The ‘States of Being’ in Portland

On Thursday, April 4, I was invited to attend an art show titled “States of Being” hosted at the Erickson Gallery in Portland’s Pearl District that would be featuring the work of my aunt, Rita Alves, and several other artists.

Photos by Lacoda Kiesel Howe

I am passionate about art and its impact on the world, both now and in all moments of history, so I was thrilled to attend and see how each piece would affect me.

Here, I highlight my three favorite pieces and delve into their artist’s desires for the work, adding my feelings and interpretation for each.

My favorite piece of the night was “Vanishing,” crafted by Samuel Jayms Case, a Seattle-based artist. The materials and techniques used were very unconventional, with charcoal pencil recreations of “lost photographs” depicting moments between queer people of the past, applied to lace and laid over a background of goldleaf.

The effect of the lacey shadows and golden reflection causes the faces and forms of the two young men in embrace to fade away and muddle, depending on your vantage point, mimicking the likely reality of the people in the original photo.

The image itself was extremely moving to me, but the true impact was the thought that the love of the people featured in those photos would be immortalized in beautifully rich gold and lace.

To no surprise, my cousin Rita’s “Market Street Ash” resonated deeply with me. The central panel of the quilt showcases a gloomy, gray landscape of tents under an overpass, patched in swatches of dark fabric that surround it, and shaping the quilt into a broken square.

Small flecks of color can be seen in scrap pieces sewn to the edges and in the bright star on the horizon, begging us to see the hope at the end of the tunnel.

Alves showcased work that addresses the visceral hurt of grief and its all-consuming sense of brokenness, as well as the brief moments of hope we feel in the dark.

The pain I felt was palpable, as someone who has lost many people to the ashes of grief and will never fully recover. It was deeply moving, and one of the best pieces I’ve seen from her.

Finally, the ceramic cast pillows created by Cassie Thompson had a subtle, nearly indescribable impact on me. With a single glance they may not look like much more than heavy slabs of stone, but the purposeful subversion of the material itself makes them a fascinating piece. The soft, decorative, fragile nature of the pillow is posed in similar fashion to the often-fragile role of women; but the piece also mirrors the invisible strength and passive endurance of women.

It was a unique and thought-provoking piece for me, rather than an emotional one, its playful and deceitful design inspiring a desire to understand.

For the sake of brevity, many pieces I saw that evening cannot be brought forward for my thoughts here – but art, in itself, is infinite and ever-expanding.

Our world is rich with both art and artists, every day creating another perfectly human piece of our existence and establishing living history. There are art showcases all around us, from museums and galleries, to the art on the walls and the stickers sold across campus. We must learn to love and see art for its value; in doing so, we become even more human.