Artists Archive
B
Amber Boydston is a Portland born Abolitionist educator, with an Irish mother and an Ethiopian father who has been teaching and facilitating trainings around social justice and equity for 25 years since she was a young teen. Her organization Spirited Justice focuses on police abolition in addition to the abolition of all anti-Black and oppressive systems. She works with businesses interested in decolonizing the way they sustain their practice within communities, in addition to teaching inside and outside of the educational industrial complex, elementary through higher ed. Amber's work focuses largely on healing the epigenetic impacts of colonialization and combating ACE's (adverse childhood experiences) that People of the Global Majority experience through the sanctioned systems of fascism and genocide. She weaves in large amounts of breath and meditation practice with her education, supporting the journey of Liberation across the Global Majority diaspora. As a parent and lifelong learner, Amber is incredibly passionate about remaining curious, using her access to open doors, and keeping the pressure on creating the kinds of worlds in praxis that we hope to one day leave behind for the youth.
Learn moreMs. Bane Belladonna is a Pro Ebony domina from high dez of California. Bane believes in breaking boundaries through self expression in art and BDSM.
Learn moreBarry Sanders holds a Ph.D. in Medieval Literature. He taught for over thirty years in the departments of Literature and the History of Ideas at Pitzer College of the Claremont Colleges, where he was the first to hold the Peter S. and Gloria Gold Chair. The author of fourteen books and over fifty essays and articles, he has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and was twice a finalist for the Oregon Book Award. He serves as a contributing editor of North American Review, and writes frequently for Cabinet. His essay “Bang the Keys Swiftly: Type-Writers and Their Discontents” recently appeared in the New Museum catalog Ghosts in the Machine, published by Skira Rizzoli. He is Founding Co-chair of the MA in Critical Theory and Creative Research at the Pacific Northwest College of Art and the Ford Institute for Visual Education.
Learn moreThe Design Collaborative know as the Black Aesthetic Studio (BAS) is led by artist duo Cleo and Kayin Davis, in conjunction with Professor of Architecture Robert Alexander Clarke, and historian Kimberly Moreland. They will investigate policing through the lens of Oregonian historically anti-black urban politics and policies. And how these systems of policing affected Black Folks' ways of living, being, and seeing throughout time.
BAS aims to uncover how past, present, and future policing histories have imprinted African Americans' psychology and aesthetic throughout time. They will construct temporal gateways that will encapsulate specific periods which will draw the audience into black space, thus illuminating the user on how we see our histories and futures which has been policed by white authorship from the founding of our nation. These constructed visions will be critique on Oregon racist history and policies, allow one to understand how migration and oppression has transforms black identity and its expressions.
Cleo Davis started his education in architecture at the University of Oregon further changing to industrial design at San Jose State. He is an artist whose work takes a critical view of the social, political and cultural issues and through his work, he continues to reconstruct the cultural view modernizing while also highlighting traditions. Although he engages with multiple subjects and mediums his methodology remains consistent. He also has started the screw loose Studio the Mayo House project and most recently, the archives project in collaboration with Kayin.
Kayin Talton Davis started off in an artistic direction from a very young age, but later learned her love for math and science and pursued a Bachelor's in mechanical engineering at Portland State University. Her design projects were always influenced by a drive to be accessible to all. She started the soapbox theory in 2001, as a way to express herself creatively. And through these mediums, her interest is always in creating something that is positive, helpful and accessible to all but especially children from culturally underrepresented communities.
Robert Alexander Clarke is a designer, educator, and theorist practicing at the intersection of culture, identity, and architecture. His work aims to develop and canonize black aesthetics, thus authenticating it as a lens through which to practice architecture. His design office, BAS (Black Aesthetic Studio) was founded by Clarke, Cleo Davis and Kimberly Morland; their studio explores how to unearth new aesthetics that are immensely specific to African American culture, experience, and identity. Before joining as Activist in Residence at UCLA’s City Lab, Clarke held posts as a Wilson Smith III Design in Spatial Justice Fellow at the University of Oregon’s College of Design. As well as Research Fellow at Newlab under the supervision of architect and New York University Associate Professor of Practice Mitchell Joachim. Before opening his practice, Clarke worked for many years at architectural firms across the globe, including HOK, Terreform ONE, Gensler, and Archi-Union.
Kimberly Stowers Moreland, MBA, MURP, is wife of Michael L. Moreland and the mother of four amazing young adults: Katherine, Mike Jr., Kristen, and Karina. She owns Moreland Resource Consulting and has over 25+ years of experience in the public sector, urban and historic preservation, community development, and urban planning in Portland, Tacoma, and Salem.
Moreland serves as the President of the Oregon Black Pioneers, and their mission is to preserve the history of Black Oregonians. On behalf of the Oregon Black Pioneers, she authored Images of America: African Americans of Portland (Arcadia Publisher). She is the Vice-Chair of the Portland Historic Landmark Commission and a member of the Portland Landmark Commission.
As a community historian, Kimberly began documenting Portland's Black history for over 30+ years. As a city planner with the City of Portland, she worked with the community advisory committee and local historians to produce the History of Portland's African-American History (1805 to the Present). She was on the project team that produced Cornerstones of Community: The Buildings of Portland's African American History, published in 1995. She was subsequently involved in the Multiple Property Documentation (MPD) history project, which builds on the Cornerstones research to produce African American Resources in Portland, Oregon, from 1851 to 1973. This research brings attention to sites related to Portland's Black history so they can be listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
As owner of Moreland Resource Consulting, Moreland worked with the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) and Home Forward, former the Housing Authority of Portland (HAP), to better understand how their past policies unjustly impacted African Americans. Since, 2021, she has teamed with the City of Portland and Architectural Resource Group (ARG) on successfully approval of four National Historic Landmark Register nominations significant to Portland's Black history, including Dean's Beauty and Barbershop, Mt. Olivet Baptist Church, Golden West Hotel, and Dr. John D. Marshall Building. In 2023, with Constructing Hope, Moreland co-authored Building Legacy: BIPOC Construction Trailblazers in Oregon, which highlighted twenty-three construction trade pioneers.
In 2023, she partnered with Robert Clark and Cleo Davis to establish Black Aesthetics Studio LLC (BAS). The firm explored how to unearth new aesthetics specific to African-American culture, experience, and identity.
Learn moreJaJa PDX is a performance art space, wood shop, ceramic studio, healing space, and a collective of creatives.
We have formed a group of diverse, like-minded individuals who come together to share ideas, learn from each other, build community, and create a new reality for artists in the Pacific Northwest to cement the bases for the future of Sustainable Arts Collectives.
Our 20,000sf warehouse is housed in the Central East Side Industrial sector of Portland. We are comprised of makers and creators of all types.
We have formed a partnership with The Haven, an incredible artist collection, who joined us and moved their community inside the walls of JaJa PDX.
Through this partnership, we are striving to build unity within the creative community of Portland. We are encouraging people to live outside of their comfort zone. JaJa PDX is rapidly morphing into a factory of peoples' dreams.
Learn moreClaire Barliant is a writer, editor, and teacher based in Brooklyn. She writes or has written for Art in America, Artforum, Icon, Modern Painters, the New Yorker, and other places. This coming academic year, she will be teaching in the MFA program for the Visual Arts at SUNY Purchase, and in the past has been an adjunct professor or visiting critic at Parsons, the New School, NYU, and Yale. For the past several years she has regularly participated in the Writhing Society, a writing workshop based on writing with constraints, led by Wendy Walker and Thomas La Farge.
Learn moreDJ Black Daria is a Portland-based DJ and selector of R&B, hip hop, funk, afro caribbean and latinx sounds. She co-hosts Everyday Mixtapes on XRAY.FM with DJ Shi Shi (Saturdays 5-6pm) and is a part of the Noche Libre collective. She draws inspiration from her Black and Latinx roots and brings a variety of bass-heavy, beat-laden sounds to the Northwest scene. She holds a residency at Dig a Pony and the 1905.
Learn moreKathleen Boudwin is a local Portland painter and illustrator. They are also a vibrant womxn, kinkster, and femme identifying queer. Boudwin's work has evolved into a celebration of femininity, sexuality, and the divine feminine. Her subject matter is an observation of the freedoms of sexuality combined with the playful effects of color. She celebrates personal sensuality and the power of femmes in much of her practice.
Learn moreLeslie Bull is a poet, video maker, and performance artist with lived experience in the street sex trades. Leslie is a veteran of two Sex Worker Art Show national tours, has published multiple zines, and made a video, On Being a Junkie Ho in Sex Worker World, with Penny Arcade and Ariel Lighteningchild.
Leslie is currently director of Aileen’s, a hospitality space and peer leadership program in south King County, WA serving women who trade sex along Pacific Hwy South. Aileen’s is dedicated to the victims of Gary Ridgeway, AKA the Green River killer, who took his victims from along Pac Hwy.
Leslie is a harm reduction specialist and addictions counselor who is pro drug user and pro drug use and advocates for the legalization of drugs, the decriminalization of sex work, and an immediate end to the government sponsored wars on drug users and the poor.
Learn moreMaster Artist Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr. is Black, Italian, Queer, Non-Binary, Neurodyvergent, and practices primarily in america. Their collaborative approach results in artwork by and for the people.
Stevenson’s practice has been dedicated to supporting young people ages 4 to 18 in developing the necessary skills to encourage advanced imaginative thinking and self-confident expression. In 2019 they developed the Afro Contemporary Art Class at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. School which has had many forms since, including Afro Futurist February, and three years of Fred Hampton Summer Camp. Supporting community efforts as well, taking the shape of support for the effort to Save Dr. Martin Luther King School from being displaced by the expansion of Interstate 5 which has triggered the need to move Harriet Tubman Middle School. Stevenson is currently working in the Albina community to develop a Living Archive at Jefferson High School with students, community, and the architectural design team. Stevenson also has a robust portfolio of artist projects centering food and gathering around it, projects involving sculpture, drawing, and photography, and new work in collaboration with currently and formerly incarcerated folks. These include Tin Can Phone, a podcast all about life in and outside of prison, and Gallery Blue, a curation and exhibition project both of which are owned and operated by formerly incarcerated individuals. Stevenson pursues these professional and creative goals passionately because they believe that empowered and open-minded young people and communities are the best and most direct way toward ensuring a sustainable and prosperous future for all.
Learn moreMatilda has spent half her life in the sex industry and is much more afraid of the violence of poverty than the potential violence of sex work clients. She's delighted and proud to have pulled off five years of art shows, but this show and all her work generally is only possible because of community support and a shared determination to make a better world. Thanks for being here and for sticking around five whole years!
Learn moreMyles de Bastion develops technology and art installations that enable sound to be experienced as light and vibration. His work has appeared in the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry, Portland Art Museum, and on the Jimmy Kimmel Live! Show. He has built large format installations for music festivals and Grammy-award winning jazz artist Esperanza Spalding.
Myles is the founder of CymaSpace, a non-profit that facilitates cultural events inclusive of the Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing; and Audiolux Devices, which produces products featuring light and sound synergy. 2018 Director of the first Northwest Deaf Arts Festival. Myles mentors Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing youth, has developed curriculum, and taught workshops in music and sound for Deaf schools, camps, and communities.
A current project, The Ikigai Machine, is a multimedia visual narrative with interactive installations and live performances that he is developing into a feature-length, touring production for disability hubs and art institutions. Myles has received support from Regional Arts & Culture Council, Oregon Arts Commission, Oregon Cultural Trust, Oregon Cultural Foundation and Randall Charitable Trust.
Learn moreSatya Byock is a psychotherapist in Portland. Her clinical and academic work is rooted in the scholarship of Carl Jung, which emphasizes the reality of the unconscious and its impact on human experience, identity, and relationships. Through studying the language of dreams, mythology, and history, Satya seeks to better understand what propels us towards acts of creation and destruction. Prior to working as a clinician, Satya studied and worked in a variety of settings internationally including with prisoners in Colombia, with students and Buddhist monks in central Sri Lanka, and with farmers in post-tsunami South Asia. She has also worked with tech start-ups, non-profits, and foundations in Portland and California. She holds a B.A. in History from Lewis & Clark College and a Masters in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She has a private practice in downtown Portland.
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