Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

PCC celebrates 20th edition of the college’s largest event

Photos and story by James Hill

There is something for everyone at Portland Community College’s 20th Annual Art Beat festival.

Art Beat 2007 will spread across all three PCC campuses and the Southeast Center from May 7-11, offering students and the community access to local, regional and national artists, as well as an extensive collection of visual art, dance, music, theater and literary events to help expose them to art. The best part of Art Beat is that it is free and open to the public.

To commemorate the 20th year of Art Beat, there will be an exhibition of the featured artwork PCC has acquired through the years. PCC acquires a piece from an artist of the region to add to its Art Beat collection each year. These include paintings, drawings, prints, sculpture, textiles and photography that are usually dispersed among the PCC campuses and not always easy to view.

But this year, the college has brought together the entire collection and will be on display May 7-11 in Terrell Hall 102 at the Cascade Campus. Seen as a totality, it mirrors the diversity of the community: colorful, complex and rich.

Parking at all three campuses, plus the Southeast Center, is free during Art Beat. The events will be held at the Cascade Campus (705 N. Killingsworth), Rock Creek Campus (17705 N.W. Springville Road), Southeast Center (2305 S.E. 82nd and Division) the Sylvania Campus (12000 S.W. 49th Ave.), and the Southeast Center (2305 S.E. 82nd and Division). For a complete schedule, please visit the Art Beat Web site at artbeat.pcc.edu

Featured Artist

“Shine” is the title of the featured art piece for this year’s 20th Anniversary Art Beat. The work is a three-dimensional metal sculpture installation and is patterned after various architectural elements. The featured artist who made it is Mylan Rakich of St. Johns and he says the inspiration for the piece was PCC.

“The campuses are composed very nicely,” said Rakich, who lives in St. Johns. “What I do is I look at a building and its exposed structure, like a support beam, to get my ideas. Rock Creek was the particular setting which inspired this piece.”

Rakich, a large scale metal sculptor and an assistant sculpture professor at Portland State University, will discuss his unique approach to three-dimensional compositions in mild steel at Art Beat. The New York native will lead demonstrations on Tuesday, May 8 from 11 a.m. to noon in the Building 3 Forum at the Rock Creek Campus; Wednesday, May 9, from 2 to 3 p.m. in the Little Theatre at Sylvania Campus; and Thursday, May 10 at the Moriarty Arts and Humanities Building (Room 108) at the Cascade Campus from 10 to 11 a.m.

He is a regular at Portland’s Butters Gallery (520 N.W. Davis). You can find many of his artwork at the gallery and he plans to have a one-man show next year there. He also has art installations at Clackamas and Lane community colleges and in city parks in Washington state.

More information on Mylan Rakich

Art Beat Kickoff Reception

On Monday, May 7, Art Beat officially gets underway with an opening reception celebrating 20 years of Art Beat. The event will be from noon to 1 p.m., outdoors between the SS and the Moriarty Arts and Humanities buildings at the Cascade Campus. PCC District President Preston Pulliams will officially open the event and accept this year’s art from its creator, Mylan Rakich. Allen Jones and Gene Smith, from the college’s Professional Music Program, will provide entertainment. Refreshments will be served.

Art Beat 2007 Highlights

Yussef El Guindi is an Arab-American playwright who lives and works in Seattle. His plays, “Back of the Throat,” and “Ten Acrobats in an Amazing Leap of Faith,” have garnered awards and praise nationwide. El Guindi will perform from 1 to 2 p.m. on Monday, May 7 in the Forum in Building 3 of the Rock Creek Campus; and Tuesday, May 8 from 1 to 2 p.m. in the Little Theatre at the Sylvania Campus and 4 to 5 p.m. in Room 104 of MAHB at the Cascade Campus.

Grupo Condor’s music is a multi-cultural blend of European, American, and African influences. From the traditional Andean favorites to their original compositions, their arrangements are lively and enticing. They will appear from noon to 1 p.m. at each respective campus. They will perform on Monday, May 7 in the Performing Arts Center Foyer at the Sylvania Campus; Tuesday, May 8 at the Mt. Tabor Great Hall of the Southeast Center; Wednesday, May 9 in the Dining Center of the Cascade Campus; and Thursday, May 10 in The Forum of Building 3 at the Rock Creek Campus.

Kurt Kemp’s printmaking works have been exhibited throughout the world. Kemp, a professor at Sonoma State University, produces brightly colored images of surreal human and animal hybrids. His works have been exhibited in galleries such as Rosensteel Gallery (Phoenix, Ariz.), Hook Epstein Galleries (Houston, Texas), Davidson Galleries (Seattle, Wash.) and Aurobora Press (San Francisco, Calif.). Kemp’s workshop will be from 2 to 4 p.m. on Tuesday, May 8 in Room 223 of the Moriarty Arts and Humanities Building (MAHB) at the Cascade Campus; and noon to 1 p.m. on Thursday, May 10 in the Little Theatre at the Sylvania Campus.

Essayist and short story writer Charles D’Ambrosio’s works have been published regularly in The New Yorker and The Paris Review. His first story collection, “The Point,” was a finalist for the Pen/Hemmingway Award. He will appear from 11 a.m. to noon on Thursday, May 10 in the Little Theatre of the Sylvania Campus.

Contacts

For more information, call 503-977-4270. Those needing interpreting or other accommodations, call the Office for Students with Disabilities, 503-977-4341 voice, 503-246-4072 TTY.

Portland Community College is the largest post-secondary institution in Oregon, serving approximately 88,200 full- and part-time students. For more PCC news, please visit us on the Web at www.pcc.edu/news. PCC has three comprehensive campuses, five workforce training and education centers, and 200 community locations in the Portland metropolitan area. The PCC district encompasses a 1,500-square-mile area in northwest Oregon and offers two-year degrees, one-year certificate programs, short-term training, alternative education, pre-college courses and life-long learning.