The Sunny Streets of Portland in April

PDX Art Walk: Self-Guided Street Adventure

No lie, it's over 65F this weekend!!!! I can't EVER remember a sunny, warmer, sunroof-down kinda summer in all the years I've lived in Portland. Yes, please, and can we have another SoCal spring? 

In preparation for my trip to Germany next month, I treated this weekend excursion as a dry run for the following: shoe fit, handbag functionality, and personal stamina. SO glad I'm ordering some better flats - ouchie! By handbag is small, but did get heavy at the end of the tour. My stamina was directly proportional to the number of small snacks I kept on hand! Better make sure that handbag scenario is addressed to allow maximum space for almonds and dried fruit.

The walking tour was FANTASTIC. I have a crazy great map ("A Guide to Portland Public Art") with multiple walking routes through the city. There's also a free corresponding iPhone app with dropped pins on outdoor displays. If you haven't trekked around, you will be astounded with the number and variety of public art! Here's what caught my eye. What's your favorite piece of Portland art?

Cat in Repose - Kathleen McCullough

Looks like those soap bar carvings we all made in middle school! Good kittie.

View from the suspension bridge at Union Station. The bridge jiggles.

Cairns - Christine Bourdette

This collection of 5, are so fun to stand next to! Each cairn is totally unique with perfect tapers and width variance. The silver ledgestone plays off the brick station wonderfully. These 3-D pieces are very viewer-friendly; you'll have to stand next to them to get the full experience. 

Each cairn is topped with a capstone to cover the central opening. 

Did you notice the detail work? (The overlap onto the brickwork.) This guy also has an indented layer about 1.5' off the ground. Almost like the artist left subtle characteristics in each piece for us to discover!

Driver's Seat - Don Merkt

A giant eye, reverse-order Roman numeral clock face, plus a giant seat and steering wheel all aimed at the Station. I feel like this is actually a junglegym tenuously masked as an artpiece! Climb aboard and grapple with this piece. Love the three large eyelashes and the way the clock face acts as the pupil with the remaining negative space as the white's of the giant oculus. Clever.....

The Legend of the Green Man of Portland - Daniel Duford

This display is also a set. There are 10 pieces along 5th and 6th from a graphic novel telling the story of a mythic "green man" viewed periodically throughout the city inspiring visions of a legendary tree and mysterious previously-unseen building. Some of the pieces are numbered reader boards with cool colors and some are large monuments. Fellow blogger, Patrick tells of his encounter with The Green Man here. Who know's what magic may befall you in the midst of the city....

Burls Will Be Burls - Bruce Conkle

Untitled - Bruce West

This one is so simple I actually walked half a block before realizing I had passed it! I see the shape of two figures laying down in the band duo. Shadows of the newly-leafed trees participate in the visual experience darkening different sections of the stainless steel. It's grown on me - sleek, interpretable, cool.

Daddy Long Legs - Mel Katz

Great color choices! Especially for our (normally!) bleak weather.

Pile - Malia Jensen

Put TWO birds on it! An on two books, a folded pillow, and an artfully askew crate to be exact! Cute and fun. This is a great one to twirl around for a different experience on each whimsical side.

Portland Shopping. Yes, it's Fabulous

Solabee! Found a gem of a store that has inspired yet another summer resolution - get a green living space with more houseplants that I tend well and do not devastate! Overwhelmed with the descriptive words required to give you an accurate assessment of this botanical gem, go visit their brick and morter or at the very least their luscious web presence.

Boy's Fort - The funky Portland bloke's version of Hallmark. Only better. For a tomboy like me into graphic, oversized,  industrial furnishing and cool textiles this whole store is like a packed Christmas stocking. Cheers!

Johnny Sole - Don't go anywhere else for leather shoes and handbags. Bring some coin, you'll want to get you some boots!

Spring Spotlight on Green Walls

Gardens on the Vertical

Lately, most of the Gallery's posts have been nature-related with lots of photos of green growing things. Prepare for another one. I don't remember where I first heard of Patrick Blanc, but I simply MUST share his work with you. Get a load of these magical green walls. 

Blanc's work covers some of the most prestigious hotels, business, and private residences across Europe and Asia with his pioneering techniques. Blanc used his years of globetrotting field research on how plants cling to rocks and trees without soil and still manage to thrive. With a felt pocket system irrigated with mineraal water, his green art lives high above our heads as lush and happy as if they were growing in some steamy tropic lost jungle.

First off is the Athenaeum Hotel in London. This green tapestry runs up two sides of the hotel and contrasts crisply with the bump-out glass bays and clean white exterior. What could be more joltingly lovely in the middle of a misty city? 

Next we have Blanc's wall L'Oasis d'Aboukir in Paris. See some constructions pictures here on how this vertical garden was installed. SO much lovelier that graffiti, no? I can just feel the cool air wafting off the wall as the planting reduces the overall summer heat bouncing off the pavement. 

Pont Max Juvenal in Aix en Provence.....

On a smaller but no less breathtaking scale, Blanc's interior work has me craving my own office green wall like this Club House Vertical Garden in Hong Kong. Love the flowering species. I've seen lots of walls with sedums and carex, but Blanc's palette range is staggering. A+ in diversity.

OH, I can't forget Blanc's office. Yes, that is an aquarium under his desk with a green wall behind. Totally reminds of that childhood book "The Salamander Room" where the little boy's whole bedroom transforms into a wild forest were the walls are trees and the carpet is forest fauna. Blanc, you have a killer work space!

Now this is a better fit at my house! Found it here with a delicious scroll-worthy line up of more green walls. I hope you are as delighted with these creative ways to cohabitate with plants as I am. 

Nature Walk + More Flowering Natives!

Tualatin Hills Park and Rec Center Trails

How are you all? Welcome to a lovely weekend! Here's my scrapbook for last weekend's sunny, Sunday nature walk. Calm. Fresh. Vibrant. Chipmunks, baby squirrels, red-headed woodpeckers, bees, and even a deer greeted me as I sauntered through the friendly forest. Sun on my face. Peace in my heart. I hope you have a green sanctuary somewhere close to where you live. Free therapy! :)

Continuing our native flower theme, below you'll find a shot of our Oregon State flower - Mahonia aquifolium or Oregon Grape. Tough...not super beautiful but prolific in our climate. At the very bottom, you'll see a gorgeous gem-of-a-flower called - Erythronium or Fawn Lily. Pure, white, and delicate. I'm in love! 

Keep exploring your world! {And share some pictures!}