Portland, oregon
Portland is the largest and most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Multnomah County.
Named after Portland, Maine, the Oregon settlement began to be populated in the 1830s near the end of the Oregon Trail. Its water access provided convenient transportation of goods, and the timber industry was a major force in the city's early economy. At the turn of the 20th century, the city had a reputation as one of the most dangerous port cities in the world, a hub for organized crime and racketeering. After the city's economy experienced an industrial boom during World War II, its hard-edged reputation began to dissipate. Beginning in the 1960s, Portland became noted for its growing progressive political values, earning it a reputation as a bastion of counterculture.
This short trip occurred March 2nd - 8th 2020, on the cusp of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Portland Penny.
Minted in Philadelphia in 1835, this large, one-cent copper coin came from the estate of Francis W. Pettygrove and is believed to be the “Portland Penny” famously used in the naming of the city.
In 1842, Francis Pettygrove travelled with his family to Oregon City, a town slightly south of present-day Portland that was founded in 1829 by the Hudson’s Bay Company. Pettygrove, a businessman from New England, started a company trading fur and wheat. Asa Lovejoy, another former New England resident, had also recently settled in Oregon City and was the town’s mayor and a prominent lawyer.
Lovejoy had newly acquired a half-interest in a 640-acre plot of land on the banks of the Willamette River. Seeing an opportunity, Pettygrove purchased the other half-interest in the land in early 1844. The pair decided the spot would be an excellent location for a port city and began the work of plotting a townsite. The two could not settle on a name for the new city. Lovejoy preferred Boston, after the Massachusetts city where he was born, while Pettygrove wanted to honour his roots by naming the town for Portland, the shipping port city in his home state of Maine.
The two agreed to settle the matter with a two-out-of-three coin toss using a one-cent coin from Pettygrove’s pocket. Pettygrove chose heads, leaving Lovejoy with tails. With the winning toss of heads, the young city was named Portland.
From May 2 to September 10, 1942, the Portland Metropolitan Exposition Center suspended livestock exposition operations. It served as a Civilian Assembly Center under President Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066, which authorized the eviction and confinement of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast during World War II. 3,676 people of Japanese descent were confined in the hastily converted animal corrals for a period of five months while they awaited transfer to more permanent camps in California, Idaho and Wyoming.
“At the edge of the platform stand two gates, each made of a pair of cedar pillars capped by a double crosspiece. Artist Valerie Otani created the installation, titled Voices of Remembrance, as part of a public art project involving each stop of the Yellow Line.
The imagery of the gates, Otani says, evokes the torii, or traditional Japanese gates, found in Japan and throughout Asia, where they mark sacred spaces such as mountains, islands, and the entrances to temples. “Although this is not a sacred space,” she says, “it's a significant one.” Passing under a torii gate is an act of purification, she says. “So it seemed just a wonderful way to mark this history and be able to recognize it in a way that is also healing in a certain way.”
Several ropes lined with metal tags hang from each gate, one for each person held at the detention center. The tags represent the manila baggage tags the internees had to wear, each bearing a number assigned to their family. “You meet people today and they all still know their family number,” Otani says.
The way the metal tags hang from the ropes also recalls the Japanese tradition of tying paper prayers or wishes on similar ropes at temples. “It turns out they make a sound,” Otani says of her metal versions, “which was kind of a fortuitous accident. Sometimes it's totally silent and still, and other times very jangling and insistent.” – Eric Gold
Voices of Remembrance by Valerie Otani.
Oregon Historical Society
"The remarkable effect produced by the glass is due to the peculiar tint. It protects the eyes from haze and strong light, vastly increasing their power. It intensifies and blends the colours of nature, thereby creating an effect wonderful to contemplate". Oregon Historical Society.
Oregon Historical Society
Oregon Historical Society.
Oregon Historical Society.
Quilt, 1900. Pieced and sewn by Abigail Scott Duniway to enter into a national suffrage bazaar. Oregon Historical Society.
Oregon Historical Society.
Polo Players Shaanxi or Henan province, China Tang Dynasty (618-907), 7th-8th Century Moulded and sculpted earthenware with grey, red, white, and green pigment. Gift of Russell Wherritt. Portland Art Museum.
After Shitao's Landscape Album: Shitao – Van Gogh, from the series Ongoing Shan Shui by Zhang Hongtu. Zhang's Ongoing Shan Shui series, a project spanning several years, explores categories of "East" and "West" in a distinctive way, reflecting his own life lived in two cultures. Here, he reimagines an album leaf by the great 17th Century artist Shitao – a small work in ink on paper – in the brilliant colours and brushwork of the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. Portland Art Museum.
Flow #1, 2011 Fujikasa Satoko Portland Art Museum
Eliza Barchus. Mt. St. Helens, Washington, Noon Day. 1886-1891. Oil on board. Portland Art Museum.
Brad Johnson. Mount St. Helens Thin Place, Inferno, 2019. Oil, graphite, hide glue and gampi paper on archival pigment print. Portland Art Museum.
Henk Pander. Eruption of Saint Helens from Cable Street, 1981. Oil on linen.
Breadcrust Bomb. Dacite erupted from Mount St. Helens, May 1980. Breadcrust bombs are volcanic rocks ejected as semi-molten lava during an eruption. The outer surface begins to harden while travelling through the air and becomes brittle. Meanwhile, the hot molten rock inside forms gas bubbles and begins to expand causing the outer surface to crack, like a piece of popcorn. Portland Art Museum.
Detail of Voices of Remembrance by Valerie Otani.
Keane. Roseland Theatre. March 6th, 2020.
Evergreen Market NE 42nd Ave 05:00.
Three peaks. Mount Hood, Mount St. Helen's, and Mount Rainier (I think).
