Tag Archives: Portland Art Museum

Feb27

A visit from back home – Exploring the Art Museum

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Saturday, 04-Feb-2023



My Mom and Steve came to visit!!

It’s been a hot minute since they’ve both been here to visit, explore, and catch up… 2019, if I’m remembering right, from when we went out to Seattle? Yeah… that sounds right, and sounds like long enough that we’ve got some adventuring to catch up on!


The day started out, as every day would if I had my way, with an amazing breakfast. I tend to share breakfast pictures pretty regularly, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that my Mom was pretty adamant that I should make us a few good meals. This morning’s breakfast – Eggs benedict!

(Check out the recipe that I used below… I learned this years ago, and DANG if it isn’t amazing).




After breakfast, we started into the adventure of the day – heading into town for a bit of art culture, and maybe some city exploring!

We started at the Art museum – which was actually surprisingly lovely! The last time I’d been was right after my wisdom teeth were taken out, and I’ll be honest… I wasn’t too enthused. But going a second time, with family along, I actually enjoyed it quite a bit more! The main exhibit, called Dakota Modern, was quite good… quite a bit better than I remembered it being.

We explored, I saw with new eyes, and appreciated ourselves a bit of culture. Mm. Yes.



After the museum, we switched gears and went to REI – just a quick stop, to grab microspikes for a hike we had planned for Monday. Nothing big, and it was quickly followed up with a walk down to Powells for a snack and perusal of books, and then a stop at the climbing gym to show off some of the fun I get to have… and let my Mom and Steve meet my friends Bri and Lea who were climbing that evening!

Nicely tuckered out, we headed home. Flambé steak was cooked, presented, and readily devoured. Relaxation on the couch ensued, and a great evening was had relaxing by the fire.



Reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBJjRYk0yC0

Jan25

A visit to the Portland Art Museum

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Sunday, 11-Dec-2022


Man… Something I miss about Boston is the museums. I grew up more spoiled than I realized until recently… I’d always taken it as gospel that any museum needs at least a few hours to visit, and that every museum would have some cool hidden rooms to discover if you spent enough time searching.

Man.

The Portland Art Museum is amazing, don’t get me wrong! It’s got amazing exhibits, great native artwork, and excellent local craft. But… it doesn’t have much of any of them. That, or maybe I’m quicker to walk through these days? Either way, I was surprised at just how quickly I finished up at the art museum. Even with my walking speed cut down by the recent surgery (yay wisdom teeth being hauled out of my head), I was done in about an hour… and even then, I’d stretched it pretty far.




If I may taint this post with a bit of art criticism, though… Which I obviously may, since this is my blog and I do what I want…

This following piece bothers me. I find its existence questionable enough, but the fact that it’s featured in a city-scale museum is a… creative decision. Hear me out. I love the original piece. It’s a landmark photograph capturing a historic moment in time, beautifully capturing the raw hypocrisy of hatred . Obviously – it won a Pulitzer price!

But the update to it… Okay. The glass beads are neat. Highlighting details is… interesting. But the author isn’t highlighting some missed side piece. The author’s “highlighting” the literally centerpiece of the photo. It’s like if I posted a photo of the sailor kissing the woman in times square, and drew a big red circle around the couple.

I mean… yeah. Congrats, Ben, you get the intent of the original piece. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?

Anyways. Rant Off.

Dec27

Mom’s visit to Portland

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Friday through Monday, 27-Oct-2017 to 30-Oct-2017

My Mom does a fair bit of traveling for work; bouncing out to conferences and company meetings and such keeps her pretty mobile.  A nice thing about this is that a fair number of her conferences are on the West Coast… and she’s able to redirect her flights home to go through Portland!

 

This time, We had a fair bit of adventure planned for her – since both Sarah and I were unemployed, and were fully living in Portland, we were able to do a few adventures that we hadn’t while we were in Hood River… a nice change from the normally hectic visits, right?  We obviously got up to a lot of adventure and excitement, but a few of the standouts are:

Hiking Forest Park, Rose garden, and Bunnies in Baskets!

One of the first things we did, since it’s awesome to get to stroll and chat, and also awesome to watch Ollie run around like a jet fighter with full afterburners on.  It was a perfect day, thankfully, so we took an easy stroll through a loop hike that we’ve done a few times – starting into the Leif Erikson trail, and then finishing out on the Wildwood.

Not much to say aside from that, but it was really awesome to get to chat and walk, and the day was absolutely perfect weather for us to be cozy… but still need to keep moving to stay warm and cozy.

Afterward, we headed to the Portland International Rose Test Garden – a fairly famous rose garden where various florists test their rose hybrids.  It’s glorious, and a great place to wander around when the light is good.  The light was definitely great that afternoon.

To cap off the evening, we had some cozy relaxing time with bunnies!  Sarah and I had found a charity group called Bunnies in Baskets, which trains and cares for therapy rabbits.  They’re primarily sent to hospitals and clinics, but they do a weekly fundraiser where the public is invited in for “Hoppy Hour”, where a small cover charge gets you a drink and some quality time petting bunnies.

Bunnies are fluffy.

Bunnies are cozy.

Bunnies make us happy 🙂

 

Exploring the Art Museum!

Somehow, I’d never been to any of the major Portland museums.  I know, I know, it’s horrible to admit.  But it’s a thing, and our lives have been crazy and busy, and I make no excuses.

Having never been, this was a perfect reason to head out and explore the museum.

We had a blast – The main exhibit was for Laika, a studio south of Portland that makes stop-motion films, where they had tons of props and set pieces from the last few films that they’ve made.  I’d only seen one of theirs before, but seeing the craftsmanship and detail of all the pieces was really cool – especially when compared with the sheer number of pieces that are needed to make a complete stop-motion show.

 

Dinner by the fire!

Something that my Mom and Sarah have in common is their enjoyment of quiet relaxation.  I have trouble forcing myself to slow down and enjoy it, so I appreciate the push to just sit and rest sometimes.  Since this was her relaxation after a big conference, we made a point to schedule a few evenings of downtime.

They were glorious.

An excellent part of the house in Portland is our fireplace.  I’d bought a super comfy couch when I first moved to Oregon, and Sarah is a fan of fluffy blankets.  Those combined with the warm fire make for a dangerous combination… a combination that regularly leads to us passing out on the couch after a day of adventure.

My Mom’s visit was no exception – though with the subtle shift that it was her and Ollie asleep on the couch, instead of Sarah and I 🙂