CULTIVATE, NARRATE, CRAFT
CENTRAL EASTSIDE, PORTLAND
A new initiative is taking root this fall, Portland Street Art Alliance (PSAA) recently teamed up with JAM Makery LLC, partner of Open Urban Practice and Bridge Rats Artist Studios in the Central Eastside, and PDX Farm.
Working together, this team is undertaking a full revitalization of 831 SE MLK in the Central Eastside. While PSAA muralists conjure up haunting visuals on the building, PDX Farm is working to install edible gardens with native species and seasonal interactions.
Vibrant new community-driven artwork is being painted, along with extensive building renovations and a major dig-up to create an event space immersed in a regenerative urban and edible garden.
This multi-faceted project and partnership aims to create a focal point to the Central Eastside’s Mural District to celebrate the production of community-driven local street art and the next generation of ecological urbanism. The project's goals include:
Amplify Portland’s historic industrial district as a world-class destination of public art
Restore a native edible microecology with public programming around visualizing underrepresented narratives utilizing food foraging
Inspire a civic imagination to reshape the district towards resilience, inclusion, and socio-economic prosperity
Support a mural along the full block frontage of SE MLK & Morrison streetcar/transit stop as a vibrant and informative gateway to the district
Activate an abandoned space into a welcoming space for art, food growing, and community building
"Our dream is to seed a greater civic venture that celebrates the geography, heritage and dynamic future for the Central Eastside’s. A future that is in dialogue with the socio-economic significance of this part of the city, the natural ecology as foundational to urban prosperity, the people who have shaped the creative, nuanced and diverse voices of the district’s cultural production, and new possibilities for how we imagine our city’s future vibrancy." – Alexis Sanal, AIA, partner of JAM Makery
The team’s intention is to activate underrepresented narratives and communities as well as stories of urban ecology and cultivation, including the significance of the river ecology and economy. To create an active gateway to the Central Eastside as a welcoming, creative and production oriented district. Visitors, district locals, enterprises, as well as existing and new communities of interest can participate in a community approach to public art side-by-side with a commitment to ecological city-design.
"Our crew plans to cultivate a beautiful, creative, and bioactive growing space that will inspire and encourage those visiting to care for the land and nourish their community. This transformation comes to us on a patch of land that has been long neglected and forgotten. The team aims to utilize regenerative management methods to create and support habitat for urban creatures, both human and non-human. In addition to this, our studied team of urban farmers will share their knowledge through community workshops." – Dan Campbell, PDX Farm
A FRESH PSAA COMMUNITY ART PROJECT
As part of PSAA’s innovative Community Art Program, the mural work is being supported by a grant from Metro Regional Refresh Fund, along with donations from the public. With incoming donations and ongoing grant support, this mural project will periodically rotate (about once a year) to provide fresh canvases for new artists to express themselves and network with the creative community that is blooming onsite.
"PSAA is thrilled to unveil PSAA’s latest Community Art Project site. Partnering with JAM Makery LLC and PDX Farm, we’re transforming this bustling corner of the Central Eastside’s Mural District into a lively celebration of community-driven public art and ecological urbanism, with a bountiful garden being installed. It has been a long time dream of PSAA’s to paint a Halloween-themed mural production in Portland. We are thankful to the property owner for letting us actualize this vision. Artists were thrilled to be a part of this one." – Tiffany Conklin, Executive Director, Portland Street Art Alliance
The inaugural round of murals conjures up a spellbinding theme, ‘Halloween & Harvest’ showcasing a tapestry of autumn-inspired imagery, from ominous owls and grinning jack-o-lanterns to ghostly graves and creepy critters.
CLASSIC HALLOWEEN
First up is local artist Brayniac with a perfectly vintage Halloween vibe mural, setting the eerie tone of this production off right!
WE DIG IT!
Next up, it is hard not to dig Tyler Shrake’s newest creation, a hauntingly beautiful graveyard scene cast in perfect autumn colors.
"Halloween is an invitation to embrace not only spooky thrills and darker days, but also death itself and all of the regeneration that comes with that part of the cycle of life. In this autumnal mural, I chose to create a blood moon graveyard scene with a tombstone that has inscribed in Latin "nihil est creatrix quam mors" which is a quote from Alan Watts that means "nothing is more creative than death." This is to suggest that through the acceptance of the impermanence of life, we become free to live fully in the present moment. Alan Watts has been a huge influence on my art for several years now, so I thought it would be fun to sneak in one of his teachings related to death for this Halloween-inspired mural." – Tyler Shrake, Muralist
Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, BETTLE…
In a healthy garden, you have worms! Watch out for this slithering and writhing sandworm bursting through the building and pavement in the Central Eastside, searching for its next gruesome and gory meal. For his second piece, Tyler expertly recreated a slithering sandworm that emerges from the sidewalk and slithers through the building’s facade.
KEEPING WATCH
Up next on the painting team was local artist Quomni, who is also assisting the Property Owner with site management and coordination.
This dynamic piece features a surreal garden scene - a maze of flowing pumpkin guts intertwined with sword ferns and Oregon Grapes. Emerging from this vivid landscape is Quomni’s creature, a gargoyle-esque figure with bat-like ears, piercing eyes, and ravenous teeth, standing as a watchful sentinel over the site.
Quomni explains their inspiration: “We all have an inner substance brewing within us. The goal then becomes figuring out how to express it and what it looks like. This substance spills from a deity that represents some concept. In the same way that Greek gods had their power from those who believed in them, these deities manifested and gained power from those who dedicated their passion to their concept.”
GARDEN LIFE
Along the south wall of PSAA’s harvest-inspired production in the Central Eastside, local writers ORIEN and CHAIR have created a few garden curiosities. Behold - a wacky flower swaying in the breeze, serpentine vines creeping around, and a radish spirit rising up from the earth, acting as guardian of the garden.