Last week I had the opportunity to show and sell my art in The Pearl for First Thursday. Twas a scathingly delightful summer evening with all the usual suspects...and quite a few new vendors since last time I showed there.
The success of this monthly outdoor event which coincides with gallery openings all over Northwest Portland, exceeds itself. It has morphed from a very humble art walk to the "see & be scene" that it is today.
What a difference a few years make!
My artist-neighbor was a very animated painter whose style attracted lots of lookers and quite a few buyers. One woman in particular who was in town visiting, stopped to chat. After living here for seven years, she went back to her native Spain.
Compared to her sunny clime, she definitely doesn't miss the rain, but she went on to say, there are two things about Portland she does miss very much.
I listened intently. I thought it would be Oregon's beauty, its people or its microbrews.
Nah, none of the above.
Imagine my surprise to hear the two things this Spaniard misses the most about Portland is 'First Thursday' and 'Last Thursday'--two very-decidedly Portland traditions.
"Yes!", I thought.
Portland doesn't need bumper stickers claiming a place among the weird. If anything, she is unique, quirky, maybe a little eccentric...after all, we eschew umbrellas in one of the rainiest corners of the world...
But weird?
Nah, we're just being our charming selves, making up the rules as we go, doing what suits us, living and letting live...
...like any good Oregonian would!
