SOU’WESTER EVENTS!
Discover what’s happening during your next stay or plan a visit around our free live music, workshops, wellness offerings and more!
This event is free, all ages and open to the public!
S P E C I A L K I D S S H O W
Mr. Ben!!!
Mr. Ben plays live music for kids and families in and around Portland, OR. His shows are the perfect blend of entertainment and education. Your child can participate as much or as little as they choose — they are free to explore new musical ideas and concepts at their own pace and in their own way.
So when you come to a Mr. Ben show, you can feel good about the fact that you are taking an active role in your child’s cognitive development, laying the foundation for their musical education, and helping to dispel the myth that only some people have musical potential. Who knew you could do all that just by attending a live children’s music show?
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Art Exhibit
We’ve Never Met Before Today
by artists Becca Van K and Andrew Cortes
August 9 through November 3, 2019
A new art exhibit in a vintage travel trailer turned into a permanent art gallery, at The Sou’wester Lodge
‘We’ve Never Met Before Today’ is an exhibition featuring sensory textiles and fiber landscapes by east coast artist Becca Van K and sculpture-like mosaic-based work by west coast artist Andrew Cortes. This show will also include collaborations in needlepoint and mosaics between these two artists who share similar themes and were brought together by residencies at the Sou’wester that spurred them to become creative partners in this exhibition.
“We’ve Never Met Before Today is the result of two Sou’wester artists-in-residence’s Instagram connection in the immediate aftermath of their respective times at the Lodge in the winter of 2018. Like ships in the night (Cortes one week, Van K the next), the artists never had the opportunity to meet in person, but serendipitously found each other on social media through Sou’wester posts. The two have formed a kinship and collaborative relationship through their mutual reverence for each other’s work. Until the show’s installation, they have never met in person, as Cortes is a resident of Los Angeles, CA, and Van K is from New York’s Hudson Valley. Shipping works from coast to coast, they work together to create elaborate studies in spiritual, meditative repetition and love for the natural world. Each piece contains mosaic mementos from Cortes’s travels and each Van K needlepoint is directly inspired by a landscape that she has visited. This exhibition is a combination of individual works and collaborations.”
OPENING RECEPTION on Friday August 9, 6pm-9pm.
OPEN: Fri/Sat/Sun 9am-9pm (and by request: visit the lodge front desk and we’ll open the gallery for you)
Art Gallery & Opening Reception free and open to the public.
Becca Van K (b. 1991, Chicago) is a mixed media artist based in New York’s Hudson Valley. Her work is highly sensory, with a strong focus on tactile comfort, the sounds of house & techno music, and vibrant colors & patterns which she explores through various handcraft and fiber art methods. Listening exclusively to dance music mixes when working puts her in a repetitious, meditative rhythm through which she transcribes her sensorial experiences. Her work has most recently been exhibited at Basilica Hudson’s 24-HOUR DRONE (Hudson, NY), Trestle Gallery (Brooklyn, NY), Geoffrey Young Gallery (Great Barrington, MA), Hastings College (Hastings, NE), and Paradice Palase (Brooklyn, NY). Torn between city nightlife and the woods of the Catskill Mountains, she’d only leave New York if there were techno clubs in the desert.
Andrew Philip Cortes is a first generation Southern California Native, who in growing up split his time between the rural suburbs near rolling cow pasture hills where his parents settled and the city of Los Angeles. He attended University at California State Long Beach followed by a move to New York City where he lived and worked in Gowanus, Brooklyn for several years expanding his creative vision into woodwork, installation, and sound art. Upon his return to Los Angeles, he came full circle settling in the neighborhood of Cypress Park, where his family had immigrated to in the 60’s. His practice was re-imagined in his grandfathers old workshed and does not shy away from a deep often spiritual like connection to his past and its entanglement with the natural world. A marriage of painting, sculpture, mosaic, and textile materials, his reference points for his work grows from ongoing travels through the west coast of America, the deserts, mountains, and forests he explores collecting stones, driftwood, and taking photographs as he travels. He has developed a system in which he is even able to work on sculpture while on the road to directly be able to connect with his surroundings on site. Ultimately though, his traveling ideas materialize fully when they make their way back to his studio and abode where their energies find a new home to live. Andrew lives and works in Los Angeles, California with his two cats Mosh and Peatree. He spends his time surfing and rock climbing when he’s not in his studio always adhering to a strict code of pursuing the fleeting moment.
This trailer is a 1960’s Aloha made in Aloha, Oregon. It was rescued from a neglected RV park in the northern part of the Long Beach Peninsula. Now repaired and transformed into an art space, this art gallery is part of our Artist Residency Program and our non-profit organization, Sou’wester Arts.
Following the release of his latest album, Pearls to Swine, and his I Came to Sing the Song EP, both via Fat Possum in 2016 and 2017 respectively, Adam Torres has established himself as a powerful and poignant performer and songwriter. His explorations find him sitting equally within psych-folk and indie, and flavored by his affinity for his family’s roots in the U.S. Southwest. The resulting music offers deep, introspective journeys, both intimate and memorable.
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, Scott Taylor, crafts ethereal folk tinged with country funk & plastic soul influences. Following the disbandment of No Go Know, New Victorian sprouted roots as a pointed downshift into nuanced reflection. Self-recorded over a period of several years in between duties as a husband, father and mental health social worker, “High Mass,” presents a resonant song cycle detailing loss and reformation.
New Victorian are currently prepping two EPs for release in 2019, while continuing to tour throughout the Pacific Northwest.
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Shag Rock!!
Sallie Ford, Maria Kohler and Amanda Spring present their latest rock n roll outfit!!
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Noah Kite shapes pop, jazz, and classical influences to accent folk’s lyrical poignancy. This chambered folk-rock uses its roots in a childhood of Ravel, Sade, Van Morrison, Enya, and Steely Dan to make melodic and poetic sense of experiences teaching, traveling, and touring abroad. While these dynamically orchestrated dramas find an expansively symphonic home on the record, in live settings arrangements are distilled to their essential workings; Kite’s guitar and voice are laced by the haunting oboe of Laura Gershman, the eclectic percussion of Alan Cook, and the emotive cello of Esme Schwall to deliver each tune its own life.
http://noahkite.com/
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Mouth Painter’s music is an exploration of an alternate, exotic form of “New Country”. The foundation of Mouth Painter is the partnership/dichotomy of Barry Walker Jr. and Valerie Osterberg. Barry was raised in middle Tennessee where music abounded. He has played rock and roll, bluegrass, straight country, and experimental/new-age/ambient music. Valerie grew up in an isolated community in North Dakota where she learned to sing close harmony with her twin sister and play classical flute. Early Mouth Painter performances found Barry and Valerie simply singing together with acoustic guitar and flute accompaniment. Slowly, the more experimental side of their interests crept into the mix–Barry’s tectonic pedal steel guitar, and Valerie’s Flamstyle Music involving the formulation of synthetic natural sounds (the Hawaiian jungle, a buoy rocking in the ocean, meteorite impacts, etc.) using a variety of instruments. Since 2017, Jason Willmon has brought the low end on bass guitar. Over the past few years, Mouth Painter has shared the stage with Michael Hurley, Marisa Anderson, Little Wings, Howlin’ Rain, Lavender Country, Dragging an Ox Through Water, and Ralph White among others.
https://snakehandlerrecordings.wordpress.com/mouth-painter/
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
In 2007, Mathias Kom collected some of his songs and started a band, named after a religious tract handed to him by a wide-eyed zealot in Toronto. Mathias subsequently invited all of his friends to join him in performing these songs about seagulls, shopping malls, and the similarities between love and hurricanes. Over the next ten years and almost as many albums, the lineup and sound of the Burning Hell have changed often, but the band has remained idiosyncratic and unclassifiable—much to the delight of those who love them. The constant has always remained Kom’s singular outlook on the world: wise and naive, cynical and life-affirming, full of brilliant, unexpected narratives and a deeply felt generosity of spirit. The band’s live performances underscore these themes: they exhibit a joy and camaraderie too infrequently seen on stage. Indeed, the essence of the band is inclusive and celebratory; whether live or on record, there’s something for everyone. As Tom Robinson of BBC Introducing said about The Burning Hell, “even Jesus is going to enjoy this, once he finally gets here.”
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!
Portland, OR based four-piece Plastic Cactus have been serving up dark, desert-inspired surf rock since their formation in 2016. The band is fronted by Brooke Metropulos (guitar/vocals) & Michaela Gradstein (guitar/vocals) with Bill Willson on bass and Tyler Brown on drums. Their self-released EP “Pricks” is an eclectic mix of eerie spaghetti western and guitar driven psych-surf with an emphasis on vocal harmonies. Plastic Cactus released their second EP “Moth Eyes” in July 2018 & are currently working on a new collection of songs set to be released in 2019.
https://plasticcactus.bandcamp.com/
This event is free, all ages, and open to the public!