Jujuba at Music on Main, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, August 29, 2012

What a fine and funky good time I had listening to and grooving with Jujuba at Music on Main!

From the PCPA Web site's information on Music on Main:

Jujuba delivers a funky, danceable style of Nigerian Afrobeat and Juju music. The strength of the eleven-piece revolves around its energetic cohesion between percussion, rhythm and horn sections. Renowned for their ability to engage a wide variety of audiences, the band draws a dance floor full of smiling faces at every event.

Jujuba features Nojeem Lasisi from Igbo Ora, Oyo State, in Nigeria. He ranks among the world’s elite talking drum players. Nojeem was given his first drum at age four by his father, also a master drummer, who handed down to Nojeem its powerful language. As a member of Nigerian superstar King Sunny Ade's group, the African Beats, Nojeem toured the world and appears on numerous recordings with King Sunny, including "Seven Degrees North" and "Odu."

Nojeem has settled in the Northwest and assembled Jujuba from local musicians who all share a true love for Nigerian music. Their diverse experiences in a wide range of styles propel the project into new directions based on Afrobeat, Juju and traditional Nigerian folk music. Nojeem Lasisi and Jujuba have created a unique blend of African and Western music they hope is enjoyable to all.

Since the fall of 2002, the band has elicited a strong flow of positive feedback from audiences, concert promoters, festival organizers and the press. As Marty Hughley of The Oregonian puts it, “the heat and flavor was all in the groove.” The joy Jujuba shares with its audiences encourages new material, a tighter connection and a growing energy from each show to the next.

About Music on Main Street Located in downtown Portland on Main Street, between Southwest Broadway & Park Ave., next to Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall.

Wednesday evenings during July and August we take advantage of the lovely summer weather in Portland to present Music on Main Street, PCPA’s free outdoor concert series. The concerts boast popular local musicians with a diverse collection of music – from Afrobeat to Rockabilly – these bands will have you up on your feet and dancing on Main Street. The free concerts are open to the public and run from 5pm to 7pm – tickets are not required. The ArtBar & Bistro will be serving up seasonal fare and delicious libations starting at 4:30pm every week. Tables and chairs are available on a first come, first served basis, along with plenty of room to move around - dancing is highly encouraged.

PCPA Tour Guides' tour of MAX Yellow Line Public Art Continues

Facts from TriMet's Web site.

N Lombard Transit Center
Linda Haworth addresses the theme of labor in the community. Glass mosaic on columns and trash containers bring color to the area. (Parts that I didn't get to photograph included "Mosaic guardrail panels feature tools in dynamic settings." and "Community map artist Victor Maldonado used symbols of farm labor as metaphors for social progress." This intersection is where people transfer to go to Swan Island, an industrial area, thus Haworth's theme of labor.)


A trash can I barely managed to photograph as the train pulled away. Valerie told us that Haworth worked with Bullseye, a top-knotch stained glass manufacturer in Portland, to get the colors of the glass just like she wanted them, and she worked with tweezers to place the tiny, tiny pieces just right.


Shelter columns and trash containers are wrapped in colorful glass tile.
I shot this photo of a bus stop at Lombard to show you how much larger it is than the usual ones--Valerie told us that this is the busiest mass transit intersection in the system. I think this is the westbound stop, based on where it is, so this info is about it: Westbound stop features windscreen glass designed by Makelike and a seating wall with ceramic tiles by Victor Maldonado.

PCPA tour guide essentials, for our Yellow Line MAX Public Art tour

Portland Center for the Performing Arts Volunteer Coordinator Margie demonstrates the first essential, a camera.


One tour guide demonstrates validating a previously purchased TriMet ticket.


Another uses a card to purchase a ticket.


Here it is. Honored Citizen is TriMet's term for seniors.


Remember I told y'all that Saturday, July 25, the day of the tour, was the first in the 10-day streak of temps above 90 degrees for Portland? So, the water bottle pictured here represented an essential for real. Two ladies had theirs in home-made carriers. If you look closely in today's first photo, in the back between the people, you can see the carrier on her shoulder. Pretty doggone neat!


These smart, creative ladies crocheted the net shape and then crocheted it right onto the strapping--amazing!


Our final essential, artist Valerie Otani.

Here's a bit about her artistic philosophy that I found on the Internet, at the Seattle Public Library's Web site:
Portland artist Valerie Otani sees public art as connecting people to a site and strengthening the impact of a place in the context of urban design. Creating lively public spaces with artwork that intrigues, challenges and inspires us is part of a larger goal of improving the quality of civic life. Much of her work has been on design teams, identifying opportunities and maximizing the impact of art in a total project, then doing a project as well. Her work reveals an unknown aspect of everyday experience - a revelation that creates a bond linking us to our place in our community. Otani provided design team collaboration on the Greenwood Branch project.

University of Oregon motorcyclist on an early Saturday morn

About 9:15 a.m., I'm at the corner of W. Burnside and NW 21st, waiting for the 15 bus to take me close to Pioneer Courthouse Square, July 25, watching traffic and pedestrians. I heard the motorcycle and turned to my left, looked, thought "Photo opportunity," lifted the camera to my eye from around my neck, and snapped this one. It doesn't do his deep tan justice, nor did I get his mustache, doggone it. While he's no spring chicken, you certainly can't tell it from this photo. And when I looked at the photo at its largest size on Flickr, I think I saw a scar on his knee, like he might have scraped it on some pavement somewhere sometime. And then I noticed a pale turquoise X on his thigh. What? A band-aid maybe? I just don't know.

Anyway, I wasn't out waiting for a bus just to take photos of interesting passers-by. I was headed for Pioneer Courthouse Square to meet up with a some of the Portland Center for the Performing Arts Tour Guides. Our latest perk, a tour of the public art on TriMet's Yellow Line Max, with Valerie Otani, one of the artists who helped plan and create it. Here's a bit from TriMet's Web site:
Art on Interstate MAX Yellow Line

Artwork at every stop along the MAX Yellow Line draws from the history and culture of the area to create a unique identity for each station.

With over 40 local artists contributing artwork and 75 community members participating in forums and committees, the art along MAX Yellow Line is a proud reflection of a historically rich and vital part of Portland.

Y'all know I'm going to put photos here soon! Hope you'll come back to look.

Would that the sky were true blue ...

In order to show the trees' true hue.

Still and all, I wanted to show you the contrast between the deep wine-colored tree on the left and the green one on the right. That's my bus peeking out of the wine-colored leaves. The little triangle is Portland Firefighters Park. Click on the link for more about the park and for a photo of the wine-colored tree in bloom. I'm waiting on West Burnside to catch that 15, on the way home from tour-guide volunteering at the PCPA.

Update! Important Update! Where is our blogger? A special message before the end of the Tour Guide Perk: Downtown Walking Tour with Peter Chausse

I copied and pasted this from Amir's Web site.
"I gotback Home
•29 June, 2009 • 79 Comments

I gotback home.
I am Amir…
I am FREE.

Thank you All friends around the world for your prayers, activities and helps. LOVE you ALL.

2009/6/29 – TEHRAN"

Curious to learn more? Go to Tehran 24, Daily Photos from Tehran.


Members of the City Daily Photo community take a stand with a special theme day on Sunday, June 28. From the CDP Web site: This is a special 'blog day' in order to help spread the images and stories coming out of Iran, and raise awareness of the issues that the people are protesting currently. I can connect you with everyone participating around the world. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants. You might want to click on the link every few hours because as time passes, I feel sure that more and more CDP bloggers will participate. From Paris Daily Photo, I learned that Amir, a City Daily Photo blogger from Tehran, has at the very least stopped posting as of June 17, 2009. Hilda at My Manila says this on her blog, "Freedom of expression—that was all our fellow City Daily Photo blogger from Tehran was exercising before he was arrested with hundreds of his countrymen."

For the first time ever, I have used Picnik to alter my photo of the marquee at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in order to open the post with the all encompassing question, "Where is our blogger?"

And now for the end of our walking tour. Thanks for coming along!

Our tour leader Peter Chausse shared interesting information with us at every stop. I just can't remember some of it, so I've found bits and pieces to give you by looking all over the Internet. And I oh so badly wanted a map to share with you for this next part, especially when I heard Peter tell us that the South Park Blocks aren't really "blocks," as in the same square footage as the rest of Portland's "blocks." They're 100 feet wide while regular blocks are 200 feet wide. So I've searched and searched for a map to put here that would give you that dynamic visual. I found it at Travel Portland Dot Com's Self-guided Tour: Portland, Oregon. However, you'll have to scroll down a ways to see it. I thought it only proper to lead off with a photo I took while on our walk. It's a single yellow rose, one of many in the gardens between the Portland Art Museum and the Oregon History Center.



Please use this link to match the numbered circles on the map with information about each one of them, available at Travel Portland Dot Com's Self-guided Tour: Portland, Oregon

From Travel Portland Dot Com: The Park Blocks (the narrow, teal green blocks on the map)

The original intention of a group of Portland pioneers was to set aside a long promenade park that would traverse the entire town site, from the Willamette River to the base of the West Hills. But their good intentions were only partly realized. The results were the 12 South Park Blocks, from Jackson to Salmon Street, and the six North Park Blocks, from Ankeny to Glisan Street.

The South Park Blocks form the center of Portland’s Cultural District. They were donated to the City in 1852 by Daniel H. Lownsdale and William W. Chapman, who both have downtown squares named for them. Around the same time, numerous lots surrounding the South Park Blocks were deeded to churches and fraternal organizations.

The South Park Blocks then were known as “The Boulevard.” Early photographs show it as a narrow clearing, cutting through the town like a flat ribbon. But in 1877 the City Council authorized the planting of 104 poplar and elm trees. By the turn of the century, homes and churches bordering the park blocks enjoyed the shade of those trees, as they still do.

As we walked southward on the slightly inclining sidewalk towards the Simon Benson House, Peter stopped and explained about the beautiful trees running parallel toward the outer edges of the South Park Blocks.

While I listened, I took this close-up shot of the elm we stood near.


Here's a photo that I took on Saturday, May 9, right after I left the Portland Streetcar and made my way towards the Portland Farmers Market that you can see in the distance.


That's Peter in the red hat, in front of the Benson House.
From Travel Portland Dot Com: You can see Simon Benson’s house several blocks north, on the Portland State University campus, facing the Park Blocks at Montgomery Street. Originally on a lot facing The Old Church, Benson’s abode was moved in early 2000 to house the offices of the PSU Alumni Association. The two-story, green, Queen Anne-style house was built in 1900 and was the Benson family home until 1912.


Here are more photos from the rose gardens.




That's the Portland Art Museum in the background.


From Travel Portland Dot Com: If you go directly across the park blocks to the Portland Art Museum (map #6), pause and admire the rose and flower gardens surrounding the statue of Teddy Roosevelt, wearing a Spanish-American war uniform and riding a horse. Its title is Theodore Roosevelt Rough Rider. (My photo of this is coming up soon.)

The Portland Art Museum, built in 1933, was designed by noted Portland architect Pietro Belluschi. The brick modern-style building was renovated in 1995, in time for the blockbuster “Imperial Tombs of China” exhibit. Since then the museum has been an important stop for numerous other large exhibits. The museum has an impressive collection of its own. A new wing, opened in August 2000, houses its large Native American and Northwest art collection.

Administrative offices for the museum are next door, in what is now known as the North Wing, but originally was the Portland Masonic Temple. The monumental 1927 structure is also home to the Northwest Film Center, the museum’s rental sales gallery, the Portland Youth Philharmonic, Northwest Print Council, Oregon Ballet Theatre and Main Street Theatre. The two buildings are linked by an outdoor sculpture garden, featuring works by Barbara Hepworth and Pierre Auguste Renoir.

I took a few photos of a few sculptures back on October 18.

Roy Lichenstein's Brushstrokes, 1996


Desert Harvest, 1982, by Allan Houser


Coyote VI, 1999, by Gwynn Murrill

I took this photo last October 18. The blue and gold banners are on some of the Oregon History Center buildings.

From Portland Online: Between Jefferson and Madison stands an 18-foot-tall bronze equestrian statue of Theodore Roosevelt by New York sculptor Alexander Phimister Proctor (1860-1950), who was known for his western art. Mounted on a 14-foot tall base of California granite, the statue entitled Theodore Roosevelt - Rough Rider portrays the colonel in the actual uniform and accoutrements he wore in his famous ascent of San Juan Hill during the Spanish-American War.

It was presented to the city by Dr. Henry Waldo Coe. When Dr. Coe was just beginning his medical practice in 1884 in North Dakota, he met the young Roosevelt, who was there trying to regain his health. Their friendship lasted until Roosevelt's death in 1919. Aside from his personal friendship, Coe (who moved to Portland in 1891) admired Roosevelt's politics. It was mostly for this reason that he decided to express his admiration in the form of a public statue. Calvin Coolidge broke ground for the statue in August 1922 and it was unveiled on November 11 of that year. The block on which it stands was named Roosevelt Square.

Here's another shot from October 18, the vista of the South Park Blocks in the fall. The gray basalt building on the right is the First Congregational Church, organized in 1851. From Travel Portland Dot Com: Two blocks north is First Congregational United Church of Christ (map #13) (1126 S.W. Park Ave.; 503.228.7219), at Madison Street. The stone building with the dramatic 175-foot, cream-and-red-latticed bell tower was dedicated in 1895. In Venetian Gothic style, it was modeled after Boston’s Old South Church. About the South Park Blocks, from Portland Online: In 1852 Daniel H. Lownsdale designated eleven narrow blocks of his plat at the western edge of town for public park space. Between 1852-75 the park was an unimproved roadway on the outskirts of the city center; the southern portion up to Jefferson was part of the Great Plank Road. In 1877 the first landscaping of these blocks occurred when the city council authorized florist and landscape designer Louis G. Pfunder to plant 104 Lombardy poplars and elms between Salmon and Hall Streets. Over the years, much has been added to the park, but there seems to be a consensus that the blocks should remain "a cathedral of trees with a simple floor of grass."

The bell tower at the church--I took this one while on our walk.


Oregon History Center
From Travel Portland Dot Com: Across Madison Street is the Oregon History Center (map #5). Be sure to look up when you’re at the main entrance, off a courtyard facing the South Park Blocks. The eight-story-high mural was painted in 1989 by Richard Haas on the 1923 building, originally the Sovereign Hotel. The mural’s trompe l’oeil perspective depicts members of the Lewis and Clark expedition. Another mural, on the building’s south side, illustrates the early development of Oregon. The Oregon History Center, established in 1873, has exhibits, photo archives, historical collections and a research library.

From Emporis: Companies involved in this Building* Architect: Wolff & Zimmer Associates, Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership. Other companies: Pietro Belluschi, consultant during the 1967 remodeling.



Close-up of the mural.


Peter led us to the exact spot to look up and see the wall and the trompe l'oeil from the side, so that we could see the actual painting, without the perspective.


Once we left this corner, we continued north. Peter stopped on Broadway, opened his well-used copy of "Portland Then and Now (Then & Now)" by Linda Dodds, Carolyn Buan, and showed us a 1930's photo of the Portland Theatre, next to a modern photo of the same building, now known as the Arlene Schnitzer Hall. From Travel Portland Dot Com: From Pioneer Courthouse Square, walk south on Broadway, using the huge “Portland” sign as your beacon. Lit up at night with 6,000 brilliant bulbs, the sign marks the location of the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall (map #2), part of the Portland Center for the Performing Arts (PCPA).

In this photo, Peter's pointing to the location of the PCPA. In this photo that I took in the bright sunshine on May 14, the brick building is the PCPA. You can barely see the Portland sign at the right of the photo--such a glare that particular day.


Here's the Portland sign on a blue-sky February 28.


We were back at the start, finished with our walk. I had a splendid time, as did everyone. I walked a few more blocks, caught the MAX, then the 15 home.

Tour Guide Perk--Downtown Walking Tour with Peter Chausse

I totally appreciate the idea espoused by the Portland Center for the Performing Arts that learning more about Portland makes better tour guides for the PCPA. So when the chance to go on a walking tour of downtown Portland at 5 p.m. on a Thursday came up, I took an hour of vacation and signed right up! Y'all can just imagine how much I looked forward to the two-hour walk, right? My camera around my neck, I joined about 20 PCPA tour guides as we met our Walking Tours of Portland guide Peter Chausse on June 11 in the Antoinette Hatfield Hall rotunda.

Over the next few days, I'll share photos that I took and bits of information about the that Peter shared with us--it was right up my alley!

Remember the Pioneer Courthouse Square Mile Sign Post? One of the destination it points toward is Portlandia. (Click on the link to find out all about her.)

I took this photo from the second floor of a building across the street from the Portland Building.


I took this photo from the sidewalk right beneath Portlandia.


I took this photo looking back at Portlandia.


Here's one more photo that I took from the sidewalk beneath Portlandia. Peter had told us that he'd been taking 3rd graders on tours lately--he always tells them that Portlandia's dropped an onion ring out of her hand.


Here's the onion ring, a sculpture at a building one block west of Portlandia's home. I wish I could remember the name of the building and the sculpture, but I can't. One of these days I will go there and see if there's a plaque that I can photograph.

What's your opinion of these tulips from the Portland Farmers Market?

I got these tulips on May 9 and couldn't resist taking several photos of them. When I looked at the photos, seeing how perfectly the vendor's newspaper wrap had been folded around them to reveal the Opinion section heading, I felt, "Ah, serendipity!"

I took the first photo after setting my rolling black bag up onto a table.


I took this photo in the parking garage elevator.


I took this photo in the conference room at the PCPA--I went to an usher meeting after leaving the farmers' market--Sarah gave me a ride, that's why I was in an elevator in a parking garage.


I took this photo looking down at the tulips, on the MAX on my way home after the meeting, .

Seen on the streets of Portland, No. 6

How many of can say that we've ever seen a dentist's chair on the sidewalk? This is my first one.

After PCPA's Volunteer Orientation on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2009, I walked north towards the general vicinity of Kenny and Zuke’s, thinking about pastrami and potato salad. Their call had such a hold on me that I practically missed this photo opportunity.

Drawing even with the door in the sidewalk, I stopped, backed a couple of steps and verified, "Yes, that's a dentist's chair on the sidewalk." So I got out the camera and clicked off a few. I like this one best because I got the highway sign on the truck's side.

Waiting people overflowed out of Kenny and Zuke's, so I postponed my visit, opting instead to head home.