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Community Conversations 2010
The Architectural Heritage Center Presents: |
Community Conversations
Our Community Conversation series gives the artists and other featured speakers the opportunity to explore their work and the theme of the exhibit in more detail in a more intimate setting. Click the dates for details about each Conversation.
November 10, 2010 - Patrick Gracewood
November 18, 2010 - CJ Hurley & Glenn Lamb
November 26, 2010 - Tracie Broughton & Leah Faure
December 3, 2010 - First Friday Reception: Special Guest Dave Elkin
December 9, 2010 - Danila Rumold
December 17, 2010 - Jeff Schnabel, William C. Tripp & Viewer's Choice Award
Community Conversation: Patrick Gracewood
Wednesday, November 10
Free; open to the public
Sculptor Patrick Gracewood will demonstrate carving architectural ornament. He will show examples of finished artwork and work in process, while discussing his 30 years as a sculptor and answering audience questions.
Tools and carving materials will be available for those interested in learning how to carve. Come dressed appropriately and ready to have some fun!
About the Presenter
Patrick Gracewood’s love for the living world is visible in every sculpture he creates. His art is life affirming, and celebrates Nature’s restorative power and beauty.
Patrick studied art at California State University Long Beach, Ca. He began sculpting professionally for the visual display industry, creating mannequins. He has also created sculpture, character makeup, and sets for film and television.
Moving to the Pacific Northwest in 1988, Patrick worked as part of a team of architects and craftsmen preserving historical ceramic and stone buildings. His sculpting included research, restoration, designing, mold making, and fabrication. He founded his own studio in 1990 and provides design and sculpture services to architects and designers as well as creating commissioned art.
Community Conversation: CJ Hurley & Glenn Lamb
Thursday, November 18
Free; open to the public
CJ Hurley, painter, will lead a discussion about the interconnectedness of phenomena in our world, the impact our actions have on our world, our personal responsibility to ourselves and nature, and how this all relates back to the architecture of our built environment. He will provide insight into the importance of these ideas in his life and will briefly discuss how these ideas are evident in his art, specifically discussing his piece: The Birth of Architecture, Unity of Nature and Mind
Special Guest Glenn Lamb, Director of Columbia Land Trust, will discuss the history of settlement in the west, more recent development patterns and trends, impacts from development on the natural world and new approaches to conserving our great natural resources while accommodating future population growth. Glenn welcomes questions and discussion from the audience.
About the Presenters
Glenn Lamb has been active with Columbia Land Trust since it’s founding in 1990, serving as President, Vice-President, Secretary, and since 1999 as Executive Director. Glenn is inspired by the many private landowners throughout the northwest who have worked with land trusts to place their land in conservation, and believes that we all have much to learn by listening to the challenges and opportunities facing private landowners.
Glenn graduated from the University of Rochester, NY with degrees in Natural Resource Management and Sociology, and has a masters’ degree in urban planning from the University of Oregon. Glenn previously worked for county and city parks departments. Glenn has served on the board of the national Land Trust Alliance, Washington State Parks Foundation, the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership, the Chinook Trail Association, the Vancouver Rotary Club and Habitat Partners, and volunteers in the Big Brother Big Sister program.
Glenn is married to Sue Knight, and together they enjoy running, skiing, hiking and travelling around the great northwest.
CJ Hurley was educated and trained as a fine artist. His career in art began with paintings centered on social concerns with influences ranging from traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, both Western and Asian religious history; and Western and Eastern goddess mythology. CJ exhibited and sold in local galleries located in the various East Coast towns he’s lived in as well as in larger galleries in New York, Los Angeles, Nashville, St. Louis and San Diego.
Community Conversation: Tracie Broughton & Leah Faure
Friday, November 26
Free; open to the public
Leah Faure, painter, has long been fascinated with architectural forms and the patterns and textures they create. She will discuss her thought process and painting technique through a comparison of architecture painting and painting of nature.
Tracie Broughton, painter, will discuss the theme and questions posed to artists regarding harmony between architecture and nature, in relationship to her own work and the works of other artists in the exhibit.
About the Presenters
Tracie Broughton is the owner of Cannonball Art, a Portland area studio. In addition to her own painting, she teaches regular classes in acrylic painting. She holds a degree in Fine Art from Central Missouri State University.
Leah Faure has been painting for over ten years. She graduated from Portland State University in 1999 with a degree in Fine Art.
First Friday Reception: Special Guest Dave Elkin
Friday, December 3
Free; open to the public
Special guest Dave Elkin will discuss the integration of natural systems into the urban environment. As we construct new buildings and renovate old ones, we have a responsibility to embed the healing process of natural systems into the redevelopment of our urban watersheds. Dave will show examples of various ways natural systems thinking is being celebrated at a variety of projects and scales.
About the Presenter
Dave is a landscape architect and project manager for Greenworks PC Landscape Architecture and Design specializing in stormwater treatment and sustainable design. He previously worked for in the Sustainable Stormwater Division of Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services, where he designed over 120 green street and roof facilities.
Since 1997, Greenworks has designed sustainable, regenerative landscapes and promoted sustainable development at local, state and national levels. Recent projects include art plazas, nature-play parks for kids, green streets and roofs, creek restorations and mass transit stations. Greenworks links people to nature by integrating natural systems into our urban watersheds.
Community Conversation: Danila Rumold
Thursday, December 9
Free; open to the public
Informed by her observations as a painter as well as her studies of the Dharma and practice with Vipassana (Insight Meditation), Danila Rumold painter, will speak about how the built and natural environments complement one another, how architecture and the natural environment successfully coexist, how nature influences architecture and the built environment, and how these ideas are present in her work.
About the Presenter
Danila Rumold is a local artist in Seattle, WA, who works with her lived experience of location, evoking a sense of place. Hovering between form and formlessness, representation and abstraction, her physical relationship to trees and architecture in her environment provide an entry into the drawing and painting process.
Community Conversation: Jeff Schnabel & William C. Tripp
Friday, December 17
Free; open to the public
Jeff Schnabel, artist and assistant professor of Architecture at PSU, will address his connection to industrial sites and how these places with layered histories have transformed his thinking about site specific design and have provided the foundation for his artistic endeavors. He will discuss how the primary themes of his work were realized in each form and why encaustic now appears to be the most appropriate way for him to express his ideas.
Special Guest and Portland architect William C. Tripp will speak on the role of ritual space in architecture and nature.
The relationship of architecture to nature is a little bit like the relationship of mind to body. Architecture is built from materials found in nature, whether we use them raw or highly processed. We all live in the natural realm; it’s just a matter of our level of detachment.
In this talk Bill will show images of some of the ritual spaces that his team has designed and describe the rituals themselves, many of which they have also designed. Within this framework they are discovering a language of ritual space and ways to weave it into the fabric of our community.
The winner of this year’s Viewer’s Choice Award will be announced during the event.
About the Presenters
Jeff Schnabel is an assistant professor in the Architecture Department at Portland State University. His art and research are informed by industrial landscapes past and present. While in Baltimore, Jeff designed new landscapes for an iron mill, an abandoned power plant, and ruins of a grain silo complex. His art work frequently involves the layering of multiple histories. This has involved the use of fused glass, projection media, and most recently encaustic painting.
Bill Tripp is a Portland architect, artist and teacher.He studied at the University of Oregon and Princeton University and in 1986 received a Fulbright Award to study the architecture of Alvar Aalto in Finland. His practice is dedicated to making carefully crafted houses, churches, urban spaces, theatre sets and memorials. He teaches design, theory and drawing at the Oregon School of Design, Portland State University and the University of Oregon.