Arts and Culture in Oregon

Northwest Native American tribes, pioneer trail history, and affordable urban real estate influence Oregon’s art and culture scene. Many people know Oregon for its natural wonders, featuring forests, deserts, wine country, mountains, lakes, rivers, and beaches. Some are familiar with the state’s urban life, from the hipster element of Portland to the hippie vibe of Eugene. The city of Portland, known for its river and bridges that separate it into geographic quadrants, serves as Oregon’s economic center, but it also provides a wealth of cultural offerings. Many artists, gallery owners, musicians, and performers have made the pilgrimage to Portland and settled there to develop their careers. HIGH ARTS   Several professional and volunteer ensembles compose the Oregon classical music offerings. The premier group is the Oregon Symphony Orchestra. Formed over a century ago, the ensemble is one of the country’s largest.  Portland’s Chamber Music Northwest has a diverse season that includes guest appearances by trios, composers, solo artists, and full ensembles. Like many college towns, Eugene offers several choices in the area of classical music. The Eugene Symphony performs several concerts per year. The Eugene Concert Choir presents works in the choral canon. The Eugene Vocal Arts Ensemble has a repertoire spanning the Renaissance to contemporary eras. Oregon Mozart Players performs everything from Baroque classics to present-day music. Early summer brings the Grammy-winning Oregon Bach Festival to Eugene, with 50 concerts and events during three weeks.  Opera-lovers can choose from traditional to contemporary adaptations in Oregon. The Portland Operahosts touring troupes and local performers and presents classics as well as international collaborations and premieres. With a mission of "Making Opera Safe for America," Opera Theater Oregon aims to spike opera with comedy, camp, performance art, and pop culture. The Portland troupe showcases its reinterpretations in neighborhood bars and movie theaters. The Eugene Opera, the resident company of the Hult Center for the Performing Arts, presents classic works. Folk dance, world dance, ecstatic dance, and classical dance all have their outlets in Oregon. In Portland, the Oregon Ballet Theatre uses classical techniques to explore traditional and modern dance. Portland’s BodyVox troupe delivers an adventurous mix of athleticism, film, and theater, whiletEEth, a contemporary dance and performance art company also based in Portland, presents cutting-edge and sometimes disturbing works. Eugene’s Dance Theatre of Oregon consists of seven artists who present diverse, energetic work throughout the Northwest. The Eugene Ballet Companyperforms classic, contemporary, and new work. MUSEUMS Portland has three major museums dedicated to the visual arts. The Portland Art Museum, one of the country’s largest museums, has a permanent collection featuring regional art, Asian art, Native American art and objects, photography, modern art, contemporary art, prints, drawings, and silver. TheMuseum of Contemporary Craft, founded in 1937 and renovated and reopened in 2007, exhibits glass, paper, fiber, ceramic, and wood objects. Dynamic temporary exhibits and installations complement the regionally focused permanent collection. Since its founding in 1898, the Oregon Historical Society has mounted major shows chronicling state history and culture through objects, documents, photographs, and folkloric educational presentations. Salem’s Hallie Ford Museum of Art holds Asian, European, American, and regional art dating through the eras. The centerpiece of the collection is a significant group of Native American baskets. The University of Oregon at Eugene has two notable museums. The Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Artholds work representing American, Korean, European, Japanese, and Chinese cultures. The University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History illuminates 15,000 years of state cultural history and millions of years of geologic time through displays of archaeological artifacts, textiles, instruments, handicrafts, weapons, fossils, and geologic finds. Jensen Arctic Museum in Monmouth has an intimate but surprisingly diverse array of artifacts and finds originating from the Arctic region. Among the highlights of the collection are a mural featuring an Alaskan brown bear, arctic animals, a full-size umiak (hunting boat made of walrus skin), harpoons, Athabascan beaded mittens, basketry, and bone spear points. In Klamath Falls, the Favell Museum began as a family collection of Indian objects and has grown to hold over 100,000 Indian artifacts and art representing 300 contemporary regional artists. The collection features the world’s largest miniature firearms collection, a fire opal arrowhead, woodcarvings, Native American clothing, beadwork, and aboriginal tools. The Antique Powerland Museum, located in Brooks, consists of the 62-acre (25-hectare) heritage power equipment museum complex housing 15 different indoor and outdoor museums. Several community museums serve Oregon’s smaller towns. On the coast, the Bandon Historical Society Museum exhibits Indian artifacts as well as objects relevant to regional culture and jobs such as logging, fishing, and cranberry farming. Within an 1890s bank building, the Echo Historical Museum celebrates Oregon Trail pioneers and regional agrarian culture. Government Camp’s Mt. Hood Cultural Center Museum displays art and objects about mountain life. The Sandy Pioneer Museum contains photographs, documents, and artifacts chronicling pioneer life and history. TheAgness-Illahe Museum in Agness showcases petroglyphs, Northwest Indian objects, the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps, and displays about fishers, miners, and settlers. MUSIC While Oregon has a vibrant live music scene and lays claim to participating in several musical movements, from old-time American tunes to third wave ska, the state has not produced a body of music that defines its culture. The closest thing to a musical style indigenous to Oregon may be the wave of independent music and the singer-songwriter culture that have built up since the 1990s. Credit the grunge and riot grrrl scene in nearby Seattle with influencing Portland indie rock artists such as The Dandy Warhols, Pink Martini, The Decemberists, and Elliot Smith. Portland’s reputation as a slacker and hipster gathering place has inspired other musicians to relocate there, among themSleater-Kinney, Modest Mouse, The Shins, and Spoon. Beyond Oregon’s major cities, the state has a rural, agrarian culture that has attracted musicians who want to live off the land or even off the grid. This hippie vibe creates fertile ground for outdoor music jams, park concerts, and festivals on farms, often in the spirit of the Oregon Country Fair’s Grateful Dead performances from decades past. Bands may play neo-folk, gypsy, acoustic rock, bluegrass, fiddling, old-time music, free jazz, blues, and alternative country sounds. More famous bands associated with Oregon include The Kingsmen, who performed the song Louie, Louie, and Paul Revere and the Raiders. Swing and ska band Cherry Poppin’ Daddies hails from Eugene, while singer-songwriter Meredith Brooks comes from Corvallis. THEATER AND PERFORMING ARTS Since 1935, Ashland’s Oregon Shakespeare Festival has presented Shakespeare comedies and dramas in its open-air Elizabethan Stage. The Tony Award-winning event has a season that runs from February to October. In addition to the main stage season, two smaller indoor theaters host modern classics, contemporary work, and premiere productions. A green show features artists in period costume performing music and lyrical poetry before the show. Highlights of the 2010 season include a modern interpretation of Hamlet, a dramatization of Jane Austen’s novel Pride and Prejudice, and the premiere of Ping Chong’s adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood. Portland holds a treasure trove of theater institutions, some of which center around its cultural district. This downtown sector is home to the Northwest Film Center and the Portland Center for Performing Arts, which includes the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall and the Keller Auditorium. In the one-time industrial and now artsy Pearl District, the Artists Repertory Theater emphasizes contemporary work, while Portland Center Stage showcases Broadway standards. Portland’s Miracle Theatre Group stands out as the region’s noteworthy performance troupe dedicated to the Latino experience. Imago, also in Portland, blurs boundaries with performances incorporating mime, acrobatics, and dance and tackling themes ranging from classical to existential. Sojourn Theatre has performed in warehouses, car dealerships, and parking lots to share its mission of sparking dialogue with site-specific, cutting-edge stories and performances. Eugene has a small theater scene. The Hult Center for Performing Arts hosts touring Broadway productions and major international performers. The Actors Cabaret of Eugene presents a season of farces and musicals. The Lord Leebrick Theatre Company features provocative contemporary shows in a small theater. Salem has a few performing arts venues. The Elsinore Theatre, a restored 1926 vaudeville theater, books ballet, Broadway musicals, classical ensembles, and rock bands. Pentacle Theatre performs community theater in a venue that stands amid a forest of Oregon oak and Douglas fir trees. FILM In 1908, the gaping mouth of the Columbia River filled the screen of the action and romantic drama The Fisherman’s Bride. Since this time, many movies have featured Oregon location shots or Oregon sets. Director Gus Van Sant (b. 1952) lives in Portland and often films his work in the Pacific Northwest. His Oregon-based films include the adaptation of Walt Curtis’ novel Mala Noche (1988), the surreal crime drama Drugstore Cowboy (1989), the comic adaptation of the Tom Robbins novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), the drama Elephant (2003, the second part of the director’s Death Trilogy), the Portland drama Paranoid Park (2007), and the 2011 release of the drama Restless, based on Jason Lew’s play. Other notable films associated with Oregon include the Jack Nicholson classic Five Easy Pieces (1970), adaptations of long-time Oregon resident Ken Kesey’s novels Sometimes a Great Notion (1970) andOne Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), frat comedy National Lampoon’s Animal House (1978), recession comedy How to Beat the High Co$t of Living (1980), coming-of-age adventure storyStand By Me (1986), comedy Kindergarten Cop (1990), family movie Free Willy (1993), inspirational drama Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995), the controversial grunge-inspired documentary Kurt & Courtney (1998), crime thriller Swordfish (2001), prankster comedy Jackass: The Movie (2002), psychological horror flick The Ring (2002), existential exploration What the Bleep Do We Know!?(2004), and the vampire romance blockbuster film Twilight (2008). Oregonians in the film industry include actor Danny Glover, actress Kim Novak, dancer Ginger Rogers, and Mel Blanc, the voice behind Bugs Bunny.  The Northwest Film Center presents the yearly Portland International Film Festival of features and shorts. Cinema 21 hosts the Portland Lesbian & Gay Film Festival, which screens features, documentaries, and shorts by and of interest to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities. LITERARY ARTS Blame the rainy weather, but Portland is a city of readers. The downtown Powell’s Books is the world’s largest independent used and new bookstore, and it also contains extensive out-of-print and rare books. The independent, underground, and alternative literary scenes thrive with such Portland institutions as the self-publishing center Independent Publishing Resource Center and the independent bookshop and gallery Reading Frenzy. Of all the literary artists to emerge from Oregon or to work in Oregon, one that typifies its counterculture element best is Ken Kesey (1935–2001). The author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1962) was inspired by his work at a psychiatric hospital, while his second novel Sometimes a Great Notion (1964), took on themes of individualism and intellectualism. Kesey gained notoriety for forming the Merry Pranksters, a roving group of bohemians, and went on to host "Acid Tests," his name for parties involving the use of LSD. Matt Groening (b. 1954) stands out as one of Oregon’s best-known cartoonists. His strip Life in Hellruns in 250 newspapers, but people know him best as the creator of television’s animated sitcoms The Simpsons and Futurama. One of Oregon’s beloved literary figures is Beverly Cleary (b. 1916). The one-time librarian has penned over 30 books for young audiences, among them Henry Huggins, Beezus and Ramona, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Ramona the Brave, and Dear Mr. Henshaw. Other writers from Oregon include activist Frances Moore Lappé (b. 1944), science fiction authorUrsula K. Le Guin (b. 1929), Pulitzer Prize-winner and historian Leonard Levy (1923–2006), journalist and novelist Chuck Palahniuk (b. 1962), Bolshevik activist John Reed (1887–1920), and anarchist John Zerzan (b. 1943). VISUAL ARTS Among the artists associated with Oregon are political cartoonist Homer Davenport (1867–1912), photographer Ray Atkeson (1907–1990), Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer David Hume Kennerly(b. 1947), and animator Will Vinton (b. 1947). Recent years have seen an artistic resurgence in two Portland neighborhoods. The Pearl District, once an industrial area of warehouses and derelict buildings, now holds chic galleries, boutiques representing local designers, artist lofts, workshops, and cultural institutions. The first Thursday of every month sees galleries staying open late to host capacity crowds for openings and performances. The Alberta Arts district, in the northeastern quadrant of Portland, has a last Thursday celebration that is one part gallery scene to two parts street party. The town of Corvallis is home to Alley Art, a series of outdoor installations including 25 sculptures and metal plaques. ARCHITECTURE The McMenamin brothers have helped restore and maintain many an architectural gem in the Pacific Northwest. Their projects typically integrate microbreweries, pubs, and concert venues into existing historic structures, while maintaining architectural integrity. Of the nearly 60 McMenamin ventures in the region, some of the notable ones include Edgefield (originally a county poor farm, and now a brewery, distillery, hotel, movie theater, spa, event space, and National Historic Landmark), the Crystal Ballroom, the Kennedy School (once an elementary school and now a pub, spa, event space, and hotel), Boon’s Treasury in Salem (started as a general store and is now a pub and live music venue),Lighthouse Brewpub, and Mission Theater (once a Swedish evangelical mission). In Astoria, the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park holds many sites explored by Lewis and Clark in 1805 and 1806. Costumed performers share folklore and oral history about the park’s historic fort every summer. Also in Astoria, the Flavel House Museum, once the home of Captain George Flavel, has late Victorian style. Queen Anne architecture and period furnishings are on view. The 19th-century gold mining town of Jacksonville has over 80 structures on the list of the National Register of Historic Places, including two inns within buildings dating from 1861. Cottage Grove, located in the Willamette Valley, has been nicknamed the "Covered Bridge Capital of the West." Six covered bridges in the town date from 1920.  Albany’s Montieth House now operates as a museum. The 1849 structure is one of the state’s most authentically restored homes from the pioneer era.  The Cascade Locks Historical Museum, near Mt. Hood, stands within one of the lock tender’s original 1905 homes. The collection includes photographs and artifacts about the Columbia River Gorge. Downtown Yachats has the historic Little Log Church Museum, constructed with timber that volunteers hauled down the Yachats River. The 1930 structure now operates as a museum of settler culture, regional art, and shells. HANDICRAFT AND FOLK ART Native American life and culture in Oregon is the subject of many museums and galleries, notably Pendleton’s Tamástslikt Cultural Institute. Local Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla tribes inform the permanent exhibit, while contemporary, regional tribal art is the focus of temporary shows. The cultural complex stands within the Wildhorse Resort. At the Museum at Warm Springs, the collection represents the efforts of the elders of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation who determined, in the 1960s, that they should acquire their ancestral art, artifacts, and treasures held by private collectors and organizations. Objects illuminate the lives and customs of the Central Oregon Wasco, Warm Springs, and Paiute tribes. Regional Native American basketry, household furnishings, farm tools, and historical objects comprise the display at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center in The Dalles. Pioneer culture represents another aspect of Oregon folk life. The Tillamook County Pioneer Museum has 35,000 objects and 10,000 photographs sharing the story of early Oregon explorers and settlers. Baker City’s National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center atop Flagstaff Hill documents the history of 19th-century pioneers. The museum grounds show the original wagon ruts left in the earth by pioneers. Oregon’s handicraft and folk traditions have helped influence a new wave of craft culture. The do-it-yourself or DIY craft movement typically represents younger artists who create hip, arty items out of found objects as well as traditional craft materials. Everything from handmade baby clothing and hats to purses and clocks occupies galleries, boutiques, and Portland’s happening Crafty Wonderland show. HISTORIC ART MOVEMENTS Oregon’s diverse landscape, logging past, and current interest in sustainability have inspired a newEco-Art Movement. Rather than merely celebrating natural wonders, artists often include messages of foreboding or ecological apocalypse into their creations. Don Attoe (b. 1975), on the Portland State University faculty, draws and paints eerie, dark woodlands. Painter Michael Brophy (b.1960) depicts eastern Oregon’s deserts as surreal, barren landscapes. James Lavadour (b. 1951), who lives on the Umatilla Indian Reservation, paints abstracted imaginings of landscapes that hint at the world’s demise.  -World Trade Press