Oil and acrylic on canvas
2018
20” x 16”
The corner of N. Williams and Russell in Portland, where the historic Hill Building stood at the hub of what was once a thriving African-American district with renowned jazz clubs and deep community roots; after it was demolished in the 1970s to expand Emanuel Hospital, the vacant site was never developed and sits empty to this day. This painting is part of a series called Ghosts of Albina, about Portland's history of racial displacement and the mass destruction of homes and community through urban renewal over the last century. This may be the whitest big city in the country, but the popular refrain that "there are no Black people in Portland" dismisses both a community that very much exists, and the stories behind a neighborhood perennially in danger of disappearing from the map.
100% of sales of these paintings (after venue commission) will be donated to the Urban League of Portland, an African-American civil rights and advocacy group whose headquarters still stand across the street from this vacant lot.
Image description: Painting of a street corner with overlapping imagery of a large domed commercial building, rendered in a loose, blurry style, and a vacant grass lot and sidewalk, with a pair of squat signs at the corner and a traffic light, all rendered more concretely.
Oil and acrylic on canvas
2018
16” x 20”
LV's Twelve22, one of North Portland's last Black-owned clubs, stood at N. Vancouver and Fremont on what is now the site of one of the most conspicuously sleek and modern structures in the massive wave of high-end development transforming the stretch of the Williams-Vancouver Corridor once known as Portland’s “Black Broadway.”
Image description: Painting of overlapping images of two buildings. In the “background” is a squat green nightclub building with a black sign reading “LV’s Twelve22,” with a few scattered cinder blocks on the ground. Superimposed over this is a white line drawing of a sleek, modern multi-story mixed-use building.
Oil and acrylic on canvas
2018
12” x 12”
The Interstate 5 onramp at Williams and Broadway near the Rose Quarter. Nearly every landmark in this area—I-5, Memorial Coliseum, the Moda Center, the Rose Quarter Transit Center, the Oregon Convention Center—stands on what used to be residential and commercial blocks in the heart of the Albina neighborhood.
Image description: Painting of a city street with a freeway on-ramp forking off the the left, under a pair of green overhead signs. At right is a telephone pole with a blue “H” hospital sign. The sky is a blend of grey and soft rusty orange. Two cars are seen on the on-ramp and there are trees in the background. Faintly rendered above the scene are white line drawings of two houses.
Oil and acrylic on canvas
2018
12” x 12”
The Fremont Bridge's east side on/offramp, which cuts a long diagonal path through empty land between I-5 and Emanuel Hospital, all of which stand on what used to be residential blocks. The view seen here is from the point where streets are cut off just north of the ramp—one of several places where the Albina neighborhood was sliced and fragmented by large-scale city projects.
Image description: Painting of a flat, curved freeway offramp winding through a vacant area of tall grass, with trees on the horizon. The sky is burgundy. In the foreground is a street sign with perpendicular signs reading “N COOK ST” and “N COMMERCIAL AVE.” Superimposed over the scene is a white line drawing of two houses.
Oil and acrylic on canvas
2018
12” x 12”
The Smithson block at N. Interstate Avenue and Russell was a densely populated apartment building in the heart of Old Albina. There is a city plaque outside of the Widmer Brothers brewpub seen here that describes the area's early history as a railroad company town, but includes nothing about the redlining practices that established it as a Black enclave, nor the disinvestment that led to its decline.
Image description: Painting of a city street corner with a large three-story brick building. The composition is blurry and muted like an old faded photo, except for four rectangular sections that are more crisply and brightly rendered. These sections show the building in present day under a blue sky, with a Widmer Brothers sign and orange rental bikes.
Oil and acrylic on canvas
2018
20” x 16”
The Hazelwood building at NE Broadway and Flint, site of legendary jazz club the Dude Ranch in the postwar years when the surrounding area was a bustling entertainment district known as Jumptown. This was the cultural and commercial hub of Black Portland, established by redlining practices and then largely wiped off the map by disinvestment and demolition. The Dude Ranch was the biggest jazz hotspot west of Chicago, hosting appearances by Louis Armstrong, among others. It was shut down by the city as a “public nuisance” after only a few years of operation, but the building stands today as the only remaining artifact of those old nightclubs, surrounded by freeway ramps, the Moda Center, the Convention Center, and Memorial Coliseum—all built on what used to be neighborhood blocks.
Image description: Painting of, from front to back: a brick building, the Moda Center, and the Oregon Convention Center, superimposed in front of each other. At lower right is a white line drawing of the facade of the same brick building seen at a different angle. The composition has a distressed, messy aesthetic, with vertical stripes of white and rust throughout.
Oil and acrylic on canvas
2018
12” x 16”
The stretch of N. Russell St. running between Interstate Avenue and the freeway underpass was a business thoroughfare in Old Albina before disinvestment and the construction of I-5 all but suffocated the area to death. Today this strip is gradually sprouting brewpubs and boutiques thanks to the revitalization brought by the nearby MAX light rail line, but this former commercial building is still waiting its turn. Most likely it will be torn down—the “U” sign signals to firefighters that a structure is unsafe or noncompliant with building codes.
Image description: Painting of a dilapidated two-story wooden building on a city street, under a blue sky. It is completely boarded up, and has a faded red sign reading “U”. In front of the building are a lamppost and a tree.
Oil and acrylic on canvas
2018
14” x 11”
A gathering place throughout the Albina neighborhood’s history, Dawson Park on N. Williams remains an unofficial town square for Portland’s African-American community, including former residents long since priced out of their homes in the area who still make the trip to hang out, barbecue, shoot dominoes and play music. The dome crowning the gazebo was salvaged from the historic Hill Building two blocks away, after its demolition in the 1970s for a hospital expansion that never materialized. Today the gazebo serves as a stage for lively summer concerts in one of the few genuinely Black spaces left in the neighborhood.
Image description: Painting of a gazebo surrounded by trees and grass. Its dome is rusty red and beige, topped with a minaret shape, and its support columns are a muted green, also topped with minaret shapes.