Opening Second Friday
February 10, 2012
7pm-12am

Dear Love show Artists and Fans,

After 6 years of producing a huge show with hundreds of Artists, lots of moving parts, expensive permits, and myriad details to address, we at the Love show are taking a break from it all and trying something new, and we’d like you to come along!

We’re giving birth to TWIN SHOWS

One is Physical- an alumni show featuring work by past Launch Pad artists and curators and Love show stalwarts, returning to it’s humble roots at Launch Pad

The Other Virtual- an open-call show unshackled from space limitations and available to all, all on-line at http://portlandloveshow.com

Even though the large format, open-call show of the past few years isn’t going to happen with the Love Show this year, with your help we are determined to create art opportunities that will foster some honest work about love, and to share a meeting place where we can celebrate all of you who made previous Love shows great. We are eager to have you participate in these twin Love shows and make them awesome, and return to the rollicking hugeness next year!!

ABOUT THE ALUMNI SHOW

Since space at Launch Pad is pretty limited these days, we’re not able to do our usual open call group show, so we’ve decided to invite artists who we’ve worked with extensively over the past 6 years of our existence, because it’s important to acknowledge that it is THE ARTISTS who make Launch Pad the place that it is.

In a further embrace of nostalgia, artists are invited to tune their work for this years Love show a little more specifically: hindsight is 20/20, or maybe sometimes it’s not- what have you learned from your brushes with love, both good and bad, sweet and sour? Do the good old days look a little rosier than they actually were? Or possibly you’ve been weighed down by past baggage that kept you from appreciating a good thing. The past informs the present, and yet the passing of time seems to soften some details and bring others into razor-sharp focus. We’ve invited our artists to make work for this show that responds to a love that they’ve known or know, to lessons that they’ve learned while looking back.

For more info about the Alumni show visit:
http://portlandloveshow.com/love-in-retrospect/

BENEFIT INFO

We are partnering once again with a worthy cause to try and use our collective might to do some good!

We’re collecting cans of food for the Oregon Food Bank at the opening and for the duration of the show. Tell your friends, tell your boss, tell your grocery store… Let’s feed some hungry folks together- you never know, the people who benefit from the food bank are often closer to you than you think.

Introduction to Silk Painting
Thursday, February 2nd at 12:30 PM!

There is simply nothing like painting on silk. As a medium, its characteristics are totally unique. For many who have never tried it, exploring methods of silk painting opens new and exciting creative doors; it offers alternative ways of approaching and thinking about painting. This class explores tradition techniques of silk painting, including the use of resists, dyes vs. paints, antifusants, batik, shibori, discharge, and more. You will not believe the range of possibilities! Each student will have the opportunity to paint a silk hoop using any (or many) of the processes covered. If you have never painted on silk, or if you are curious about furthering your repertoire as a silk artist, you will not want to miss this class!

Asher Katz has been teaching similar workshops for Jacquard Products, “the silkscreen experts,” for several years, and is qualified as both a silkscreen artist and technician. (Check out www.jacquardproducts.com for more info!)

READY TO TRY IT OUT FOR YOURSELF??

For a mere $5 you can create your very own silk painting! All materials are provided for you. Just bring your creativity!

If you’d like to participate, please e-mail info@launchpadgallery.org to register. (registration fee is due at the time of the workshop)

We look forward to seeing you there!

Come back tomorrow from 12-4 to check out the latest show with large-scale paintings by Paula Keyth!

Hello Fabulous Launch Pad Volunteers (and future volunteers)!

The holidays are fast approaching. And we want to share a little holiday cheer with all of you! Please join us for a fun-filled volunteer gathering here at Launch Pad Gallery. Share your thoughts & ideas for the coming year, and enjoy some festive treats!

MEET-UP!

Wednesday, November 23rd @ 7 PM!

(join us upstairs!)

Launch Pad is proud to have so many dedicated volunteers, like yourselves, that help keep us thriving! And we want to show our appreciation, and get to know you better, with our regular volunteer meet-ups.

Meet-ups are a great opportunity for our volunteers to get to know one another, bring in new recruits, and generally have a smashing good time! They also provide us with a wonderful opportunity to find out what YOU have to say about working at Launch Pad. We want to know what keeps you coming back, and what we can do to make your volunteer experience the best it can be. And it’s a great excuse to party! ; )

We hope you’ll join for the festivities!

Thank you again for all you do! Launch Pad Loves You! ♥

Sincerely,
The Launch Pad Team

JOIN US
November 25th at 12:30 PM for a comprehensive silkscreening workshop!

***A second session will be held on Saturday the 26th at 12:30 PM***

Silkscreening is a unique printing process with unlimited possibilities. Whether you’re a painter, drawer, mixed-media artist, sculptor or fashion-designer, this class is guaranteed to have something to offer you. We’ll cover everything from basic mono-printing and screen-stenciling to polychromatic printing and photo-stencils, the traditional CYMK process, positive and negative space printing, screen maintenance and substrate possibilities.

Also, get the lowdown on the plethora of silkscreen mediums available, including varieties of inks, drawing fluid, screen filler, discharge mediums, resists, color magnet and more!

Asher Katz has been teaching similar workshops for Jacquard Products, “the silkscreen experts,” for several years, and is qualified as both a silkscreen artist and technician. (Check out www.jacquardproducts.com). Jacquard has been kind enough to sponsor this class, so it is free to anyone interested in attending.

WANT TO TRY IT FOR YOURSELF??
After the lecture and demonstration (approximately 1.5 hours) will be a hands-on silkscreen workshop! For a mere $5 you can make a print to take home with you. All inks, screens and and mediums are provided. All you need to do is bring a substrate to print on (e.g., a t-shirt, pillowcase, sheet of artist’s paper, panel of wood, canvas–whatever you would like).

(Space for the hands-on workshop is limited! If you’d like to participate, please e-mail info@launchpadgallery.org to register. The $5 registration fee will be due at time of the workshop.)

We look forward to seeing you there!

The event showcases installations and artwork by Portland artists that highlight the use of technology in different ways.

CLOSING RECEPTION!

Saturday
January 28th
6PM – 11PM

About the Show

The centerpiece is the world premiere of the installation T,E.D. (Transformations, Emotional Deconstruction), created by Sean Hathaway ( mupeg.org ), with music by Carlos Severe Marcelin ( SevereEnterprises.com ). This large work features 80 customized Teddy Ruxpin dolls wired together, delivering real-time emotional content from the internet in discreet 1-minute “packages” based on the Emotion Wheel developed by the psychologist Robert Plutchik. Additional interactive real-time input can also be received from text messaging or an on-site user interface.  For more information about the T,E.D. installation click here.

Additional Exhibits

Reality Bytes, by Libbey White  ( facebook.com/libbey.white )
An interactive augmented reality kiosk projects a unique scene for every block held up to a camera. The virtual scene appears overlaid on a video stream of the block, and responds to movement by changing shape and appearance.

Creeper, by Donald Delmar Davis  ( dorkbotpdx.org/node/9 )
A Braitenberg inspired neural network in the form of a wall of disassociated eyes that follow objects in the room. While a single cds cell is not capable of providing meaningful image data, a sufficiently large network of cells should be able to make distinctions. Especially if combined with motion.

Maxwell, by Mark Medonis ( dorkbotpdx.org/wiki/mmedonis )
A robot head and torso, suspended from the ceiling, watching the crowd. If he detects a face looking at him, he will make it known, he is watching… always watching.

The One-Sided Pendulum, by Donald Delmar Davis  ( dorkbotpdx.org/node/9 )
The one sided pendulum is a meditation on American politics since Nixon

The Modern World, a video game by Donald Delmar Davis  ( dorkbotpdx.org/node/9 )
In the modern world you use your freedom ™ controller to move right, left, vote and protest. The object of the game is to prevent the senseless destruction happening right before you.

Paintings with a Bytey theme
Works by Jonas Nash ( jonasnash.com ) and Cameron Adamez

About the Artist

Paula Keyth’s work is alchemical in the most basic sense: In the paintings, feline, human and piscine forms turn hybrid; shapes shift, co-mingle, or appear from the ether; figures become abstract and vice versa. From beneath surface, ghostly images reveal themselves, emerging from an earthly prison. Inspired by Francisco Goya’s black paintings, the figures often deal with the darker side of the human condition, cruelty, and the fear of the unknown.

Paula Keyth began as an experimental painter creating textures with splatters, swirls, and drips, much in the spirit of William Turner. Over the course of time, figures began to emerge. In her words, “The paintings begin as mere strokes until images start to form, making their own conversations. I am merely an assistant, I let the paint tell me what to do.”

Another painter, who has inspired her work with his raw and direct approach, is Francis Bacon. She explains: “the accidents of the paint are as important as the rendering of the image. I want to paint with lucidity, while remaining in an unconscious state.” Walking the tightrope between abstract expressionism and figurative paintings, she creates images that are at once monstrous and beautiful.

When asked about the ‘Transmutation’ series specifically, she sums it up: “In short, it’s about the alteration of one species into another; In spite of differences, we can all feel. I want to meld together different conversations that tell the same story. The story is in the paintings.”

Paula Keyth grew up in New York City. She has also lived and studied art in England, San Francisco, Rome, and Portland. Pulling from her multifold experiences, she attempts to assemble the dark pieces of the past. She is driven by dreams, music, poetry and insanity.

-Paula Keyth, paulakeyth.weebly.com

About the Artist

In my work I explore twentieth century history and parables from my own life.  My work is informed by fiction and non-fiction as well as memory.  Generally, mood and concept are ascribed suitable found imagery or still life objects as a jumping off point.

In my application of paint I marry discordant, energetic smears of diluted paints with controlled purposeful mark making.  My favorite brushes mirror my application of paint, bristle brushes are used during loose portions of painting because it is uncontrollable, whereas soft synthetic brushes are used for controlled marks.  The works go through several iterations between loose and controlled before being determined complete.

My current work seeks to find unconventional beauty in concepts deemed unsavory, from friendly totalitarian states to stalled vehicles as stand in for man on his way to heaven…  Rather than brazen statement, the collected works are meant to illicit a subtle pervasive mood in the viewer.

A collaborative project conceived by Jim Lommasson and Oregon Iraqi Refugees. The exhibit will include photographs and writing and paintings by Farooq Hassan and Samir Khurshid.

ABOUT THE SHOW

 ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Jim Lommasson is a freelance photographer and writer living in Portland, Oregon. Lommasson received the Dorothea Lange–Paul Taylor Prize from The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University for his first book, Shadow Boxers: Sweat, Sacrifice & The Will To Survive In American Boxing Gyms.  In 2009 Oregon State University Press published Lommasson’s Oaks Park Pentimento: Portland’s Lost and Found Carousel. He is currently working on a book and traveling exhibition about American Veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, and their lives after their return from war, called Exit Wounds: Soldiers’ Stories – Life After iraq and Afghanistan. The book will include Lommasson’s photographs, and photographs and writing by the participants. He was awarded a Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC) Project Grant for What We Carried, and is a 2012 Oregon Humanities Conversation Grant Recipient for his public discussion “Life after War: Photography and Oral Histories of Coming Home.”

Farook Hassanwas born in Basrah, Iraq in 1939. He graduated from the Fine Arts Institute from Baghdad 1960, and from the Fine Arts Acadamy from Rome, Italy 1980. He has held many solo and joint exhibitions locally and internationally. His art work bestows the ancient city of Hatra’s Queens, moons, suns, a magical and mystical feel in today’s artistic median. His thought process, technical painting experience, and clear foresight of the future has given his artwork originality in the Iraqi artistic community.

For more information & images visit:  http://theoregoniraqirefugeeproject.blogspot.com/

Opening Reception

SECOND Friday, September 9th!

6 PM – 12 AM

About the Show

The poet Wordsworth once said that life is measured in “spots of time”. This show and its contents are the remnants of those spots, moments of the past and present together.  First stemming from the talented Anna Magruder, this show began with a desire to pair two intuitive artists that both shared the precision of realism.   I have admired Anna and her work since I first met her and visited her studio a few years ago.  The idea of the show came from her, the theme, the idea of still life integrated with her forms, and the general private process of how she makes art.  She shared this show idea with her co-artist Nicholas Orr, who also works from “models” and “still life”, using a combination of real life and still life (actual models, items and photographs), just like Anna.  The pairing seemed very automatic and real, two highly skilled painters, showing the window of the soul of their characters (and the process of their art) – one stemming from antiquity and history, the other in the world of a magical realism; but both capturing the stillness and beauty of humanity.  Enjoy the works and natural beauty of both these artists, two of my all time Portland favorites, as they explore history, mythology and the character driven classicism of still life.

–Guest curator and artist, Chris Haberman, August, 2011

About The Artists

Anna Magruder

Alternating between still lives and paintings of people inspired by found photos, this show explores the magic and beauty of the fleeting moments and objects that leave indelible imprints on our lives. Whether we have emotional, aesthetic or financial attachments to objects, they can inspire us, remind us of someone or something important or simply set the mood in a space. Anna takes a fresh look at some of her favorite items collected over the years to discover how new relationships between them reshape what they mean and say. And by recreating scenes from past lives, she opens the door to new possibilities and stories that may or may not reflect the sentiment of the moment. After all, a glimpse into someone’s bygone memory can only take us so far, but curiosity about who they were or what they were doing can lead us down the magical path of our own imagination.

Anna Magruder is a Portland, Oregon artist and illustrator. In 2009, after 14 years working as a graphic designer, Anna decided to take a leap of faith and leave design to focus on oil painting and illustration. People and faces are her favorite subjects. Drifting between realism and surrealism, she enjoys recreating vintage America, re-imagining the lives and stories of characters on canvas, or just exploring the emotional color of faces in the crowd.

To view Anna’s artwork visit www.annamagruder.com.

Nicholas C. Orr

Nicholas C. Orr was born On April 29th 1979. At a very young age Nicholas saw the world differently. Along with being the youngest of three he just didn’t relate with the straight forward thinking of his family; He always saw the other side of the mirror as well. In 1985 Nicholas and his family made the transition from Jamaica to the United States; they moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Through his diligence, Nicholas was accepted into a performing arts program in High School and later won a scholarship to the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan.

When Nicholas started college he began to understand why he loved art as much as he did; He could use his skills to tell stories and convey emotions for people to live in. He majored in Illustration and got his BFA in 2002. After graduating he moved to Los Angeles, California where he went on to become a freelance Graphic Designer and Artist. He spent his time fine-tuning his craft and figuring out what story he wanted to tell with it. After five years of shows and design work Nicholas decided to make another big change and moved to Portland, Oregon in 2007. He is now starting to gather up his knowledge and experience to make a new life for himself.

My art is what I like to call a reflection of what something looks like on the inside. I feel like there is so much information about things hidden behind the surfs; all you have to do is look for it. In most of my paintings I feel as though I’m giving the viewer an all access pass to a person’s or thing’s inner beauty and emotion; At least how I see them. Rarely do we get the chance to just look someone in the eye without either you or them feeling a little uncomfortable about it; you lose the connection. With the way the future is coming and coming fast there probably will never be a chance for that connection to happen again. The world now communicates with cell phones and instant messaging, practically void of direct human contact.

When I paint, I paint with every stroke building over the next like I’m forming a person’s personality from the inside out. This is why I mostly paint with oil sticks. They’re very physical, earthy and raw. It all comes together in the end to make a powerful image. Other times I use Gouache. It brings a totally different feel as it is softer and yet has the ability to get thick and meaty all at the same time, which most people tend to be.

My paintings are like a summary of a thought or person, an overall view of what they could be. Now you could stare for hours without feeling awkward. You can get to know the person in the painting and understand them through their eyes and body-language. There is just so much beauty in things but, sadly, it doesn’t seem like they notice most of the time. My paintings slow you down. They make you want to get to know things again.