inspiration. Her new book The Art Journal Workshop will be a must have! Even her stamps that she brought to personalize her books were so cool! She just has such creative ideas churning away in that brain of hers!

Cargo!

All right, while I'm on a roll... CARGO! in the Pearl District of downtown Portland,OR. OMG!
I had a little pamphlet and was walking around thinking "oooo, that looks interesting lets go there...." When I see brightly colored things fluttering in the wind from the side of a big building. I decide to investigate and was SOOOOOOOO rewarded.


I wandered SPEECHLESS and dumbfounded. There were imported delights from all over the globe, weird, kooky fodder as far as the eye could see, Mexican Day of the Dead stuff, Chinese goorah, Japanese chotchkies, antiques, silk, Middle Eastern rugs, African beads, quirky tidbits and baubles, and treasures, EVERYWHERE! You could hardly walk for cool mesmerizing stuff. Needless to say I bought my dad one of those head tingler scalp massagers, everyone needs those right? And I got a little paper mache black background globe, again quite a necessity, a cut out banner of a mermaid playing a ukelele from Mexico, some cool Day of the Dead postcards, a BIG black tin of watch part tins (that the airline crushed ;-( wah!)

Feast your eyes! yeah I know! right?!

McMenamin's Boiler Room Bar

Okay, place #2 that I have to rave about (now that my #@%&*! internet is back, however temporary....) is the McMenamin's Boiler Room Bar in Kennedy High School (click here for their gallery images). If you don't know who the McMenamins are then, well.... get to know! Because they have a talent for taking forgotten, dilapidated buildings and working magic on them! The Boiler Room was just that, a boiler room, now it's an over-the-top cool bar that will make your clockwork little heart go click, click, hissssss! One of the coolest artists on the planet, in my book is Tracy Moore and he took me to the Boiler Room. Yes, its all his fault. Actually, I count myself lucky that he lets me shadow around! Back to the Boiler Room. the railings are constructed of old pieces of radiator and sprinkler pipe. Just too fantastic.... I'm not a hop fiend like Robert is so I asked Tracy to recommend a beer. I had the Concordia "Ruby" a raspberry ale that they brew. It was wonderful not too sweet very refreshing. Fantastic place, wonderful night with amazing artists, chatting and sipping. Won't be forgotten....

Oblation Papers in Portland, OR!

So now that I am home (whew! took long enough! two days?! really?), I have to rave about a couple of places in Portland. Yeah, I know, I could go on and on about Portland in general but first....
Oblation Papers!
I usually go a day early for my workshops because I have to buy things at hardware stores that I can't ship. I have to pad my errand time with factoring in distances, shop hours, and whether or not I have to walk or there's a shuttle. So I had finished my buying gas tanks and such, and thought I'd explore the city a bit before I had to get ready for my next days class. People at the hotel told me to check out the Pearl District so I picked up a pamphlet and trekked out to conquer the MAX line to get into town. After sifting through some misinformation that was fed me, and quizzing people waiting at the station (like a dork), I was on the train into Chinatown and the Pearl district. I picked out a few interesting things on the pamphlet some of which appeared closed now. I decided to search for Oblation Papers since they might have things we could roll through the roll mill in my class the next day. I knew nothing about the shop other than they had paper. WOW! I walked in and BAM they were printing and paper making and it was a paperproduct orgy! Here are some pics: