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NOVEMBER 2008 $4.99

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People 25

WINE-TASTING SIP THE GRAPES IN LANE COUNTY P62

Meet of Portland’s most creative thinkers p26

T H E P E O P L E I S S U E

ultimate NORTHWESTNOVEMBER 08

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Photos by Rob Finch, Motoya Nakamura, Beth Nakamura, Stephanie Yao and Ross William Hamilton

reativityC elebrating

28 ultimate NORTHWESTNOVEMBER 08

Portland has already started to get good at this, and the proof is everywhere, from the demographic studies that show young creatives are still flocking to the city, to the growing national importance of our artists and designers, to the explosion of small businesses built on new ideas of doing things.

It’s not something to be smug about, but it is worth celebrating. And that’s exactly what we’re doing in this issue: celebrating the creativity of the city by looking at some of the people who make it happen.

An area that we often overlook when we think of creativity? Politics. And, frankly, more creativity than ever is needed in this arena if we’re

going to organize ourselves to meet global economic challenges. It’s going to take the best ideas from everyone. So we’ve started with some people who are attempting to engage more of us in the business of being good citizens.

From there we could have gone almost anywhere, but we’ve chosen a few areas with focused, intense activity that’s starting to pay off. Portland is already internationally known for many of its green activities, both individual initiatives and those sponsored by the city. Staying on the forefront is important for all kinds of reasons, and we’ve found some boundary-pushers to tell you about.

Our music scene is all about abolishing boundaries, too.

And our film community, from animators to festival organizers, is figuring out how to propel itself into a higher orbit than ever.

And we’ve chosen a smattering of designers — of buildings, Web sites and brand identities — to represent the restless creativity behind the explosion of new products and new services that are devised here.

Again, it’s not something to be smug about. But it should give us confidence that our wits are up to the challenges ahead.

—Barry Johnson

As the global economy smoothes out regional advantages,

g yg yexcept for certain highly prized commodities

g g ,g gsuch as oil, what’s left is our ability to create with the

same tools available to almost anyone.

e live by our wits.

1219 SW PARK AVENUE // PORTLAND, OR 97205 // 503-226-2811 // PORTLANDARTMUSEUM.ORG

WILD BEAUTY 10.04.08 – 01.11.09


efferson Smith is just like you. Well, with a couple exceptions. 1. He’s taller. How much taller is relative, of course, but he’s a big heffalump of a guy. A basket-

ball nut, he clearly played in the post back in the day. 2. He’s saving democracy. What are you doing? Reading a magazine.

[ C R E A T I V E S : P O L I T I C S ]

As it turns out, though, safe-guarding the republic is simpler than you’d think. Some six years ago, a shaggy-haired, 28-year-old Smith got an old bus and started driving around the state with high school and college kids — plus a few graybeards to keep the conversa-tions interesting. They knocked on doors, smiled a lot, listened even more and encouraged people to vote.

And with that, the Oregon Bus Project was under way. It was sup-posed to be a one-time-only thing, but Smith had found his calling. Hedecided he wanted to remake our political system by yanking it away from the all-or-nothing partisan model of recent years.

“I want to dump the spectrum idea of political thinking,” Smith says. “It’s almost impossible, but I’m going to try to do it anyway.

“Right now we’re led to believe that if you’re against the death pen-alty that means there’s only one way you can feel about abortion, and that means there’s only one way you can feel about progressive taxation, which means you can only feel one way about immigration. The idea that the one answer to any one of those questions is necessarily linked philosophically to all those other answers is patently absurd.”

In short, partisanship is for suckers. Party loyalty is outdated. Smith, now 35, is running for the Oregon House as a Democrat this year — his first candidacy — but he’s not even willing to commit to being a Democrat for the rest of his career. He wants the Bus Project, he says, “to be about values and ideas, not tribal membership.”

It’s easy to picture Jeff Smith in 30 years. Graying and stooped, but just as intense as ever, as he hands out pamphlets in Pioneer Courthouse Square, railing against evil political parties and the aliens directing the president’s actions through telepathy.

Except that’s the current politi-cal construct talking. Expand your mind a bit, and it’s possible to see that Smith is right. After all, he

caught the current zeitgeist before it was the zeitgeist. A handful of years before Barack Obama’s presi-dential campaign got thousands of excited young people participat-ing in politics for the first time, Jefferson Smith was Oregon’s Pied Piper for newbie voters.

“I think Jefferson is one of the most politically talented people I’ve ever met,” says Adam Klugman, a friend and colleague who runs the political consulting shop Progressive Media Agency in Portland.

Smith is a proud Democrat, but, Klugman says, “he believes the way to create a healthy democracy is by bringing everybody on board — Democrat, Republican, independent — and having an honest discussion about where we want to go.”

It took a while for Smith to even realize he was interested in poli-tics. His mother died when he was a teenager, and he “finished high school more weakly than I started it.” Thanks to a close family and his determination, he rebounded at the University of Oregon, earn-ing a spot at Harvard Law School. He clerked for a federal judge and joined a tony corporate law firm.

Now, Smith insists, his lawyering days are over. He’s engaged to Katy Lesowski, a research coordinator at Oregon Health & Science »

“I want to dump the spectrum idea of political think-

ing. It’s almost impossible, but I’m going to try to do it anyway.”

remakingpoliticsTHE OREGON BUS PROJECT SAVING US FROM OURSELVES BY DOUGL A S PER RY

JEFFERSON SMITHCANDIDATE FOR THE OREGON HOUSEPHOTO BY ROB FINCH


SUE HILDICK PRESIDENT OF THE CHALKBOARD PROJECT Disaster relief: Four years ago, Sue Hildick left ice storms and blackouts behind to head up a new group aimed at improving Oregon’s public schools.

Hildick, former executive director of the American Red Cross Oregon Trail Chapter, is now in charge of the non-profit Chalkboard Project. The group’s goal: figure out how to give K-12 stu-dents more for the public’s money.

A rocky start: Hildick’s first session lobbying legislators in 2007 was rough. Established education lobbyists, such as teachers and school administrators, didn’t care for Chalkboard proposals to audit school districts and limit early retirement plans for teachers.

Still, Hildick and her gang managed to squeeze a few ideas past legislators: a modest move to study school trans-portation costs and a more dramatic move to make sure every new teacher gets a mentor.

“In education, the debate has been about money and what the money is going to be, and Chalkboard arrived with an agenda that was about quality,” she says. “There is a proving ground, and I think 2007 was the start of ours.”

Flower child: On weekends, Hildick, 44, runs a flower-arranging business out of her garage. “I love it because flowers stay where you put them, and they don’t talk back,” she jokes. In December, she’s expecting her first child with husband Mark Klein, a software engineering executive.

STEVE NOVICK IDEA GUYIf Steve Novick ran the world: Every taxpayer would get a one-page state-ment from the government listing how their taxes were spent. Electricity meters would sit prominently in kitchens where customers could monitor how much they’ve used. People would get frowny faces on monthly utility bills if they sucked up more energy than their neighbors, a smiley face if they used less.

“I think if people had more informa-tion on a few subjects, we would have a better world, and we’d certainly have more rational political debates,” says Novick, 45.

Quirky campaign: Novick, a longtime political insider who’s never held elec-tive office, narrowly lost the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate this year. But he thrilled left-leaning voters and conser-vative pundits alike with an unusually spirited campaign that celebrated his physical disabilities and highlighted his smarts. Novick, who stands about 4-foot-9, vowed to fight for the little guy. In a

campaign ad that went viral, he used the metal hook that serves as his left hand to pop open a beer cap.

Yeah, he’s fairly smart: Since the pri-mary, he’s returned to his job at Pyramid Communications, a public affairs firm devoted to “socially responsible” causes. The brainy Portlander, who graduated from the University of Oregon at 18 and from Harvard Law School at 21, promises we’ll see more of him.

“I’m always throwing out more big ideas than you can shake a stick at,” Novick says. “I’m not going anywhere.”

AMANDA FRITZ PORTLAND CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATE Pick a city, any city: It was 1985 and Amanda Fritz’s husband, Steve, had just graduated from medical school in upstate New York. They were looking for a new city where he could do his residency and she could work as a registered nurse. They visited seven cities on the East Coast and two on the West and rated them against a list of 10 criteria.

“And Portland came top of the matrix,” says Fritz, 50.

Fritz — who is taking on Charles Lewis for Sam Adams’ spot on the Portland City Council — is the first candidate to qualify for Portland’s public campaign finance system, which gives candidates public cash to run if they can collect enough signatures from $5 donors.

It was a sign: Shortly after she moved to Portland, the British native got the city to install a traffic sign on a dangerous

REMAKING POLI TICS BY JANIE HAR


35

stretch of Southwest Capitol Highway. Two years ago, she made her first run for City Council, convinced the board had grown out of touch with regular people.

For the past 18 months, Fritz has operated as a sort of “sixth member” of the five-person council, posting weekly meeting agendas on her blog and offer-ing analysis on everything from the new I-5 bridge to renaming Interstate Avenue.

Lending an ear: She wants to change City Hall in little ways so busy people have a better shot getting heard on every-day issues.

“The ‘radical change’ I hope to effect is to promote communication and accountability so that regular Portlanders know why votes go the way they do, and where all the money goes.”

JOHN KROGERCANDIDATE FOR OREGON’S ATTORNEY GENERAL John who? Kroger announced his can-didacy for Oregon attorney general last summer, standing in front of the old Portland offices of Enron.

Nobody had heard of him outside of a handful of key political insiders. His Democratic opponent in the May pri-mary was Greg Macpherson, a state rep-resentative with deep roots in Oregon.

Today, Kroger, 42, is the Democratic nominee for the job of Oregon’s top cop. He faces no Republican on the ballot and minor opposition from a Constitution Party candidate.

Straight outta Brooklyn: Voters and volunteers apparently went for Kroger’s detailed policy proposals and unflagging work ethic. He had successfully prosecut-ed mobsters and drug dealers as a U.S.attorney in Brooklyn, and he promised to bring the same aggressiveness to Oregon.

Kroger grew up in Texas and enlisted with the U.S. Marines on his 17th birth-day. He then went to Yale University, where he majored in philosophy, and at 25, he joined Bill Clinton’s budding pres-idential campaign as a policy adviser.

Taking on Enron: Kroger moved to Oregon in 2002 to teach at Lewis & Clark Law School but took a break to serve on

the Justice Department’s Enron Task Force. His team won indictments against seven defendants.

If elected, he’s promised to create an environmental crimes unit and to beef up drug treatment and prevention.

“Drug abuse and, in particular, meth abuse, is the No. 1 cause of both prop-erty crimes and serious child abuse in the state,” he said. “You cannot make any progress on the problem . . . unless you reduce the demand for drugs.”

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ROBYN STREETER AND DONNA SMITH YOUR BACKYARD FARMERPHOTO BY ROB FINCH


37

[ C R E A T I V E S : S U S T A I N A B I L I T Y ]

hen classmates Donna Smith and Robyn Streeter finished their horticulture degrees in 2006, they set out to develop a community-supported agriculture venture.

The dream they nurtured was to buy or lease a plot of land to farm, selling shares in their harvest. But they quickly ran up against water-rights issues, and they couldn’t find a sizable piece of land that wasn’t too shady or situated on a flood plain. Frustrated, Streeter went home to southern Idaho for a few weeks while Smith continued to drive around Portland, pondering possibilities.

One day, noticing many small patches of ground going unused in people’s yards, Smith whipped up a bunch of fliers and posted them in coffee shops around town. A potential client called that night, interested in Smith’s offer to build and work a “backyard farm” on his property. Smith phoned Streeter and said, “Get your butt home.”

Your Backyard Farmer was born. “We do the work; you enjoy the

healthy bounty” is the premise of the rapidly growing business. This year, Smith and Streeter have planted and maintain 27 backyard farms; they also provide consulting services to 20 more homeowners whom they teach to do the work themselves. In addition, they farm a piece of property, about one-eighth of an acre, that provides fresh pro-duce to Pastaworks grocery stores and a few local restaurants.

Smith, 50, and Streeter, 30, plan the backyard farms, plant the crops, do the maintenance and leave fresh produce by their clients’ doors each week. Clients are encouraged to choose everything they like to eat from a list of about 72 veggies (no fruits). With dense planting and careful crop rotation, Smith and Streeter are able to plant just about everything a family chooses, no matter how small the space. And

their methods are strictly organic — they even pick cabbage worms off plants by hand.

The duo takes calls on a first-come, first-served basis, stopping when they hit a prearranged maxi-mum number of farms for the year. As long as a client has running water, enough sun and a few other

variables, they will set up shop at their home. Current participants get first dibs for the following year. For 2009, there’s already a waiting list of 16.

Your Backyard Farmer requires about 100-square-feet per person to yield nine months of food, or a bushel basket per family each week. Cost is based on a formula of square footage and number of people. So, for instance, a 15-by-15-square-foot farm feeding up to four people will cost about $1,600 for a complete season, March through November. (And come fall, Smith points out, there’ll still be crops like carrots and beets in the ground.)

Smith and Streeter have been

surprised by the attention they’ve received. Colleges, agriculture departments and sustainable food advocates call and e-mail with questions, hoping to imitate their model. Inquiries have poured in from Canada, the United Kingdom, Boston, New Mexico, Italy and Jamaica. It’s often the little things that people want advice about, such as how to keep delicate veggies cool on the back porch until the family comes home. (The answer: ice packs and ice chests.) This year, the city of Portland recognized Your Backyard Farmer with a BEST award, given to businesses making important strides in sustainability, in the food systems category.

But why call these “backyard farms” rather than regular old veg-etable gardens? Is it more than a marketing scheme?

“Because we are farmers,” Streeter says. She and Smith possess the technical know-how and expertise that come with the profession, and their work meets the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s defini-tion of farming, based on how much money is earned from agricultural commodities.

Plus, Smith says, a garden can be many things and can include pretty flowers, but “a farm means food, and that’s all we do.” ✴

“We do the work; you enjoy the

healthy bounty.”


JASON KINGLANDSCAPE ARCHITECT Up on the roof: The big idea preoccupy-ing Jason King, landscape architect with Portland’s GreenWorks, PC, is a roof garden. Not just any roof garden, mind you, but one that will grace the First and Main Office Tower, a LEED Gold-certi-fied building near the Hawthorne Bridge that’s scheduled to open in 2009.

“The idea we were going for,” the 35-year-old King says, “is an interest-ing sensory experience 365 days of the year.”

Sustainable and beautiful: An eco-roof pioneer — King designed Portland’s first residential roof garden and the city’s big-gest roof garden, at 18,000-square-feet, atop the Portland Building — he hails this latest project as the most sustain-able and beautiful ever created for a local office building. The 15,000-square-foot space, designed with semi-private nooks for relaxing as well as areas suitable for groups, will be on the fourth floor of the 19-story tower, where most office work-ers can see it.

Blog about it: A North Dakotan who moved to Portland in 1997, King writes a popular blog, landscapeandurbanism.blogspot.com, and volunteers with Verde, a nonprofit organization creating oppor-tunities in environmental careers for disadvantaged communities. The organi-zation is “trying to broaden the field of who is involved in the conversation about sustainability,” King says.

GARRETT AND DUSTIN MOONECO-REBUILDERS Building brotherhood: Garrett and Dustin Moon are building the greenest family home ever seen in Portland.

Change in plan: In 2007, Garrett, 23, and Dustin, 30, bought an 880-square-foot house in Southeast Portland off Craigslist for $195,000. They originally planned to remodel it as their own two-family home, but their plans soon blos-somed into a 2,700-square-foot rebuild aimed at becoming the first house in the United States to meet the Living Building Challenge. This initiative, developed by the Cascadia Region Green Building Council, is thought to be the toughest environmental-building goalpost there is.

Oh, and did we mention they intend to achieve all this for just $250,000?

(The brothers know of a project in Vancouver also striving to meet the Living Building Challenge, but say its budget is at least double theirs.)

Net-zero usage: The brothers’ blue-print doesn’t wow with stunning break-throughs in technology but incorporates many basic environmental techniques. Lots of residences in Oregon achieve net-zero usage in either energy or water, Garrett says, but The Commons — as the Moons have dubbed the project — will strive for both. It’s not legal to recycle gray water, or wash water, but the broth-ers are lobbying government officials on this point, and will plumb the house both ways in anticipation of an eventual change. They’ll install earthen floors that are made of compacted dirt and look sim-ilar to concrete, and composting toilets.

WORKING GREEN

JAN KAHN RENOVATORGreen Girl Scout: Jan Kahn, who owns Green Heart Construction, a home renovation and repair business, was an environmentalist long before it was fash-ionable. Born in California and bounced around the country as an “Air Force brat,” Kahn says a radical ecologist who spoke to her Girl Scout troop made a big impression on her.

“I got flak for some of my ideas,” she says, “but they aren’t so crazy anymore.”

Not just for the rich: Her business is not particularly unique, especially in über-green Portland, but Kahn, 51, stands out as a longtime advocate for increasing environmental standards at all socio-economic levels. She spent several years as an assistant site supervisor with Habitat for Humanity before starting Green Heart in September 2006. Her business model is to get as aggressively green as possible, whether installing floors, fixing windows or repairing rot. She has signed on to the Architecture 2030 Challenge, a national nonprofit pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emis-sions in the building sector. And she dem-onstrates her passionate belief that green homes aren’t just for the wealthy through contract work with Portland Community Land Trust, a nonprofit helping working families become homeowners.

Long live linoleum! Her focus, Kahn says, is creating healthy homes rather than the “mold bombs” that often pass for low-income housing. Green methods might cost more up front, she says, but result in savings in a few years’ time. Nontoxic substances that contribute to cleaner breathing environments, for example, cut down on asthma rates and, therefore, health care costs. Green surfaces like bamboo and linoleum are extremely durable. “Put a good vinyl floor in,” she marvels, “and it’s going to last forever.”

DR. JASON MCMILLANDENTIST Rustic yet modern: In creating the country’s very first LEED-certified dental practice, Dr. Jason McMillan of Mint Dental Works has married the rustic and modern.

McMillan, 35, and his wife, Rebecca, turned an old warehouse in Southeast Portland into a charming office filled with recycled and reclaimed touches. “People walk in and say, ‘It doesn’t look or smell like a dental office,’ ” says McMillan, a Louisiana native who’s lived

in Oregon for 22 years. “That’s the big-gest compliment for me.”

Handy with a drill: Beams and trusses were left exposed, and all the doors, including 10-foot fir beauties salvaged from Rejuvenation, are recycled. The doc made a funky table by placing a piece of floor from an old Portland bowling alley atop an industrial sewing machine stand.

A sink-less office: Then there’s the medical side of things, all super-modern. “Trying to marry the new and old was a little tricky,” McMillan says, but part of the fun. He orders toothbrushes with handles made from yogurt containers. Sinks were replaced with alcohol-based hand sanitation stations, reducing water usage, the number of fixtures and per-mitting costs. And McMillan plans to buy a piece of equipment that will allow him to mill and place crowns during a single visit, eliminating the need for materials to take tooth impressions and saving patients a return trip.

PHOTOS BY JAMIE FR ANCI S


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M[ C R E A T I V E S : M U S I C ]

aybe Terry Currier is making up for lost time. He didn’t listen to a lot of pop music as a kid and, although he was a talented enough musician to earn a clarinet scholarship, records were another world to him.

Until September 1972. He took a job in a record store that month and, in the year that followed, bought 665 records.

His extensive collection eventually morphed into Music Millennium, Portland’s best-known indie music shop. Store owner, however, is just his most public role in the music community in Portland and across the country.

Take a deep breath: He’s advis-ing a new, all-local startup radio station; he spearheaded the revival of the Oregon Music Hall of Fame; he helped found and lead the Coalition of Independent Music Stores; he owns and runs Burnside Distribution; he previously owned and ran the labels Sideburn and Burnside records; he’s a constant presence at local shows; he’s on the board for the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Grammys; and he informally advises countless local musicians on everything from their sound to their career decisions.

He does not, obviously, sleep very much.

“He just loves music. He’s a great person and truly, truly cares about the community and the music com-munity,” said Dave Gulick of the band Derby. Currier, 53, liked their “Posters Fade” album of earlier this year so much that he called the band and took them out to lunch after hearing the record. “Terry, he’s just able to develop relationships with so many bands and cares so much about helping them reach their goals.”

Through the years, Currier’s worked within the independent

music scene, from local musicians to national record stores. Sometimes that means steering, say, the Latin Grammy-nominated Portland tanguero Vayo Raimondo to report-ers; sometimes that means some-thing a little more dramatic, as in the early ’90s, when Currier barbe-cued Garth Brooks CDs and videos to protest the country singer’s slam on stores that sell used music.

The stunt generated so much publicity — “The day it happened it looked like a presidential election, there were so many microphones,” Currier recalls — that Currier took the schtick on the road, duplicat-ing the cookout at independent record stores from Canada down the West Coast, complete with music performances, press attention and, of course, hoagie buns. Eventually, that tour led to the formation of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores.

Currier’s been such a stalwart of the Portland music scene since he

began acquiring ownership of Music Millennium in 1984 that musicians, community activists and others now come to him. That’s how he got involved in the Pacific Northwest Chapter of the Grammys, which puts on a number of programs throughout the year (Currier has been a Grammy voter for several years now), and how he got drawn into the creation of a new radio station with a strong local focus, expected to debut on the FM dial sometime next year.

“I’ve always wanted to support the local music scene, trying to see it get some credit that it doesn’t always get,” Currier says. “That gives me the determination to do these things.”

And, of course, there’s Music Millennium itself. Yes, it’s a store, but it’s also a venue in its own right, with all-ages in-store appearances from punk to folk, electro to acous-tic. Keeping those performances accessible to kids is important to Currier, who got shut out of plenty of concerts himself as a youngster. “I stood outside the door of a num-ber of clubs listening to bands,” he says.

Someday, he knows, the six-day weeks of 12-hour days will catch up to him. “I can’t do everything I want to do,” he says. For now, though, the local scene’s defender plans to stay on the job.

“I have,” he says with a laugh, “a very understanding wife.” ✴

“I’ve always wanted to support

the local music scene, trying to see it get some credit

that it doesn’t always get.”


41

makingmusicLIKE LOCAL INDIE MUSIC? THANK TERRY CURRIER BY LUCIANA LOPEZ

TERRY CURRIEROWNER OF MUSIC MILLENNIUMPHOTO BY ROB FINCH


SOMEDAY LOUNGEA VISIONARY VENUEChaos and romance: The name sounds a little wistful, but the “someday” in question at this bar and venue on Northwest Fifth Avenue looks more forward than back, a vision that blends chaos and romance in perhaps equal measures.

The venue’s known for being, in a sense, unknowable: The owners and staff make an effort to keep the schedule constantly surprising, spanning genres, disciplines, even different senses of what, exactly, is art. “Classical Revolution,” on Wednesday nights, aims to deliver classical music to the masses; Thursday night party “The Fix” sees local DJs spin rare grooves, soul, hip-hop and funk. On other nights, audiences might see anything from updated opera classics to indie rock to art films to drag shows to … well, you get the idea.

A crazy idea: That, though, is exactly what the venue’s owners want. Brothers Eric and Kristofer Robison had already been throwing events at the space but saw greater potential there. “What if we take over this space?” Eric, 37, remembers asking Kristofer, 31.

“I was hoping he’d say no,” Eric said, adding that Kristofer — the sensible one — has talked Eric out of crazy ideas in the past.

Not this time, though; Kristofer said yes, they recruited three other partners and the lounge debuted in September 2006.

Although the scheduling started out focused almost entirely on experimental acts, the venue now also books some more popular acts, and private parties as well, a balance that lets them stay in business but still push art forward.

Looking ahead: The Robisons currently stream all their shows online, but they have other ideas in the works, such as making DVDs of all their shows for audiences to buy that same night, and making the space into a daytime recording studio and practice space … someday.

CONNIE WOHN DJ COLLECTIVE HONCHETTE DJs are people, too: Play a guitar in Portland, you get mad respect. Man some turntables and — well, maybe be prepared to explain yourself. That’s because, for all of Portland’s rep as a music town, that love hasn’t always extended to the DJs.

Enter Connie Wohn. The 32-year-old founder of DJ booking agency/collective Stylus503, Wohn has helped change Portland’s view of what it means to be a DJ.

“Being a DJ is as important or as noteworthy as being any other type of musician,” she says. “The music is the most important thing in creating the whole atmosphere for an event.”

Finding her niche: Wohn, who also works with the Rock ’n’ Roll Camp for Girls and the nonprofit hip-hop organization World Up, started booking DJs serendipitously. She’d worked in the music industry for years, doing everything from publicity to clearing

MAKING MUSIC


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music for licensing, when she left a promotions job. It was around Christmas a few years ago, she said, and a few people called her for help in finding DJs — many of whom were her friends — for parties. Soon she realized no one else in Portland was quite doing what she’d stumbled upon, and the collective was born.

A growing business:Stylus503 started out with nine DJs on deck, and is now up to 11, with other event-planning services offered as well. The DJs “need to focus on the music, and I’m a business person,” she says. Her work frees up the DJs to work on their artistry, a trait that Portland’s starting to understand DJs do, in fact, possess.

“I hope that’s where things evolve to: more real artists continuing to get real jobs,” she says. “It’s a true contribution to Portland music.”

“Being a DJ is as important or as noteworthy as being any other

type of musician. The music is the most important thing in creating

the whole atmosphere for

an event.”

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ANJALI AND THE INCREDIBLE KIDMUSICAL GLOBE-TROTTERS South Asian scene: Portland is not, shall we say, a hotbed of bhangra. OrBollywood. Or Hindi pop. Or basically any genre of south Asian music.

Although the scene is limited, it’s thanks to the DJ team of Anjali and the Incredible Kid that there’s a scene at all. The two — Anjali Hursh, 35, and Stephen Strausbaugh, 36 — have two long-running monthly parties in Portland: the nearly 6-year-old Andaz at the Fez Ballroom, where they spin bhangra and Bollywood tunes, and the 5-year-old Atlas party at Holocene, a global dance party thrown in conjunction with another DJ, E3.

Get the sound out: Modern-day bhangra incorporates parts of traditional Punjabi music, such as vocals, with Western elements, especially electronics. “People are still discovering this,” Anjali says. Their music remains, for much of the city, unexplored territory. “We still have more work to do to get our sound out there.”

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MAKING MUSIC

Shopping the globe: The two have ambitious dreams: A compilation series, DJing around the world and, of course, shopping for music in every corner of the globe. Big dreams, and expensive ones: Clearing music for a compilation, for example, can run into the tens of thousands of dollars. For now, they continue to build their fan base in Portland and travel when they can. When they can’t, they slip friends going abroad some extra cash to pick up new music.

“Ninety-nine percent of the music we’re into isn’t available in the U.S.,” Strausbaugh says. If they get their wish, they’ll be able to change that.

PORTLAND CELLO PROJECTSTRING COLLABORATORSThey’ve got your back: In some towns, an “I heart PCP” T-shirt might be cause for a discreet call to the police. But in Portland, music lovers know the PCP in question is the Portland Cello Project, an all-cello ensemble known as much for its wide range of collaborators as for its egalitarianism.

The group plays some of their own original music but also arranges the songs of other local musicians — such as wintry folk artist Laura Gibson and fuzzed-out rockers The Dandy Warhols — for cello backing. The results can add richness and depth to songs in an utterly transformative manner.

Covering Britney: The group started a few years ago when several local cellists, in a variety of genres, met and began supporting each other by jamming together and going to each other’s shows, said Doug Jenkins, 32, a founding member. Soon they decided to play as an all-cello ensemble. With only guerilla marketing behind them, they filled their first show at the Doug Fir Lounge almost to capacity. Clearly, they were on to something. Who knew Britney Spears’ “Toxic” sounded so good on cello?

Cellos … cheap! Since then, they’ve not only released their first album, but have also made a name for themselves as a cello group sans snobbery, willing to take chances and play music from opera to pop. There’s a core group of nine cellists, but they can swell to 16 on some occasions.

“We don’t charge anyone” for working with them or arranging their music, Jenkins says. “We’re the orchestra for hire if you can’t afford to hire an orchestra.”

PHOTOS BY ST EPHANIE YAO


T filmingfrenzy

AFTER FACING DEATH, A FILMMAKER CAN’T FORGETBY K R I ST I TURNQUI ST

CHEL WHITE FILMMAKERPHOTO BY ROB FINCH

Tultimate NORTHWEST

NOVEMBER 0851

[ C R E A T I V E S : F I L M ]

White vividly recalls the details of how the couple was found by members of the Marion County Search and Rescue unit.

“It was late morning and I was writing in my journal. We looked up, and there were these two bright headlights that turned out to be snowmobiles. We could hear a little sound, the buzzing sound of their engines.

“Laura jumps out of the car and starts waving and running toward them. It really scared one of the guys, because they were expecting the worst. They said that most people they go to look for, they don’t find alive.”

There, in the car, with snow and freezing rain cutting them off from home and safety and comfort, White wasn’t only focused on surviving. “On the second day, Idecided that if I lived through it,” he recalls, “I’d have to make a film about having an experience like this.”

For most of us, going through such a trial might be something we’d prefer to forget. But for White, 49, it was an inspiration, triggering the creative impulse that has made the tall, soft-

spoken Portlander one of the most respected independent filmmakers in Oregon.

Since moving to Portland 23 years ago, the native Midwesterner has created a series of personal films whose variety speaks to his versatility. Done in techniques that range from stop-motion animation (“Magda”), to photocopier

animation (“Choreography for Copy Machine”), to an allegory on climate change with music performed by Pink Martini bandleader Thomas Lauderdale (“Wind”), they all bear the stamp of the darkly humorous, poetic sensibility that is White’s signature.

White’s works have shown in festivals around the world,

including such prestigious showcases as Sundance. In addition to awards and grants recognizing his achievements, White’s films also have screened at museums around the country, with two of his pieces accepted into the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Nor does White’s creativity end with his films. As a partner and director at Bent Image Lab, a Portland-based production company, White has lent his distinctive vision to commercials and music videos for such clients as Radiohead’s Thom Yorke.

Most filmmakers would be satisfied with that track record. But White isn’t satisfied — paradoxically, he’s aching to get back to that car in the snowbound Oregon wilderness.

“When something like that happens, it puts you in a completely different mind space,” White says. “You end up coming back to your life, and you bring something back with you. When I think about what would have happened if I hadn’t made it, what would have happened to my daughters.”

“You end up coming back to

your life, and you bring something back with you.”

he trip that changed Chel White’s life began prosaically enough. “I had been working for probably four weeks without a day off,” recalls White, his voice

measured. He and his then-girlfriend, Laura — now his wife — needed a break. “We were champing at the bit to get away, so we made a semi-secret getaway.”

That weekend trip to Breitenbush Hot Springs in December 2005 became a four-day ordeal, when the pair’s car became stranded in the snow on a remote road in Marion County. The two survived by staying with the car, turning it on for occasional heat, bundling up in blankets and rationing the food they’d brought.

»

At the mention of his girls, 13 and 15, White pauses, then collects himself. He and Laura have finished the script for a feature film, his first, based on their time in the woods. White hopes to start shooting in winter 2009. He’s scraped together some money: a $35,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and a fellowship from the Regional Arts & Culture Council in Portland.

“In terms of making a feature film, it’s just pitifully small,” White says wryly.

But White is nonetheless determined to share what he learned as the couple wondered if help would come.

“The story is about finding a kind of perspective, a consciousness, that when everything that is everyday life is stripped away, what do you have left?” White says. “It’s living in the moment and looking death in the face. We didn’t know whether we were going to get out. But we did know our lives depended on the decisions that we made.”

For even the scrappiest independent filmmaker, raising money to make a feature presents seemingly endless obstacles. But the tone of White’s voice — calm, resolute, steady — makes clear that, after what he’s been through, that kind of challenge is a walk in the park.✴


Film continued from page 51

“We didn’t know whether we were

going to get out. But we did know our lives depended on

the decisions that we made.”

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53

MATT MCCORMICKFILMMAKER, ARTIST Great leap forward: The tall, lanky Matt McCormick has been a fixture on Portland’s independent film scene for years, thanks to his founding of the Portland Documentary and eXperimental Film Festival, his video label Peripheral Produce and his award-winning short films. Now, McCormick is embarking on his most ambitious project yet: his first feature film, titled “Some Days Are Better Than Others.”

“It’s a story about several awkward and lonely people in Portland who are trying to figure out how to best communicate with each other,” McCormick says.

You gotta have friends: It’s never easy to raise money for feature films, and the faltering economy hasn’t helped. But McCormick, 35, is luckier than most: He’s teamed with two Portland-based producers, Neil Kopp and David Cress. Kopp produced the critically acclaimed “Old Joy” and Gus Van Sant’s “Paranoid Park,” and won the Independent Spirit Producers Award for his efforts. Cress was a co-producer on “Paranoid Park.”

To the Nines: McCormick also has a video installation, “Satellites,” that will grace new downtown hotel The Nines. “It’s all these twilight shots of the Fremont Bridge,” McCormick says, “and it sort of dissects the structure of the bridge.”

ROSE BOND ANIMATOR, MEDIA ARTISTMoving images: Canada-born Rose Bond grew up in Portland and studied art at Portland State University with painters Mel Katz and Fred Kline. But after taking a class at the Northwest Film Center in her late 20s, she fell under the spell of animation. She realized, she says, that her drawings “seemed like something that was part of a sequence, that was always meant to move.” Her early works, notably a trilogy based on Celtic tales, were drawn on film and moved with lyrical force.

Change of canvas: From the intimate scale of her previous work, Bond has moved into much larger territory: public animated installations. In “Gates of Light,” Bond lit the windows of a New York City synagogue to evoke the history of the Lower East Side. “Intra Muros” brought images associated with an artist’s creative block to the windows of the Maytag Building in Portland’s Pearl District. In November, Bond, 60, will restage the piece at the Utrecht city hall in the Netherlands.

Take a bow: Adding to Bond’s awards, fellowships and honors is her designation as a recipient of the Princess Grace Statue Award for consistent excellence in film. The Princess Grace foundation recognizes and provides grants for artists, and the statue award is the organization’s highest honor. Bond accepted the award on Oct. 15 in New York.

Creative network: “I don’t know why Portland has this community,” Bond says. “When I came into it, there was this community already there that nurtured me . . . and that continues to happen, along Alberta or along Mississippi. It’s a film-friendly town, and people know it.”

FILMING FRENZY

»

LANA VEENKER CASTING DIRECTORSeeing stars: After third-generation Oregonian Lana Veenker spent about a decade working and studying in Europe, she returned to Portland in 1999. She’d gained experience working for a casting agency in London and thought, after a brief pit stop in her hometown, she’d move to a bigger city. But then one thing led to another, and a temporary stay grew permanent. Mere months after landing back in Portland, Veenker, 41, was get-ting casting jobs. She started her own company with, as she recalls, “a laptop and a cell phone.” Now, her agency has helped cast such movies as “Paranoid Park,” “The Road,” “Feast of Love” and “Management.”

All in a day’s work: As a casting direc-tor, Veenker and her staff work on a range of projects. For independently made features by Portland-based direc-

tors like James Westby, Veenker helped cast primary roles in his festival favor-ite, “The Auteur.” For Hollywood flicks, Veenker generally casts “day players” — people who come in for supporting roles and have a couple of speaking lines. But the company also has been asked to look for lead actors: Gabe Nevins, star of “Paranoid Park,” responded to an open casting call.

Portland as film town: “I was at the Berlin film festival in February,” Veenker says. “People said, ‘You’re a casting direc-tor in Portland? Does anything shoot there?’ So I said, ‘Well, I’ve worked with Gus Van Sant and Jennifer Aniston and Viggo Mortensen.’ . . . By the end of the festival, those people were saying Portland’s the next Toronto.”

DAVID WALKER FILMMAKER, CRITICDo it yourself: There are Portland film-makers who create sensitive, experimen-tal, delicate expressions of their inner selves. Then there’s David Walker, whose unpretentious credo is as follows: “Bad filmmaking is not something to aspire to. However, it’s better to have made some-thing bad and tried than to sit around and have a million-and-one excuses for not having tried.”

School of hard knocks: Walker, 39, had a reputation as a no-holds-barred movie critic during his years at Willamette Week — he left the job in 2006 — but sees himself primarily as a storyteller. “When I write as a critic, I’m telling the story of what I was thinking when I watched a movie.” Not content to just watch films, Walker spent seven difficult years making “Macked, Hammered, Slaughtered and Shafted,” a documentary about blaxsploi-tation movies of the 1970s, featuring interviews with such stars as Jim Brown, Ron O’Neal and Fred Williamson.

Lessons learned: With a $5,000 Regional Arts & Culture Council grant, Walker is taking his time launching his next film, “Affirmative Action,” inspired by his experiences making the documentary. He learned from his earlier films — “Damaged Goods” and “Uncle Tom’s Apartment” — the importance of prep time. But Walker can’t keep the ideas from coming. He’d love to do a feature version of his short film, “Black Santa’s Revenge”: “It’s about a guy who’s a Santa Claus at a community center that gets robbed, so he goes out and dispenses a little yuletide justice.”

FILMING FRENZY

PHOTOS BY MOTOYA NAK AMUR A


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The story is about nding a kind of perspective, a consciousness, that when everything that is everyday life

is stripped away, what do you have left?CHEL WHI T E , FILMM AKER | PHOTO BY ROB FINCH

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