The Porcelain Diaries: A Peek at Portland’s Funky & Fabulous Bathrooms

is a collection of 51 bathrooms that are humorous, inventive and artistic.

The men’s room at Rontom’s on East Burnside falls within the artistic slot

of this book. Colorful, local, vibrant art, with a touch of whimsy,

adorns the interior walls of this bar while a darker, deeper vibe

courses it way into the men’s restroom. Kris Hargis is the artist

who created these images which leave so much room for interpretation.

I’ve always felt a place, an object and people become all the more fascinating

when you know a little bit about how they came to be who or what you see today.

Willamette Week did an art review of Kris Hargis and gives us some insight

into this Portland artist. A little food for thought as you create your own interpretation

of these sketches found in the men’s room at Rontoms.

Willamette Week Feb.13, 2013 By: Richard Speer

Art Review: Kris Hargis, Vale la Pena

Inside, outside, inside…

One of the basic questions artists face is whether to focus on social, political and spiritual concerns or the narrower purview of their own inner worlds. From antiquity to the Romantic period, artists often deployed human figures as stand-ins for mythological or religious conceits. In more recent times, painters such as Salvador Dalí, Frida Kahlo and Francis Bacon honed their focuses relentlessly inward, leading viewers on often harrowing tours of their own neuroses and psychosexual bugaboos.

Portland-based artist Kris Hargis, a staple at Froelick Gallery since 2002, has tended toward the latter strategy, turning a mirror on his own mind through the prism of self-portraiture. In earlier shows, his weary, sad-sack visages tried too hard to evoke the idea of the artist as a tortured, tragic hero. This undermined his solid technique with an overload of histrionic Sturm und Drang.

Then, two years ago, he undertook a new project, drawing and painting American servicemen and -women who had recently returned from tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Opening his blinders from the self to include others, he titled the body of work, tellingly, me and you. Almost overnight his work widened correspondingly, his skill as a renderer finally matched by a vision beyond the solipsistic.

Now, in Vale la Pena (which he translates to mean “worth the pain”), Hargis returns to the self-portrait, informed by this newfound perspective. He reimagines himself as a haggard cowboy in El Vaquero, his open expression and ice-blue eyes inviting viewers to survey their own interior landscapes, even as they conjure the dusty vistas of Mesoamerica and the American West. His self-portrait as an alienlike androgyne, Mi otro Yo, has an eerie, transhumanist quality that recalls the star woman in Piet Mondrian’s classic 1911 triptych,Evolution. But the real revelations in Hargis’ latest outing are his haunting floral still lifes: desiccated irises and hydrangeas whose petals stretch out like impossibly delicate fingers, reaching for rain that will not fall. In their virtuosic detail, they impress the eye and guide the allusion-seeking brain to the ache of yearning and disappointment. These are tiny masterpieces: blooms from an aesthetic development that took nearly a decade to sprout, and make for Hargis’ most affecting show to date.

Story: Portland Monthly Feb 2013 Aaron Scott

Images: Courtesy Joshua Timmermans and Andy Batt

MOST PORTLANDERS have encountered that instant change of mood, let’s call it an M4 moment, where you thought you were doing one thing—commuting over the Hawthorne Bridge, wandering a crowded street fair, standing outside the Schnitz—when suddenly, with the crash of drums, the ring of horns, and the holler of stilt walkers, everything changes and you’re wrapped up in a Sgt. Pepper’s Technicolor Carnival Marching Band hallucination.

There was a time in the mid-’00s when the MarchFourth Marching Band was everywhere, pulling up in its signature fire truck, playing every festival and Alberta event, winning Willamette Week’s Best Local Band, ringing the hallowed atrium of City Hall like a cymbal for former Mayor Sam Adams’s swearing-in celebration, and always leaving just before the police arrived (at least that one time it put on an unpermitted parade with Tom Green for a segment on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno).

But you’d be excused for realizing it’s been a while since you last heard their rallying cry, “Joy Now!” That’s because they’re now on the road 175 days a year, a modern coterie of merry pranksters touring music halls across the country.

Image: Andy Batt

Celebrating its 10th birthday at the Crystal Ballroom this month, the band has come of age with modern Portland. With its home-welded drum harnesses, upcycled uniforms, globe-spanning music mash-up, and entrepreneurial drive to succeed at a seemingly outrageous project (a band that supports 24 people!), MarchFourth basically plays the anthem for Portland’s weird-leaning DIY makers with big dreams. And like the city itself and many of its arts organizations, over the past decade the ensemble has grown up—into a polished, professional, collaborative project that is just on the edge of full sustainability.

Image: Andy Batt

“They’re ‘a little ol’ marching band’ just as Portland is a ‘little ol’ city in the Pacific Northwest’: neither is going to be hemmed in by what other people think,” says Adams, now the executive director of City Club. “Portland marches to the beat of its own drum, and MarchFourth makes sure that beat is always changing.”

The band started when five friends—John Averill on bass, Dan Stauffer on percussion, Nathan Wallway on stilts, and dancers and twins Faith and Nayana Jennings—roped in two dozen other musicians to play a one-off Mardi Gras party on March 4, 2003 (thus the multivalent name). But when the US invaded Iraq two weeks later, they decided to march in the first antiwar protest, playing their six cover songs on repeat. The effect was musical alchemy, transmuting anger into a clapping, dancing crowd of followers.

“Here was this band that was even more joyous and fantastic than Pink Martini,” recalls Pink Martini bandleader Thomas Lauderdale, who was among the crowd. “From the beginning it was this perfect Portland progressive project that was musical, activist, galvanizing, and inspiring, even in the bleakest situations.”

Image: Andy Batt

Pink Martini hired MarchFourth to open several concerts, which sparked corporate gigs and local events, which in turn bought MarchFourth time to hone its unique, percussion-driven mixed drink of New Orleans brass, Latin big band, funk, Balkan, Afrobeat, Middle Eastern, and whatever else members found inspiring. The ragtag rabble grew into 30-plus musicians, dancers, and stilt walkers. They were admittedly sloppy, but their sloppiness paled next to their spectacle and enthusiasm.

Given the group’s size, few onlookers envisioned a life beyond beloved local house band status. But band members’ ambitions were ignited by a last-minute madcap trip to Germany during the World Cup in 2006. They went to perform at the Altonale Festival, where they beat out 50 groups from around the world for “Best in Show,” but they picked up Cup-related gigs along the way. “The whole world was in Germany,” says saxophonist Robin Jackson, who has since left the group to cofound Joy Now, a circus, music, and performance program taught by band members. “The magic was out of control. We marched down the red-light district; we invaded the subways and busked on the streets.”

Image: Andy Batt

So the band started to tour. First to one-offs, like New Belgium Brewing’s Tour de Fat festivals and an appearance with Pink Martini and Carol Channing at the Hollywood Bowl. Then in 2007, MarchFourth bought a bus off eBay for $10,000, fixed it up (naming it “Razzle Dazzle” after Channing’s trademark song), and went on a national tour: 22 cities in seven weeks with some 35 people on board. “This band is not going to be sustainable if we hang out in Portland,” says bandleader Averill, who continues to split management duties with the four other founders. “Without a bus, MarchFourth doesn’t work. We cook on the bus; we sleep on the bus. It’s kind of like a mobile home for 24 people.”

The bus led to a booking agent in 2010, which was the final catalyst. Distant gigs were no longer just fun field trips: MarchFourth was now a touring act. It put 250,000 miles on Razzle Dazzle before she died in Arizona, spurring them to raise $50,000 via Kickstarter for a newer model.

With the transformation came a shift in personnel. Part-timers with day jobs and families pulled back, making room for new, mostly full-time members willing to scrape by on a small day rate in order to be part of something magical, supplemented by side projects such as making merchandise for the band’s pop-up boutique. Against all odds (and presumably rational thought), MarchFourth Marching Band has become the primary occupation of two-dozen people. “One of the biggest assets is the fact that there’s no one central figure,” says Nayana Jennings, the founder in charge of general management. “People can come and go because it’s greater than the sum of its parts.”

Over the years, MarchFourth has streamlined, added electric guitar, moved into more rock-influenced original material, and released four records, shedding its early exuberant sloppiness for a tight, hard-driving show with polished dance routines that’s earning it invitations to ever more prestigious festivals, from the Telluride Jazz Fest to Jam Cruise. The goal now is for the band to be truly sustainable, providing a fully livable wage and health insurance. Managers believe it’s possible if they keep building audiences the old-fashioned way (while crossing their fingers for a late-night-show invitation or viral video), because they’ve learned that, just as they transformed that antiwar protest 10 years ago, they have the same effect everywhere they go.

“We strike a chord in the consciousness of America wherever we travel,” says dance team coordinator Aaron Lyon. “People believe in what we’re doing: ‘There’s that traveling band of misfits who are doing it together, altering the way people live.’” —Aaron Scott

Bike Pyle on SW 13th & Burnside

Portland is known for being a city that is full of bike-enthusiasts, being bike-friendly, as well as bike-centric. It’s also known as a city that invents, embraces and exalts both the legitimate and quirky. Here’s one of those quirky, yet legitimate, thrills you can only experience here in Portland: Zoobomb.

Walking past the intersection at SW 13th and West Burnside you can’t help but notice the pastel colored, trike-sized and banana boat seat rigged bikes that are piled and chained to a vertical pole topped with a gold-leafed bicycle figure. A visitor might even think: Wow, I never realized what total body strength cycling creates, even the children here in Portland are power-houses, they’re able to hoist their bikes up over their heads and secure them onto this pole? But why?

Although these bikes may be mini-sized they are used for big size fun, fondly known as Zoobomb. Every Sunday night a group of thrill-seeking, bike-enthusiasts unchain these bikes, pump up the tires, do a safety, check perform minor tune-ups, then head to Portland’s light rail system, the MAX, and ride the line up to the Zoo. Once all the Zoobombers have gathered together at the top, they prepare to zoom down the careening hill en masses on this eclectic collection of bikes. Portland is the only place Zoobombing exists. The ride is often repeated several times in an evening. The city has sanctioned this event, the Mayor has even participated in this event. A medic trails along at the back of the pack and is there to assist if need be, the surrounding neighbors have no issue with this weekly event and the Zoobombers make it a point to leave no trace behind. Participants say it’s a rush like no other and it’s a thrilling way to end the weekend.

The Porcelain Diaries connects the reader with Portland’s creative community and their dedication to local art, sustainability and historical preservation with its sharp and witty narrations that contain stories and insights from talented restaurateurs and business owners, all of which fosters this town’s renowned reputation as the most eccentric and wildly popular places to visit and live.

Whether it was thought out by a team of designers, envisioned by an artist, handcrafted by the passionate owners, or forever being embellished by the creative souls who inhabit these rooms, even if only for a brief few minutes in their lives, the bathrooms of Portland are a destination in and of themselves.

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This is not intended to be a Wikipedia submission but I know for myself, I have had many experiences with the feeling of deja vu and wondered: hmm gosh why does this seem so familiar to me; or even had been thinking about a person and then they call or text or you run into them. I do believe if you are open to the universe and the possibility that everything can’t be explained by science you can be guided to some pretty amazing discoveries and lead to some paramount connections that have a positive impact on you.

Through some of these such connections I befriended  a very talented women who started a publishing and distribution company called Bree Noa. She gave me a copy of one of the titles they printed, it also just so happens that the author is her business partner, and I read an amazing story about a Portland women who wrote a very candid account of her life and her path to recovery and self fulfillment. The book is called: You Know Your Way Home and the author Suzanne Jauchius is a psychic. Suzanne shares her story because she believes true healing occurs when stories are shared and passed on. With dozens of glowing reviews on amazon and positive feedback from readers on her facebook page you need not only take my word that this story is a must read.

More to the point of this blog post, which is not a book review, Suzanne is a gifted psychic and has been helping people see with clarity what attributes they are strongest at, where their true passion guides them and empowers them to take strides towards being their authentic self. So many times we choose a path that seems safe or responsible or one that will make others so proud and happy -we forget to listen to our inner authentic self when choosing the path that would best suit our strengths and fulfill our passions.

This past December I schedule a reading with Suzanne, I had never had a reading before and I really wasn’t sure what to expect but I did feel like after reading her book and knowing a little bit more about her through my friend and colleague -she was the real deal.I won’t go into what was revealed at my reading but I will tell you what you can expect of this experience. Suzanne sees images which she translates into words for you. You are asked to bring a personal item, specific to you only, for her to hold during the reading. I gave her my wedding ring to hold. She starts off the reading with a few quiet minutes focusing on connecting with your personal object. Images appear to her and she relays them to you. These images which she translates into words describe you, your core, what makes you tick, what you are good at, your natural talents. She doesn’t ask any questions of you until those images start to slow down then she asks for your feedback about what she saw. From there forward, the conversation naturally unfolds and as you ask a certain question Suzanne receives more images that begin to speak to your question. It can be quite an eye opening and or an affirming experience. Suzanne can also communicate with those who have passed on, for me it was peaceful and heart-warming, my father passed away nearly 4 years ago and messages were shared with me that couldn’t and weren’t expressed between the two of us before he passed away because of our physical distance as well as the anxiety and sadness that filled the hearts and heads of the people who were present. It was a very comforting and lovely few minutes that felt like taking back a memorable hour with my Dad.

Another aspect that I thought was intriguing, insightful and enjoyable was looking at the personalities of my children. As a parent you feel like you see your children for all their strengths and weaknesses but as they get older we sometimes project what those characteristics are instead of really observing them as constantly evolving and changing individuals. It was fun, interesting and even soothing to hear the images that presented themselves for each of my children.

I enjoyed my reading 100% and if you have ever contemplated having one done I would highly suggest you contact this naturally gifted women. Oh and I almost forgot, Suzanne tapes your reading for you and you are welcome to audio record it via your smart phone or ipad. Listening to your reading a second or third time over, you’d be amazed what you missed because you’re head was going 100 miles an hour processing and digesting.

Suzanne Jauchius lives in West Linn, Oregon and you can schedule a reading with her easily through her website www.suzannejauchius.com Suzanne can also be heard every first Monday on The Buzz 105.1 from 4:30-5:30 with Daria, Mitch & Ted

Don’t forget to look into her book as well. It’s a hard to put down memoir of her awkward childhood and her careening adult life and coming to terms with her gift and overcoming her weaknesses. You Know Your Way Home