The Living Room at Museum of Contemporary Craft

The living room. The room alive.

There was a time the room we call the living room was called the parlor, used for guests and occasions while most of the living was done elsewhere in the house. And of course there was the era of the family room when most of the living was done there (Parcheesi!). Great rooms aside, the living room lives on in the center of the life of a home.

As much as modern design has been criticized for squeezing the life out of the room with its seductive simplicity, it’s never really been the case, except perhaps in the pages of a mag. Life has always crept back in with a river rock on the mantle, a handmade ceramic vessel, and by the very fact that objects appear, disappear, shift in relation to one another–two chairs angling toward each other four degrees further as the conversation continues. And the current redeployment/reembrace of the modern, particularly here in the Northwest, has come hand in hand with the incorporation of the handhewn, the organic, the handmade.

In The Living Room, currently on exhibit at Portland’s Museum of Contemporary Craft (724 NW Davis), objects from the Museum’s permanent collection by Jack Lenor Larsen, Sam Maloof, Peter Voulkos, Marguerite Wildenhain, David Shaner, Victoria Avakian Ross, and others are grouped with familiar mid-century modern furniture in tableaux of living and dining room as well as displayed in more traditional cases. Fitting the multiple meanings of its title, the exhibition of these rooms alive will be reconfigured twice during the run of the show.

It may or may not have been the intent of the MCC, but the exhibition also brings up consideration of the in-flux nature of the word “craft” and craft’s cultural position as it considers its ancient origins in the creation of necessary objects for use (a barrel, a bowl, a piece of weaving destined to be a waistcoat), its evolved position as “decorative arts,” and in recent decades the blurring of the lines by craft artists and institutions between fine art and fine craft.

The Living Room runs through March 2008 at the Museum of Contemporary Craft.

The Runner

Deborah Hay

Travel to Findhorn, Scotland to commission a solo dance from legendary choreographer, performer, and dance thinker, Deborah Hay. For 11 days, Hay guides and coaches, but does not show, letting you find your own way. At the end of the residency sign a contract. It says that you will practice this solo every single day for at least three months before you perform it. Every day whether you feel like it or not, whether you’re sick or busy or….

Oh, and you can’t pay for the commission out of your own pocket, you have to raise the money from members of your community so that your whole dance community participates in the creation of your piece.

Portland’s most interesting dance duo, the riveting Cydney Wilkes and Ten Tiny Dances impresario Mike Barber have done just that. Together again, only not really, or we should say, not yet, Wilkes and Barber tonight present their solo adaptions of Deborah Hay’s “The Runner.” at Lent School Gymnasium (5105 SE 97th) at 8 PM.

It doesn’t end here. In July Wilkes and Barber go to Marfa, Texas where Hay makes a new duet for them based on their solo adaptations. They bring that duet home to Portland for performance in October 2008.

“Fence” Cydney Wilkes and Mike Barber.

Wilkes and Barber have performed at PICA’s TBA Festival, Seattle-based On The Board’s Northwest New Works, and Ten Tiny Dances, as well as doing Wilke’s “Penta,” a year-long performance on the banks of the Willamette River in the shadow of the Marquam Bridge, and most recently, the duo’s evening length “A Certain Facilitation of Impasse” at Disjecta.

Come In Out Of The Cold (And Wet)

Lady O and Miss H play records for your auditory pleasure at Valentines (232 SW Ankeny) tonight, Wednesday night beginning at 8 PM.  And as Lady O is artist Linn Olofsdotter and Miss H is designer and co-owner of Seaplane, Holly Stalder, expect something sublime.

Giving Treetop Studio

There is no better gift than art. Thanks to the Gocco editions by Jennie Hake of the Portland-based Treetop Studio, giving art is an option for all. Her beautiful prints are priced under $20! We love them for their stripped down and slightly nostalgic modernity that’s only enhanced by the wonder of Gocco.

Who Are The People In Your Neighborhood

Well, they ship all over, but they’re located right here in Portland at SE 8th and Clay. Look Modern has 7000 sq. ft. of mid-century (50s-70s) mostly Swedish and Danish ceramics, furniture, and objects. They’re open weekends only. We just like to look at the pictures. Mmm.