Murals around Portland, Forest for the Trees NW, seen on Sunday, August 31, my mural find #1

Forest for the Trees, August 18 through 23, is a not-for-profit public mural project in Portland, Oregon. (Seen on their Web site.)



The first mural I located while out and about in my Zipcar Kia Soul, named Greer. Artist: Rather Severe of Portland, Oregon. Location: 3602 NE Sandy Blvd. On their Web site: Murals and Artworks by Jon Stommel & Travis Czekalski. This mural is part of Portland's 2014 Forest For The Trees Mural Project. The wall is at 3602 NE Sandy Blvd on the side of Pulse PDX, painted over a 6 day period. It was such a great honor to participate in the project and represent local artists in Portland!



It's a miracle that I found this mural as easily as I did, since I was driving Greer east on Sandy, and the mural faces west. I knew I was close, from what the iPhone GPS I had plugged in was telling me, so I decided to pull into the lot to turn around and go back west on Sandy. As soon as I entered this empty parking lot, I saw this beauty out of the corner of my eye. Wow. Wow. Wow.



Something about its colors and shapes and vivid-self made me slowly shut the car door, staring at it and  deciding subconsciously not to shut the door all the way, not to make a sound to interrupt my mural-induced reverie.



More from FFTT Web site: Forest for the Trees is a not-for-profit public mural project in Portland, Oregon. The mural project promotes public visual expression; collaboration; and community engagement with contemporary art and the creative process. In August 2013, FFTT united seventeen artists from around the world to paint ten Portland murals.

This August, twenty local and international artists will come together for a week in Portland to paint more than a dozen pieces on public walls. FFTT aims to bring opportunity for local and visiting artists, and to share their gifts on a large public scale in Portland—a city already known as a creative hub and home to many talented artists.