Three Rivers and Other Watery Places: Froelick Gallery, October 2003

 

In the summer of 2002, I moved from Portland to Pittsburgh. In the summer of 2003, I travelled back to the Northwest to visit Portland. Three Rivers and Other Watery Places is a collection of paintings of the past year.

Several of these paintings record my first impressions of my unfamiliar new home in western Pennsylvania: many of these images are of things literally out of their element. Other paintings record the transition of seasons, climate, and human interaction, especially along waterways, and west along US Highway 30 and the interstate highways that overtake it.

Water has long been used as a metaphor for inevitable change and the passage of time: you can’t step into the same river twice, the saying goes. But can you step into the same road twice? Single images of bridges, construction sites, and other intermediate structures continue to explore transitions in the landscape, while two-panel narratives represent a geographical or temporal change in which the viewer is the impermanent element.

Things That Go, Froelick Gallery, March 2002

Things that Go is the title of a children’s book that features various forms of transportation. The phrase also refers to transition, impermanence and the passage of time.

These paintings continue my observations of three themes: structures related to travel and transportation, the relationship between Portland’s constructed and natural environment , and moments of accidental significance within everyday routine.

Six years ago, my work documented an ongoing road trip that came to an unexpected halt in Portland. The road took on new meaning as my experience of Portland changed from a random and temporary destination to a place where my family, career and community began to develop. If I covered a hundred miles in a day, it no longer meant that I had found a new and compelling place to explore: it meant that mundane errands had taken me all over the city, and I would end the day exactly where I had started.

Well, maybe not exactly where I had started. The places we call home can be altered radically by unseen events. The social, cultural and historical forces that lead to a city’s physical transformation do not necessarily manifest as bulldozers outside the door. Some of the structures and places in these paintings seem unchanging and quiet, maintaining an illusion of stability. Some are already gone. Sometimes the sky gives the only clue that time is passing.

99E, Froelick Gallery, December 5-30, 2000

99E expands five years’ exploration of sites in North, Northeast and industrial Southeast Portland, in Oregon City, and in northern Salem. These sites are all located on or near the same road: Oregon Highway 99E. These paintings follow the road south to its end.

99E is a portion of the old Pacific Highway which begins in North Portland near East Delta Park (originally Vanport), and runs south until it merges with 99W to become Highway 99, ten miles north of Eugene in Junction City. I-5, the interstate highway that replaced 99E in the 1950s, has a sameness to it throughout most of Oregon: fences and embankments separate it from the places named on the exit signs. Highway 99E grew out of the cities and towns and takes part in the life of those places, reflecting their passage through time.

The areas near old highways are some of the first places in a region to change: stone, iron and concrete age quickly under modern traffic: strip malls and new commercial development form a kind of lit-up stucco crust which surrounds the older centers of town. On other stretches of highway – those relegated to the status of “scenic back roads” by the presence of the nearby interstate- the evidence of human activity is reversed. Businesses are moved. Walls come down. Empty foundations are picked apart by patient roots, if no wrecking ball is handy.

When the road leads out of town, where does it go? The answer changes more quickly than expected. In the past several weeks, four buildings have disappeared or been renovated. Traffic patterns have shifted constantly around blinking arrows and orange cones. Billboards have changed their allegiance more than once, of course. Fields have been harvested. These paintings began late this summer when there were more than twelve hours of daylight and skies seemed unusually clear: now the afternoon light is a new color. Darkness comes earlier each night. There’s moisture in the air below the clouds: the streets shine, and the city skies reflect the color of the lights below. Already everything looks different.

Washington

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