It's been such a crazy couple months, I completely forgot to blog about my trip to Portlant, Oregon. Actually...it hasn't been that crazy of a couple months. I just kinda got busy with other stuff.
Anyway, I was in Portland in November checking out the local art scene and visiting some friends. Here are a few random notes:
The Pearl: The Pearl is Portland's gallery district, right downtown and close to the University of Portland and a bunch of other cool stuff. There are enough galleries in a concentrated area in this neighborhood that -- depending on how you time it -- you might need to spend a couple days just focused on The Pearl.
Portland Art Museum: Incredible collection of late 20th century modern masters and just an all-around pretty great city museum. And I didn't even get to check out the whole thing. The undisputed highlight for me was the exhibition called Mesh featuring the work of Ka’ila Farrell-Smith and several other Native American artists.
Small Galleries: Just wanted to mention a couple of the small, contemporary galleries I saw which were: Nationale, Blackfish Gallery, Adams & Ollman, Waterstone Gallery, and PDX Contemporary Art. Among many others, those are the ones that stick in my mind after all this time.
Overall, I would say Portland has a very well-developed and coherent seeming art scene. As I would go around to galleries and museums, I noticed there was a strong consensus as to which galleries one needed to visit, and all the galleries seemed to know about one another and know pretty much what was happening at the other galleries. That's pretty unique, at least in my travels so far.