Workshop includes relief printmaking demo (linocut), time for sketching and discussion during interactive presentation that situates us on the timeline of activist printmaking from Martin Luther 16th Century to Mexico 20th century to the present. Building upon a 30 year history as stage performer and rock singer, Karim Shuquem creates installations, sculptures, and prints that have relationship with staging, temporality, and process. Shuquem has recently completed the Otis College MFA program and works as an art teacher. Register

Participants will learn the basics of block printing on fabric including designing, carving, and printing. You will troubleshoot common problems in relief printmaking, learn about brands and tools, and leave with finished prints on fabric. Please bring your own fabric item which can include yardage, tshirts, scarves, or anything else that is relatively smooth. Avoid fabrics such as burlap.

Ashley Quick is a visual artist based in the mountain west. Her graphic and often illustrative work represents personal experience and place-based reflections on nature in mediums such as printmaking, illustration, and more recently mural. She shows regularly in Wyoming and Colorado, and has been featured in shows across the country. 

Sou’Wester Arts is delighted to welcome artists Lindsay Costello & Erika Callihan whose exhibition What Else is Here? will be featured in our Gallery Trailer & Red Bus Microcinema April 14 – July 6. We hope you will join the artists for an opening reception with coffee and galettes on Friday, April 14 from 11:11 a.m. – 1:11 p.m.

What Else is Here? will be the culminating body of site-responsive work created by artist-friends Lindsay Costello and Erika Callihan during a week-long residency at the Sou’Wester. They’re thinking about rest, play, trust, the writing of Annie Dillard, and nature as a resource in healing C-PTSD. The exhibition will include a textile piece, soundscapes, paintings, and process drawings, plus a separate activation of the Red Bus Microcinema with Lindsay‘s diaristic 8mm nature films. Visitors will be invited to engage with the exhibition and the surrounding landscape through various creative and somatic prompts. 

This class is currently full.

Learn the basics of handbuilding with clay and experiment using “nerikomi” techniques – the process of pressing or folding multiple colors of clay to achieve unique surface designs. This class is beginner friendly and includes all the tools you need, clay, glaze, and firing of one or two finished pieces.

Ally Bruser is a former elementary school art teacher, artist, and mother living in southwest Washington, on the unceded territory of the Chinook Nation. Most of her ceramics are handbuilt using nerikomi techniques — the process of pressing and folding multiple colors of clay together then rolling them into slabs. When not making pottery, Ally is working towards making the arts and arts learning experiences more accessible as the Program Manager for Sou’wester Arts. Visit albepottery.squarespace.com or follow @albepottery on instagram to learn more about Ally and her pottery process.

$70

 

We Hold the Light: Cyanotype Quilts with Cordy Joan

In this workshop we will use two practices that ask us to interact with natural light to create miniature “secret” quilts. First, participants will be guided in making cyanotypes out of gathered natural materials from the land. (That is, cyanotyping as a method of sun-printing that requires us to relate to the light). These will serve as their mini-quilt tops. Second, participants will be guided through a series of writing prompts to find words that they will cut into quilt batting to create the middle of the quilt. This interacts with light in that when your finished quilt is held up to a light source, your batting-cut words will be revealed like secret messages. Quilt backs will be provided and we will complete our pieces using a simple hand-tie method.

Cordy (they/them) is a white artist and educator living on Ohlone land (Oakland, CA). They wish to find where poems and quilts hold hands and they are interested in what we will leave behind. They think that making communal objects together can be an act of relearning how to be together. For more info visit corduroyjoan.com or @coanofsilence on instagram

$65

Register

Singing in the land:  earth magic, song, and the body 

Thursday, May 25 5-7 pm

 

Join bodyworker, musician, and animist priest ell rieke (they/them) in residency at the Sou’wester for a magical, musical exploration of connection with the earth, our ancestors, and the world of spirit.  Part workshop, part participatory sonic experience, we will spend the first part of our time in conversation, talking through questions like:  what is magic and why does it matter?  Where do songs come from?  Is the earth talking to us?  How can sound and rhythm help us navigate this complicated, painful, beautiful world?  

 

In the second half of our gathering, ell will guide participants in using voice and body to connect with spirit and the earth.  They will teach some songs of the season, from both folk and modern traditions, and then guide a gentle ritual of reverence and celebration for the coming of summer.  You will be invited to sing or hum and move your body, and are also welcome to just sit and experience.  All bodies, voices, and backgrounds are welcome, including kids! 

 

Please bring something to sit on, and cozy layers in case the evening is cool.  You may want to bring a journal and pen, if you like taking notes, and are also invited to bring a special object (that will return home with you) and/or flowers for the group altar. 

Intuitive Multimedia Embroidery with Chloe Jacobson

Learn 5 basic embroidery stitches while experimenting with expressive abstract multimedia techniques. We will play with stitching on top of watercolor washes on canvas fabric or fabric of choice.

I grew up in the dry, oaky lands of Southern Oregon and headed north to the lush forests of the Pacific Northwest to pursue a major in Visual Arts and Psychology from The Evergreen State College. I chose to pursue the healing power of the art process professionally through getting graduate degree in Transpersonal Art Therapy at Naropa University, and now practice as full time art therapist with the LGBTQIA population in Portland, Oregon. I am a multimedia artist specializing in embroidery, painting, and collage to express sensations, feeling spaces, and to tell stories of empowerment and liberation. I walk the edge of fine art and craft to explore the natural world through my lens as a queer art therapist. I blend media to reframe and re-contextualize, while offering simple messages. I especially seek narratives of natural perseverance, adaptation, justice, and resilience in the face of adversity or human constructs. My background in art therapy informs my process as being a platform for healing self-reflection, through making the latent, blatant. For more information visit chloekjacobson.wixsite.com/pdxemb

$60

Register

“Portraits, Men in Ballgowns, Sound, We Will Be Heard” by Scott Braucht

Sou’Wester Arts is thrilled to welcome filmmaker Scott Braucht whose program Portraits / Men in Ballgowns // Sound / We Will Be Heard will be featured in a special exhibition celebrating Pacific County Pride in our Red Bus Microcinema.

On view at The Sou’Wester’s Red Bus Theatre

May 29 – July 14, 2023.

Opening reception Monday, May 29 6-8p with a special acoustic performance from musician Khaelo Dé.

Clay Teacup Making Workshop with Midori Hirose

Explore clay and create a one-of-a-kind tea cup with Midori Hirose. All levels and fun clay making tools are welcome!

Midori Hirose is a Japanese American interdisciplinary artist. In Hirose’s work, physical objects and materials are interchangeable with community bonds, recognizing space as a necessary part of the generative process through collaborations, historical narrative, perception (physiological and psychological), and storytelling. 

Hirose’s work has been shown nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, and Disjecta Contemporary Art Center (now called Oregon Contemporary) for the Portland Biennial. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at The Lumber Room in Portland, OR; East/West Project, Berlin, Germany; Newberg Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland; and Fylkingen, Stockholm, Sweden. For more information visit midorihirose.info/ and instagram.com/midorihirose/

This workshop is full. 

JOHN & JULIE
“We Do”

An art exhibition in The Art Trailer Gallery July 14th-July 23rd 2023

Lifelong creative folks, John and Julie met in 2017, started drawing together and haven’t looked back. They each had established artistic practices – John is a painter primarily and Julie is a filmmaker primarily – however both are open to working in ways that push them out of their comfort zones and allow for spontaneity and improvisation. They have made drawings, paintings, films, sounds, saunas, and land art together. To celebrate their “first date anniversary” each year, they look at Wikipedia’s list of traditional wedding anniversary gifts and have a ritual of making art using the material assigned to that year. They cater the event, ie; order take-out, and reflect on the year past and the year ahead for their relationship. The result is this collection of works presented here on the occasion of their wedding taking place July 22, 2023. We Do: Saying Yes to a Relationship of Depth, Connection and Enduring Love is a book by Stan Tatkin that has been a guidebook for building John and Julie’s relationship.

John Frentress has made art since the age of three and studied art at Kirkwood College with Doug Hall who was an amazing multi-disciplinary artist. He went on to study and work at several schools and community education centers on the west coast and considers himself to be primarily a “proper” art school short timer, and an auto-didactic life long learner. Like many artists, he has a BS degree in Psychology. John had the privilege of occupying a studio in the Blackfish gallery in the Pearl district of Portland for 19 years – sadly the building is now sitting vacant waiting for a bulldozer. He works with brushes using oils, acrylics, sumi ink and watercolors – sometimes paints on light bulbs and other trash.

Julie Perini is a filmmaker, daily videomaker, diary keeper, video artist, reader, writer, teacher, question asker, raw nerve, hot spring hopper, product of white suburbs of New York and DIY culture of the 90s, and friend to many. Her involvement with the post-9/11 “War on Terror” spurred her work with prison and police abolitionist movements. She exhibits work in theaters, community spaces, galleries, campgrounds, storefronts, the sides of bridges, and many other venues. She sees movies in actual movie theaters. Julie likes old cameras and eats pancakes at a diner at least once a week. Originally from New York, she is a Professor of Art at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

curated by Nikki Cormaci

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