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Lead Pencil Studio and Portland’s Inversion: Plus Minus Public Art Project with Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo

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Inversion: Plus Minus | “Looking Through the Past Into the Present”

This is a story about art.  About public art — a public installation of grand, yet grounded proportions.  It is a story of architecture.  Of science and of history.  Of a way of looking at an environment and a landscape with a poetic understanding.  Of blending inspiration, appreciation, and idea with the realities of weather, structure, and observation and of seeing grace and beauty in the forgotten and the abandoned– in a cityscape of low-profile commercialism, traffic rushing to destinations elsewhere, and the utilitarian harshness of streets dominated by warehousing.  It is also about what is left when something is gone as a place evolves through time.  And it is about connecting to people, their sense of place and their capacity for appreciation.

 

It is about Inversion: Plus Minus, the filigree-like corten steel structures that now rise up to define the eastern finishing point of Portland’s Hawthorne Bridge.  Conceived of, designed, and built by Seattle-based Lead Pencil Studio’s artist-architects, Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo (both are UO Department of Architecture alumni), the installation is a public art project administered by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and part of the city’s 2% for Art ordinance and Portland Streetcar’s expansion to the central eastside..

Inversion: Plus Minus sits comfortably within the ethos and reputation of oeuvre recognized and accomplished by Seattle’s Lead Pencil Studio—a studio renowned for the blending of art and architecture or as UO architecture professor Howard Davis explains, a “blending of the intellectual experience of art with the physical | visceral experience of a building.”  Which, is, indeed the initial step to observing and understanding these structures:  Davis, continues, “that physical experience (as a work of architecture) is tactile, haptic, temporal, environmental; and because it at the same time defies architectural expectations (as a work of art) it provokes thought about the idea of building itself.  Art becomes architecture, and architecture becomes art….the installation [Inversion: Plus Minus] clearly does this splendidly.”

Selected by a RACC-assembled public art panel in 2011, Lead Pencil Studio’s Han and Mihalyo saw the pre-Inversion: Plus Minus Hawthorne Bridge location as a “ruthless pedestrian environment” immersed in a region of  “old billboard structures, warehouses, and a density of commercial [buildings]” that had defined and shaped the area for over a century.  Han and Mihalyo visualized the environment as predisposed to inspiration they derived from shipyard-scaffolding, and a poignant sense of industry left behind once the production was completed.

The actual physical east Portland location, imagined from an historic perspective and from a vision that acknowledged a past of industrial and commercial ebb and flow, gave the artist-architect team the sense that “it had a life already” and that life required expression and appreciation.  Thus, Inversion: Plus Minus can be said to provide a glimpse of what had existed, and a reference to a past, of buildings that once stood in this place with rooflines discernable in the silhouettes of Inversion: Plus Minus.  By presenting the idea as a void or a shadow of a building, not solid, but permeable, with the wind and the rain having full access, this tumbleweed-like aesthetic gives viewers an opportunity to imagine and to “capture a sky, a volume, a gesture, and to give one an experience,” describes Han.

Both Han and Mihalyo confide that it is futile to try and control the meaning of their work:  “providing a narrative—confines the work too much.”  Their goal, they say, is for the individual to “come to their own conclusions: it is more meaningful that way.”  And while the quizzical form of the installation, its spiny composition of right-angle welded small pieces, from afar appearing digital in form, pixelesque in repetition fascinates the eye, Han and Mihalyo point to the questions it might raise and the discussions it might precipitate as being the most important.  Inversion: Plus Minus succeeds in capturing a void, a series of spaces otherwise lost in the ethereal upper stories atmosphere blanketing a busy streetscape.  The structure frames a memory bringing recognition to a history and a concept of all things existing, somehow connected to our present and bridging that gap between emptiness and purpose.

University of Oregon Department of Architecture | Portland program director, Nancy Cheng comments on the installation:

By recreating the edges of the former industrial buildings, the art piece pays homage to ordinary workers’ lives.  The anonymity of the building forms speaks about the dignity of common person’s mundane existence.

 

The composition of metal strips recalls the static of a not-quite-in-tune television set, evoking the ephemeral quality of a dream.  The disciplined orthogonal order creates a random weave texture that reveals the contemporary origin of the artpiece.  Because these members catch the light in different ways, the appearance of the piece changes according to the lighting condition and viewing angle.  I first saw the piece in silhouette, which muted its spatial characteristics.  Photos show how that direct sunlight brings out the more literal architectural features, and reveals a rich depth of layering.

Years ago, Portlanders passed by, worked in, and interacted with structures at the Hawthorne Bridge | Grand Avenue location that resembled the roofline and height of Inversion: Plus Minus.  From the 1930s-1950s, businesses bustled and people came and went in a dense urban environment.  Prosperity eventually waned and the area shifted focus transitioning to a much more car-oriented comfort level.  Buildings once here disappeared: torn down, removed, simply altered to fit a new aesthetic, different requirements, and modern commercialism.  The environment morphed, materialistic things came and went, replaced by new buildings, new business, new people.   A sense of curiosity remains, however, with a love of a place, aren’t we compelled to wonder what happened to what was before, after all, did it not influence our present and effect our future?  Does it simply disappear?  Seeking to explain or justify or even just satisfy a sort of questioning of the past in a way reminiscent of Roman poet and philosopher Titus Lucretius Carus’ epic poem, On the Nature of Things, who writes “all things flow –the things thus grow.”  It is an approach that fits rather well with Lead Pencil Studio’s ideology.  The original structures are long gone, disunited, but what remains or has replaced the emptiness is represented with affection and a weathered rust-orange patina of nostalgia that has become evocatively representational.  Han comments that Inversion: Plus Minus sought to “repair the fabric of the city;” and that the desire was “to let Inversion: Plus Minus exist as a reference point similar in size to buildings that were here historically.” Lead Pencil Studio’s installation reaches into the skyline in an attempt “to relate to the city and the scale of the city, to walk between the presence and the absence….” says Han.  It stands as a series of right angle outlines that forge a description of history, and summon a memory.

“Public art is blood after it has been oxygenated, coursing through our bodies providing a necessary component for survival.”  —Ms. Lynette Hanson, member of the public on Inversion: Plus Minus

 

The idea of this public art installation as a work of memory, a piece meant to acknowledge something that existed in our past is captivating.  But as a piece of public art, how does it function?  What does it bring to our community?  I set out recently to gather concentrated community responses to this work from the public as I felt that would help to anchor Inversion: Plus Minus to the community and foster a dialogue that accepted the piece as permanent piece of our landscape.

I decided to begin at the beginning: with the people who were watching the installation in situ from the get-go, and would be looking at it daily for a very long time.  What I came across were some wonderful surprises and a delightful treasure, Lynette Hanson; her co-worker Steve Wright (both employees with the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office); and the west-facing office window-side employees of the Multnomah County Information Technology offices.

 

Hanson works on the third floor of the Multnomah Building in the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office.  Across the street, her office window looks directly towards Inversion: Plus Minus. She has no formal art or architecture background, and works as an office administrator.  She does have an enthusiastic love of photography, and an appreciation for all things Portland.

 

As she says,

“I ….watched and photographed the installation of Inversion from the third floor of the Multnomah Building where I work, it was on the SE Grand sidewalk one January evening after work that it dawned on me that I could see the downtown skyline through the supports.  I could look through the past into the present.”

I asked her how the installation has changed her view of the city:

Hanson replied,

“Since I moved to Portland in June, 2006–thrilled to be in the city my sons had come to call home–I’ve been on a quest to know more about Portland. Up until January, 2011, my work day commute took me through downtown, between home in the Alphabet District and the Central Eastside. Ever curious about downtown’s mix of venerable architecture and public spaces, plus accessible mass transit and the public art that goes with it, I walked the sidewalks, seeking sights to savor and investigate through the Internet and books and the Architectural Heritage Center, a few blocks north of the Multnomah Building. So, I was excited when I realized that the Portland Streetcar would bring not only more access to mass transit for my new workday commute—I now live in Northeast Portland—but also public art to its new route, the Central Loop. Little did I know that Inversion Plus Minus would be installed on the street corners right outside my workplace. For me, public art is blood after it has been oxygenated, coursing through our bodies providing a necessary component for survival. So, I’m excited to see the Central Eastside embrace public art.”

The reflections of Hanson express appreciation and a realization that this piece of public art enhances the community. It was a sentiment I would begin to hear over and over as I pressed on and asked for more input from the Inversion: Plus Minus’ captive audience at the Multnomah Building.  Sheriff’s Office worker, Diane Hutchinson was happy to show me “the best view in the building”—she unlocked the main conference room so I could get a pristine look at Inversion: Plus Minus—the view seen by some of the sheriff’s office most important officials:  third floor, west-facing full fenestration eye-level view of Inversion: Plus Minus.   Across the street—turned out to be an excellent vantage point to a much better impression of the connectedness of the components, and the maze-like quality of the fused steel. Hutchinson’s co-workers were equally enthusiastic.  Steve Wright, the Sheriff’s Office representative to the Multnomah County Green Team, among other things, proudly and graciously took me up on the building’s blustery wildflower-planted ecorooftop to be able to photograph and look at Inversion: Plus Minus from “a different angle.”  He spoke with reverence and a sense of pride for being in such close proximity to the structure and even commented on looking forward to seeing how it might be used by all “neighbors” (birds, included) as it assimilates the regional ecology.

I was consistently and pleasantly surprised by the willingness of all to show me their “view” as my “tour” continued on the upper floors of the Multnomah building–employees eagerly walking me over to share their window views (Stan Mason and Tim Kurilo) and encouraging me to photograph varying angles of the structures framed by office cubbies and window sils.

We have all become rather accustomed to seeing this installation from a street view, and there is really much more to to be discovered, especially with how this installation contributes to the Portland skyline.

“….And indeed, embraced it will be.”—Beth Sellars, Suyama Space

Obviously, these 50’ high structures of 12 tons of steel are growing on their public audience and branching out to connect with the community.  This is not a new progression for how the work of Lead Pencil Studio is perceived.  Beth Sellars, curator of Suyama Space in Seattle (a place where work by Lead Pencil Studio has been exhibited) comments that whenever Lead Pencil completes a major art project, it is certain to be thoughtful, sensitive, and smart and will resonate with the public to the point of prideful ownership.

Sellars continues,

As a curator with a long history of their work, I am constantly intrigued with their inventive approach to large scale projects.  Their Inversion: Plus Minus promises to be their most innovative to date and I’m envious Portland will be the home for it….

 

Lead Pencil Studio’s thoughtful reminder of the disappearing history of the industrial East Portland neighborhood, the actual 1900’s iron foundry that was destroyed to make way for bridge construction, and the mindless stream of vehicular traffic separating the neighborhood from the rest of the city will coalesce in community-wide pride of place once the work is completed and embraced.  And indeed, embraced it will be.

Quite so, projects like Inversion: Plus Minus contribute to the growing and expansive definition of our city, as Nancy Merryman, FAIA and on the board of directors for the Architecture Foundation of Oregon says,

 

[Projects like Inversion: Plus Minus] contribute by the fact that their conception grew out of local/regional history and knowledge. I believe that anything that responds to – and contributes to – our unique environment and sense of place helps deepen our identity. That said, I am personally not fond of many of the public art pieces that have been done because I don’t feel that they contribute in a positive way. But this is the age-old conundrum…beauty and meaning is in the eye of the beholder. I do appreciate the use of permanent materials and the sense of quality in “Inversion”; from my perspective, those are two required characteristics for the success of public art.

 

The importance of public art pieces throughout Portland cannot be denied –their capacity to ignite conversation and debate, without doubt.  In her recent introduction to Han and Mihalyo’s May 6th, 2013 “Peripheral Vision” lecture at the University of Oregon in Portland School of Architecture and Allied Arts, Kate Wagle (UO in Portland AAA administrative director and UO in Portland interim vice-provost) gently reminded the audience:

 

….intellectual integrity and curiosity [of Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo] has kindled a passionate debate, a volatile context in which to address the interdisciplinary overlap of architecture and site-specific art. However, while politics may be a condition for the work, it’s not the subject tonight…that’s the art and the artists.

 

Moving forward as a community with the soon-to-be expected completion of Inversion: Plus Minus, the focus needs to remain on the art and the artists.  The project has been bestowed upon us to adopt and embrace as part of our growing public art collection.  With Wagle’s gracious segue into the importance of the Lead Pencil Studio and Regional Arts and Culture Council’s public art project, she set the stage for a mindful discussion with a lens pointed confidently in the direction of process, the bridge and the gap between art and architecture, and the discovery of inspiration.  Wagle also reinforced the musings of the Regional Arts and Culture Council’s executive director, Eloise Damrosch, who later commented, offering insightful explanation and context to the entire project:

 

Portland and Multnomah County’s Public Art Programs have been in place for 33 years, so the collections represent many different phases of our region’s growth through the eyes of artists working in many media and taking widely diverse points of view. They also represent the critical work of countless selection panels members who are artists, architects, bureau people, neighborhood representatives, citizens who care deeply about building the art component of this remarkable place. It is hard to image Portland without its public art. It’s in the streets and sidewalks, inside and outside public buildings, parks, fire and police stations, libraries, clinics, transit lines and courthouses.

 

Inversion:Plus Minus is the result of the selection  panel, created specifically for the eastside streetcar line, deciding that the near eastside deserved major, large scale artworks.  The selected artists (Lead Pencil Studio) were inspired to bridge a modern commitment to connect east and west sides of the river with a new streetcar line and the area’s industrial past.

 

This piece (currently half finished) is both bold in scale and ambition and poetic in its abstracted reference to buildings once in those places. They surprise and in some cases startle passersby. They promote curiosity and dialogue, which is part of why public art is important in our city.

 

This piece is also intriguing in that while some artworks are integrated into architecture – and become a part of the building, such as Ed Carpenter’s window in the west facade of the downtown Justice Center – these sculptures are architectural in themselves, yet are not buildings. They are contemporary and old, architectural and sculptural, large scaled and lacy.–Eloise Damrosch, executive director, RACC

 

One thing is certain, Inversion: Plus Minus offers to its viewers an opportunity to envision scale, experience material, and explore light, space and height in a purely public forum.  It seems to suggest a deeper understanding of our universe to those considerate of the philosophical wanderings of ancient thought and scientific inquiry.  If we are to wonder, “things are their quality, things are their form” as Carus’ moving On the Nature of Things encourages us, with Inversion: Plus Minus we are given a beautiful concept, and one that evokes a sense of permanence and foreverness despite a physical disappearance.  Science teaches us that nothing is ever created nor destroyed, that atoms and molecules never disappear but continue on within our universe, becoming our environment, being incorporated into a system of nature and being, the ultimate in sustainability.  It is a scientifically-based concept that enthralled the thinkers of ancient times and is expressed so eloquently in On the Nature of Things.

Taking Annie Han’s and Daniel Mihalyo’s reposeful poetic way of offering that we relate to the city, and to the scale of our city; that we “walk the line between presence and absence,” and notice that which has disappeared, I will leave you with an excerpt from Carus’ On the Nature of Things, realizing that “all things flow….” and, in its purest form, Inversion: Plus Minus might compel us to think about and discuss the transitory nature of our environs, the concept of sustainability, and, simply, the nature of things….

 

And certainly anything that encourages thought, is a good thing.

Many thanks to….

Annie Han of Lead Pencil Studio

Daniel Mihalyo of Lead Pencil Studio

Lynette Hanson, see her blog here Portland Oregon Daily Photo and Lynette_1_2_3 Flickr Set Art, Inversion Plus Minus

Steve Wright | Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office

Diane Hutchinson | Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office

Tim Kurilo | IT Multnomah County Oregon

Stan Mason | IT Multnomah County Oregon

Beth Sellars | Suyama Space, Seattle

Howard Davis | Professor, UO Department of Architecture

Nancy Cheng | Professor, UO Department of Architecture

Jane Jarrett | Executive Director, Architecture Foundation of Oregon

Nancy Merryman, FAIA | Board of Directors, Architecture Foundation of Oregon

Eloise Damrosch | Executive Director, Regional Arts and Culture Council

Kristin Calhoun | Public Art Manager, Regional Arts and Culture Council

Links:

Regional Arts and Culture Council

Portland Architecture’s blog post on Inversion: Plus Minus

Lead Pencil Studio

University of Oregon Department of Architecture

 

No Single Thing Abides | On the Nature of Things

By Titus Lucretius Carus (99-55BCE)

 

No single thing abides; but all things flow.

Fragment to fragment clings–the things thus grow

Until we know and name them. By degrees

They melt, and are no more the things we know.

II

Globed from the atoms falling slow or swift

I see the suns, I see the systems lift

Their forms; and even the systems and the suns

Shall go back slowly to the eternal drift.

III

Thou soo, oh earth–thine empires, lands, and seas–

Least, with thy stars, of all the galaxies,

Globed from the drift like these, like these thou too

Shalt go. Thou art going, hour by hour, like these.

IV

Nothing abides. The seas in delicate haze

Go off; those moonéd sands forsake their place;

And where they are, shall other seas in turn

Mow with their scythes of whiteness other bays.

V

Lo, how the terraced towers, and monstrous round

Of league-long ramparts rise from out the ground,

With gardens in the clouds. Then all is gone,

And Babylon is a memory and a mound.

VI

Observe this dew-drenched rose of Tyrian grain–

A rose today. But you will ask in vain

Tomorrow what it is; and yesterday

It was the dust, the sunshine and the rain.

VII

This bowl of milk, the pitch on yonder jar,

Are strange and far-bound travelers come from far

THis is a snow-flake that was once a flame–

The flame was once the fragment of a star.

VIII

Round, angular, soft, brittle, dry, cold, warm,

Things are their qualities: things are their form–

And these in combination, even as bees,

Not singly but combined, make up the swarm:

IX

And when the qualities like bees on wing,

Having a moment clustered, cease to cling,

As the thing dies without its qualities,

So die the qualities without the thing.

X

Where is the coolness when no cool winds blow

Where is the music when the lute lies low

Are not the redness and the red rose one,

And the snow’s whiteness one thing with the snow

XI

Even so, now mark me, here we reach the goal

Of Science, and in little have the whole–

Even as the redness and the rose are one,

So with the body one thing is the soul.

XII

For, as our limbs and organs all unite

to make our sum of suffering and delight,

And without eyes and ears and touch and tongue,

Were no such things as taste and sound and sight.

XIII

So without these we all in vain shall try

To find the things that gives them unity–

The thing to which each whispers, “Thou art thou”–

The soul which answers each, “And I am I.”

XIV

What! shall the dateless worlds in dust be blown

Back to the unremembered and unknown,

And this frail Thou–this flame of yesterday–

Burn on, forlorn, immortal, and alone

XV

Did Nature, in the nurseries of the night

Tend it for this–Nature whose heedless might,

Casts, like some shipwrecked sailor, the poor babe,

Naked and bleating on the shores of light?

XVI

What is it there? A cry is all it is.

It knows not if its limbs be yours or his.

Less than that cry the babe was yesterday.

The man tomorrow shall be less than this.

XVII

Tissue by tissue to a soul he grows,

As leaf by leaf the rose becomes the rose.

Tissue from tissue rots; and, as the Sun

Goes from the bubbles when they burst, he goes.

XVIII

Ah, mark those pearls of Sunrise! Fast and free

Upon the waves they are dancing. Souls shall be

Things that outlast their bodies, when each spark

Outlasts its wave, each wave outlasts the sea.

XIX

The seeds that once were we take flight and fly,

Winnowed to earth, or whirled along the sky,

Not lost but disunited. Life lives on.

It is the lives, the lives, the lives, that die.

. . . . .

 

 

 

Fall architecture studio strengthens connection to Eugene by use of bottom up urban design project in Detroit

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Assistant Professor Philip Speranza’s fall studio “Public Use of Private Space,” was a unique collaboration between the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts and a private owner in Detroit and her architect brother in New York City. The students’ work provided design development for a proposed community food market and its associated exterior space for a variety of uses.

At the time students enrolled in the studio they were not aware they would be traveling to Detroit, Michigan, as part of the course. However, for the students to visit the project’s site and fully grasp how their proposed urban design installations will aid the client’s community food business, it proved invaluable.

“The trip snapped the students out of their comfort zones and allowed them to better know the space at which they were working. Going to a place creates a connection between what you see as the culture seen from a distance, and then actually experiencing the urban space and getting to know the people,” said Speranza.

“It also allowed the students to better understand the project as a system of connections between the city, the community, the site, and the entrepreneur. It’s not an abstract single thing.  They must deal with all of these connections to have a successful project. This allowed the students to be part of the process.”

Detroit project site. Photo courtesy of Philip Speranza

Detroit project site. Photo courtesy of Madison Jackson

The project site contains a former bank building and an adjoining parking lot. The designs varied but the goal was to connect the private building to the community at the grass roots level by inviting them into the public space, testing Speranza’s research ideas of “bottom up urban design” acknowledging conditions of the site as a system over time.

Class tours Detroit neighborhood. Photo courtesy of Philip Speranza.

The class traveled to Detroit as part of the midterm review following weekly teleconference meetings with the client team throughout the term. The trip’s cost was split between the client and Speranza’s UO research funding. In addition to the midterm review and site visit, the students traveled throughout the region and met many residents of this “shrinking” city.

Speranza was amazed at the disparity between blocks surrounding the project’s site. “Within a block or two of the site, the blocks are totally abandoned with empty lots–what we know of Detroit. And then a block or two on the other side there are large gated houses on one-acre lots. It was bizarre,” he said.

Project site's surrounding neighborhood. Photo courtesy of Philip Speranza.

Gated house in surrounding neighborhood. Photo by Philip Speranza.

Madison Jackson, a second-year master of architecture student, was impressed by the strong sense of community within the neighborhood and throughout the whole city. “Everyone we met was so invested in the city. I believe this is because it’s easier to move out to the suburbs and not deal with the collapse of the city. Therefore, the people who have stayed behind or moved back all care, want to work hard, and do what they love in their city,” she said.

The studio provided Jackson and her peers a unique experience not available in other courses. “The fact that the studio was an actual project with a real client was the biggest difference and the most important part for me. It was useful to experience pitching an idea to a client and getting their feedback. That it is such a big part of an architect’s job and something that can’t easily be taught in school,” said Jackson.

Summer "Adaptive Market" design. Image courtesy of Madison Jackson.

In addition to fostering the students’ designs for the food market, the client also seeks a fully fabricated installation. They selected Jackson’s “Adaptive Market” design as the preferred option for the space. Just like Detroit as a city is learning to adapt and change, Jackson sees her design allowing for the installation to shift as the client, community or seasonal needs change and adapt. “Seasonally the shelves would be converted from seating, to workspace, to shelves, and be further reconfigured throughout the space in the market to best suit the needs of the client and her vendors,” she said.

"Adaptive Market" shelving iteration. Image courtesy of Madison Jackson.

"Adaptive Market" 1:1 mock up. Photo courtesy of Madison Jackson.

The client, Jackson, and Speranza will collaborate with the architecture department student group the Digital Media Collaborative (DMC) to fabricate and deploy the “Adaptive Market” design during the upcoming winter and spring terms. Jackson will be part of the group and is looking forward to this opportunity. “Having a studio project deployed is something that does not happen often in school, so I can’t wait to move forward with it,” said Jackson.

The next phase of the project will be the deployment and installation of the group’s design this spring. However, before it makes its way to the project site in Detroit, Speranza has plans to deploy the installation in Eugene. “I’m speaking with local food organizations, property owners, and area farmer markets to deploy the installation,” he said. An independent study of national food desert criteria and neighborhood planning with student Aliza Tuttle, an undergraduate geography student, has been done in parallel to the studio, identifying neighborhood spaces of deployment and installation west of Skinner’s Butte and the Whitaker as places of deployment in the spring.

Studio final review. Photo courtesy of Philip Speranza.

The studio was just the beginning of the year-long project, but it has provided the students exceptional lessons that didn’t end with its final review. “The studio gave the students the knowledge and experience of what it means to make something, whether that is the software, the fabrication tools, or the physical making of the object in a 1-to-1 scale – not a representation of the idea, but an actual experience of the idea,” said Speranza. “This connects the students to a real experience, both for the individual understanding of art, architecture and design, and also a connection to the community.”

Studio final review presentation. Photo courtesy of Philip Speranza.

Jackson agrees with her professor and says she found a real connection with Detroit, as did many of her peers. “The studio has inspired me and many of the students to become more involved in Detroit in the future because it is such an amazing city and we all fell in love with it,” she said.

Story by Joe McAndrew

—–

For more information about the “Public Use of Private Space” studio, please visit the studio’s blog here.

Jody Mohney Pene, IIDA, LEED AP | Forty Years : Looking Back and Looking Forward

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Interior design by Jody Pene: Large conference room in the Conference Center of Dunn Carney Law Firm by Josh Partee, Photographer.

On Monday, November 12, 2012, interior architect, Jody Pene, IIDA, LEED AP, and former principal at GBD Architects, presented her lecture, Forty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward, to a Portland, Oregon audience at the University of Oregon in Portland, White Stag Block. Pene is a visiting professor at the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts Department of Architecture and the current University of Oregon Margo Grant Walsh Professor in Interior Architecture.

 

Pene gave her presentation as part of this year’s Gunilla Finrow Distinguished Lectureship in Interior Architecture for the University of Oregon School of Architecture and Allied Arts. Gunilla Finrow attended the lecture. Commenting on Professor Finrow’s attendance, Pene said,

 

I was very honored to have Gunilla Finrow, for whom the lecture series is named, come down from Seattle to attend my lecture. And pleased also to have many colleagues, students and friends both from the university and from the Portland community attending. Some of which were from GBD Architects and team members on many of the projects I presented. It was nice to be able to share the highlights of my career with both old and new acquaintances.

 

Jody Pene greeted by Gunilla Finrow just prior to Pene's Portland lecture at the UO White Stag.

Associate professor Alison Snyder from the UO AAA Department of Architecture introduced Pene, commending the visiting professor on a long and varied career that involved significant commercial and graphic design work and color expertise. Snyder remarked favorably on the opportunity to have Pene deliver her lecture both in Eugene (November 7, 2012) and in Portland; noting that it is a privilege to be able to “bring what we do in Eugene outside of Eugene to Portland and beyond—being seen and heard in places farther away” and to have the ability to provide lectures of this content and calibre to an interested community and metropolitan audience, such as that in Portland.Pene, in addition to her visiting professorship, is also on the UO AAA Board of Visitors. Professor Snyder thanked Pene for her ongoing and multi-tiered involvement with the UO School of Architecture and Allied Arts.

 

Beginning by illuminating her design philosophy, Pene spoke of several key factors that have played a major role in her career: the need for having a strong concept, recognizing an individual culture and goals, and being able to identify the appropriate environment of the business or client—these factors merge together in the creation of a project solution that is unique to each design venture.

 

Pene graduated from the University of Oregon in 1972 with a bachelor of interior architecture.  She immediately moved into her professional career relocating to Pittsburgh to work in graphic arts and interior design. At this early juncture, she found value in working with a team-based approach and discerned significant demand for her skills in signage and graphic design. In the 1970s, Pene relied on her, what she calls “old fashioned” handcrafting skills of drawing everything by hand and using tools such as pastels and pencil to convey ideas.

 

It was early in her UO studies and work career that Pene discovered her great love of “color and the play of patterns.” Calling upon this interest and her ability to bring together meaningful and attractive explorations of color and pattern once in a professional context, Pene’s career blossomed. She returned to the West Coast in the late 1970s to begin work with two highly significant Oregon architectural firms, Boora Architects (1978-1984) and GBD Architects Incorporated (1984-2010) where she held the position of principal for sixteen years and the principal-in-charge of interior design for twelve of those years.

 

Pene spoke of realizing the importance of collaboration in projects and of working with the entire team to create a strong concept. While her expertise would lie in the designing of the color palette and graphic arts component of the project, she consistently realized that it was vital everyone in the firm work together to pull the project together to create something remarkable.

 

Pene feels a pinnacle of her career came with her work on the renovation of Portland, Oregon’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. Here she worked on the interior to come up with fifty-four new colors that would accentuate the Italian Renaissance details and inform the aesthetic of the greater interior. Everything from overall carpet patterns and specific border patterns, to the overall interior design concept complete with soaring theatrical spaces culminates to present a space of intricate detail and graciously considerate historical appreciation.  It became a space uniquely suited to its culturally-grounded purpose.

 

During her lecture, Pene discussed her range of work incorporating independent interior projects such as those at elegant Portland accounting firms and law offices. Pene recalls that she remained true to her own design philosophy whether designing way-finding signage for a stadium or the exclusive interior of a highly prestigious law firm: the importance of designing to the individual personality of the firm or the business always remained at the forefront.

 

As time passed and her career continued, Pene began to realize changes in the field and practical changes in the greater societal situation that would have consequences for how she worked and what she designed. In the early 2000s, Pene saw a shift in how people would relate to a building and how the interior design could be used to create spaces conducive to stimulating creativity. The design work at Wieden + Kennedy’s Dekum Building illustrated to her how a more casual building “painted white and with playful sculptural forms” could be used to encourage innovation and creative work.

 

This was a change Pene had seen emerging about a decade earlier. As the 1990s had progressed, she noticed that there was a transition occurring from traditional design to design that was more responsive to change and to the creation of warmth in spaces –spaces that could foster person-to-person interaction, collaboration, and conversation.

 

The future of design, says Pene, was venturing into the realm of exploring flexibility and adaptability in the workplace. This new approach embraced the concept of an open office that can be re-configured to contribute more effectively and cooperatively to a collaborative workforce. Some of the initial big businesses to adopt this free and flexible design philosophy were places like Wieden + Kennedy, Columbia Sportswear, and Nike. Pene’s design theory, readily adopted by the aforementioned clients, forged ahead creating spaces that affirmed creativity while retaining corporate identity.

 

By establishing connections to the corporate ethos and maintaining strong ties to the sense of a unified whole or corporate campus, Pene was able to design spaces that respond to a human element, are comfortably sociable, and encouraging to innovative thought. In addition to being sensitive to place and her understanding of the humanistic component, throughout her career, Pene advocated for a palette of materials as well as colors that would allow a positive psychological emotional response, physically provide a comfortable space, and energize inventive behavior. Sometimes inspired by “aesthetically unconventional interiors,” Pene spoke of the ability of a space to encourage or foster creativity and innovation.

 

As changes occurred in the economy and global marketplace, Pene traced progressions in the way designs changed for her clients. Developments in environmental considerations brought new products and the desire for sustainable materials. Pene saw opportunities to integrate the newly renovated spaces of previously industrial buildings into simple and contemporary spaces blending the existing exposed structural elements as a beautiful, raw part of the entire concept. Patina-coated steel columns would become exposed, a testimony of history and permanence and be combined with a new concrete structure to produce a relaxed and informal atmosphere encouraging teamwork. [Such as with GBD's new Pearl District building.]

 

These innovative design principles intentionally promoted client and staff intermingling which was a distinct shift from the decades previous where offices might be cubicle-style, isolated or closed off to integration and interaction with others. Pene explained the changes in the nation’s economy and the world led to a more competitive global economy. This, in turn, brought about another change in the needs of corporate and office design: with the new digital age was the demise of the on-site printed book or need for prodigious library-like rooms in design projects for law firms. Instead, research could now be done online, at desks with computers in shared spaces and more open places.

 

Another change, altered the ubiquitous conference room. Communication was more electronic and conference centers could have multi-purposes with the invention of privacy screens and glass (technological innovations that changed the needs of the space). With economic and financial considerations in mind, saving money and cutting costs was a definite concern, too. Consequently, only one floor needed to receive and be open to the public thus decreasing overhead costs. Spaces were becoming lighter and brighter. People were to be encouraged to work together, to create in a more warm and welcoming environment and to realize to potential of shared spaces and daily interaction.

 

Pene highlighted development of trends we might consider commonplace today: the on-site workplace cafe and simple, social gathering spaces. Both of these concepts encourage on-site lingering collaboration, conversations and teamwork. People stay together longer, have more conversations and work gets done leading to greater productivity and the exchange of ideas. Even the advent of more modular furniture in the workplace allows for more space and more efficiency letting departments grow and shrink, use space and easy-to-move furniture as needed, and be more flexible to the needs of people.

 

The interior designer described how previously high-end law offices began to transition to interior spaces that were “home-like in quality” rather than strictly formal, dark and heavy. Pene associates these specific developments with creating spaces that let people “linger, relate, converse, and exchange ideas.”

 

Summing up her recent projects with slides of the Meriwether towers on Portland’s South Waterfront and the Center for Health and Healing (OHSU), Pene discussed her continued exploration into a design philosophy that creates a “living room feel.” At the Health and Healing center, Pene designed an interior that was restorative and innovative while being LEED Platinum: she was stunningly successful. She spoke of her work with Camera World and how she limited the palette there to mirror the products relying on black, silver, and nods to technology as a overall theme.

 

With a full and productive career, Pene now plans to continue semi-retirement sharing her time between Oregon and her beloved home in Montone, Italy where she finds pleasure in photographing and drawing the fields and farmland. This rural Italian paradise provides Pene with plenty of time to discover history, art, architecture and landscape…..and she continues to enjoy depicting her environment (by hand) in pastel, appreciating and being “enthralled by the seasons, the colors, the patterns.”

 

Pene showed a series of her photographs and pastels: a collection of images including poppy fields, mustard fields, a field of onions in bloom, sunflowers, an olive orchard. She spoke with great affection for the natural and agricultural environment that surrounds her in Italy and explained the “sense of revealing, in color and texture and shape, the potential of light and shadow, the symmetry and order, the curve and line, even in a random, eclectic pattern of blooming poppies in a field.”

 

As she looks towards a future well-immersed in the things she loves and still active in a field she has made great contributions to, Pene noted that with her recent experience at the University of Oregon as an instructor, she has now discovered a new interest: teaching and working with students. She would like to teach abroad in Italy to exchange students traveling there for the first time. Her career, she says, has allowed her to see the importance of international study to enhance the forward progression of one’s design ability and knowledge, reviatlizing creativity and bringing fresh perspectives. She encourages all students to step into the international sphere of educational experience to ignite their creativity and expand their reference. And, even in an age of digital dominance, students, she recommends, still need to learn to draw by hand.

 

Regarding her own continual exploration of trends, and innovative design thinking, Pene says she relies on her photography, her sketching and various sources of media to help inform and expand her knowledge and bring inspiration. She also gratefully acknowledges her frequent world traveling and attendance at fairs such as the The Milan Furniture Fair (Salone Internazionale del Mobile di Milano) and NeoCan Chicago as key in continuing to fuel her creative energy and staying appraised, or even ahead, of trends. Keeping in touch with the pulse of the contemporary design field is further accomplished, she says, by reading a plethora of online sources and publications.

 

A current that continually flows through Pene’s design work and consistently infuses her ability to design meaningful, thoughtful and yet dramatic and captivating interiors, is her understanding of the importance of collaboration on her projects. While she acknowledges the design community has changed over her forty year career, she cites how important her graphic design experience has been in assisting her creative work from the beginning. There is “a strength and a clarity” to projects today, she remarked, to the way people work together which she finds quite beneficial and refreshing. Being conscious of patterns and color, and tying a project together by identifying what is required to accomplish the specific goals remains the main objective of Pene’s work ethic. She emphasized the interaction between all involved, but overall, it is the sense of collaboration that is the sine qua non of every project.

 

Remarking on the tremendous changes in the design field, both in approach and materials that has taken place during the last four decades, Pene recalled that as trends emerge, and change is inevitable, the observation of what is needed, and wanted and being able to adapt that to a design is a vitally important aspect of any project.

 

The years have defined a gradual progression in her work projects—projects that moved from the creation of formal spaces to the innovative and imaginative formulation of casual spaces. And along with this inventive approach to the workplace, human, and space interaction, Pene has seen that letting people be comfortable encourages interaction, bringing about more creative and worthwhile production, and, in the end, making a more successful product.

Jody Pene at the White Stag, UO in Portland to deliver her lecture, 40 Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward.

 

Jody Pene | Pastel sketch called "Poggiolo," a fall scene of the countryside at a villa in Chianti, Tuscany (Italy).

Read the UO AAA News Story here, for Eugene.  And for Portland.

Bruce Wolf | Part II

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Part II:  Bruce Wolf, Photographer

"I signed it with a Sharpie." Bruce Wolf's portfolio

[This is Part II of Sabina Samiee’s coverage on photographer Bruce Wolf, an adjunct instructor at the UO in Portland and instructor for Light and Color:  Tools of the Trade Workshop for Summer in the City 2012. You can read Part I Bruce Wolf | A Little Profile on a Big Photographer posted previously.]

Images | Bruce Wolf

Now it is fall 2012. Wolf is firmly entrenched in the Portland scene.  He is an adjunct instructor for the Summer in the City University of Oregon Portland program.   And from the projects he has taken on, it is evident he has graciously assimilated the culture and vibe of Portland, and has never looked back.  Granted he isn’t making the prodigious dollar amounts New York had bestowed upon him, but as he comments, “that really doesn’t matter.”  Whether he is shooting Pietro Belluschi’s architectural wonders, a stunning plated concoction at Yakuza for a scrumptious-looking website, or photos for a children’s book on food, Wolf’s images are powerful, captivating, emotional, and have that je ne sais qua any photographer worth her salt dreams about.   [See Bruce Wolf:  A Little Profile on a Big Photographer]

 

If you are here in the city next summer, look him up:  Summer in the City 2013—with a little luck and a fair wind, Wolf’s experience and knowledge will be back here again and yours for the taking at the UO in Portland.  This is an opportunity to learn methods and process, gain knowledge and insight from one truly great photographer.  And, as Wolf, himself puts it, he “[doesn't] just want advanced photographers in [his] class,” not at all.  In fact, he welcomes and encourages a specific kind of person,  “Photographers at any level passionate about photography. . . .That’s what I’m looking for,” he states.  It was a late afternoon, mid-summer and we were happily into our second coffee talk– “interview” – meeting at Floyd’s coffee shop in Old Town. Wolf was beginning to feel like an old friend.  “Passionate about photography” and “photographers at any level:”  this sounded mildly provocative…I was caught on the “at any level” phrase.  It sounded so refreshing and open to possibility. I asked him to tell me more about his 2012 Summer in the City Light and Color workshop, the students he worked with, his expectations for the course and the students and his future plans.

Bruce Wolf

Wolf finds that being welcoming to photographers of any level with a passion for picture-taking attracts students who are eager to learn and listen.  And, photographers at any level can take insightful, thoughtfully composed images. Photographs should “say something about the person who took the photo, not just be an image of what that photographer captured.” In Wolf’s opinion, a photographer “needs to learn how to present the image so that it tells a story, leaves personal narrative and inhibitions behind, and freely exposes the photographer.”  This ability can be learned over time with work and experimentation.  Wolf aspired “to teach [his] students to tell us who they are, to expose their self.”

Bruce Wolf and his students in the Light and Color Workshop

Wolf continued, speaking softly and thoughtfully.  The intent of a photo is to translate a story and project a personal signature.  When students presented their work to him for critique and review, Wolf found it best to refrain from criticism and rather try and find what “they thought the process was, or had been, like a personal journey” he says.  Wolf wanted his students to learn how to use their photographs to “take us someplace” and to make their image a “personal reflection of what drives them to see what they see, and why they see it that way.”  He suggested that they experiment with light, color, angle, cropping and content to express this.

 

Equally intriguing is Wolf’s unique pedagogical approach that assumes his students are blissfully “unaware of anything.”   He continued, “I talk to them as if they know nothing.”   Not intending to be at all demeaning or condescending, Wolf means he strives to instruct as if his students are a blank slate, ready and receptive to challenge the components of their work to access a sense of both the art and the science of photography.  He finds this approach the least intimidating and the most encouraging to his students’ sense of free experimentation in the class.

Bruce Wolf

There is one area, however, where Wolf expects his students to have a working knowledge.  His Light and Color Workshop requested that students have an existing working familiarity with Photoshop, a technology Wolf feels “is essential to contemporary photography.”  In addition, he only allowed the students to use their cameras in Manual mode—a somewhat daunting prospect for many.  If a student needed help or instruction in the mode, Wolf gladly assisted. By using only Manual mode, Wolf encouraged each student “to regain control of the camera and the image.”

 

I asked Wolf his opinion on camera equipment.  Would someone with a prosumer camera be as welcome as someone with a simple point-and-shoot? Wolf assured me, regarding equipment, students were not criticized for the quality or technical hierarchy of their equipment. One student was welcome to use her father’s point-and-shoot, which she did for the entire duration of the course. When asked if he felt the quality of one’s camera had a great deal to do with the quality of the image, Wolf responded that “it is not the camera that is the final instrument of the image” but how that “image is interpreted or taken forward to create an intention.”  Here is where Photoshop becomes the somewhat indispensible tool of the contemporary photographer, the sine qua non that allows the artist | interpreter of the image to “sharpen the intention, to clarify and capture” what one has merged into pixels, and digitalized into a printable reality.  Photoshop will help ease a transition from a captured moment to a fully finished image. Today’s digital photographs, says Wolf, will not be worked on in a traditional darkroom, a place where the photographer used to transition an image and produce desired effects, experimenting with light and dark, saturation and hue. Thus, says Wolf, “Today’s darkroom is Photoshop.”

Bruce Wolf in Google search

With all his work, his reputation and his legacy, it is no wonder Wolf is carefully watched.  Coming to Portland in 2009, a blog post by his then rep, Stockland Martel declared “BW MOVES TO PDX and POSTS photos.” [I would show you the post but Stockland Martel has since removed it.] It was a series of photos posted on Wolf’s online social media presence that precipitated a small tempest of curiosity—Wolf was doing something new, something different.  Maybe Portland enabled Wolf to branch out into a new perspective, and explore that “loneliness” he talks about.  Whatever it was, we can read about the “guerrilla photography” Wolf and his wife, Laurie launched into.  Photographing over 70 Portland restaurants for Portland restaurant scene, Wolf found his way right into the delicious underbelly of some of Stumptown’s most coveted places.

Photographing 70+ Portland Restaurants..Food! Glorious Food!

As time has passed these last few years, Wolf has eased into a singular Portland aesthetic, appreciating and valuing a sense of independence, being in a league all his own, and valuing a certain obscurity for its own sake. He seems to have found meaning, and worth, and definitely his own Portland style of cool.  He’s become one of us.  He’s settled in with a new rep, Greenhouse, and released a new book, along with collaborator and wife Laurie Wolf, Portland, Oregon Chef’s Table .

Bruce Wolf

Things are looking bright and beautiful for this New York transplant. As evidence to his understanding of things Portland, whether due to the cagey arrangements of representatives or Wolf’s own propensity to find meaningful working relationships, halibut-sized printed monthly publications have been scooping him up and sending him back out to hone his forte with a uniquely Portland grind.  And, now that we can open up some of our favorite regionally-based magazines and see architecture from our own metropolitan backyard photographed by Wolf; get google-guided to a unique Portland restaurant and stumble upon images from a few of those places we head to for something uniquely delicious, we see Wolf’s light and color in new places.  Take a trip to our favorite bookstores and see Wolf’s images in lovely volumes available to grace our coffee tables and our kitchen bookshelves.   We can access Wolf’s Portland work almost daily and we can even take a university summer course from him.  When asked what his plans for future courses at UO might be and if he’s interested in teaching again, Wolf responded, pointblank, “I’d love to.”  In fact, he is interested in teaching photography at all levels, lower and upper division, beginners to advanced.  In any case, Portland and, indeed, Oregon is certainly richer and even more beautiful when we have Wolf’s imagery of our environment surrounding us—all in gorgeous light and color…. Let’s hope it stays that way, because he sure makes things look good.

[As if it were not readily obvious, black and white photographs in this post --devoid of color and not much in the way of brilliant lighting, were taken by the author, who somewhat reluctantly posts her images in the same blog as BW images.  Images from Wolf were taken from his blog, and website, and provided to the author.]

ABOUT SUMMER IN THE CITY

In addition to photographer Bruce Wolf, Summer In the City has offered the teachings of  academic and creative  phenomena such as D’Wayne Edwards, James Cutler who directs the Summer Portland Architecture Program, and Bill Tripp, among others. It is an eclectic arts and architecture-based program, offering interdisciplinary courses, specialized studios, and a lower-division, requirement-satisfying class in cooperation with the new Urban Ducks program. In a come-one-come-all egalatarian manner, the UO opens its doors and lets the summer breeze in as Summer in the City welcomes both enrolled UO students, community members in the Academic Extension program and professionals seeking to enhance and expand their professional affiliation, network and expertise.  Above all, it is an opportunity to learn from experts.  Come join us next summer!

 

 

Bruce Wolf | Part I | Light and Color: Tools of the Trade Workshop | Summer in the City 2012

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Bruce Wolf |  A Little Profile on A Big Photographer

All images in this post are courtesy of Bruce Wolf, and were taken by him.

Floyd’s coffee shop in Portland’s Old Town is a darkish place where wild things happen. Not fast, in the buff, debauched, and crazy things, but those quietly important things that might change lives, sway the course of simple histories, and have the potential to effect people in new and profound ways.  In a politely incognito sort of way, lattes are drunk, spicy Chai’s are nursed, dark espressos slide into mouths, the soothing pleasures of liquid darkness perking even the most exhausted. It is the perfect place to meet someone of great importance when being noticed is not the goal.

 

Into this den of caffeine bracketed by the establishment’s solidly brick walls, photographer extraordinaire, Bruce Wolf agreed to meet me one summer afternoon to discuss his recent course offering Light and Color:  Tools of the Trade as part of the UO in Portland School of Architecture and Allied Arts Summer in the City program. Wolf is known on a global scale for his work with light and color, so meeting him in a place where the light was incandescent dim and the color comfortably amber-to-russet seemed like an interesting prospect.  Maybe seeking someplace with a trifle more natural light, and after ordering our coffees, we decided to move out into the minimalisticly bland en plein air courtyard, where the daylight seemed a bit more of an appropriate place.

 

Let’s start with some background.  UO in Portland Summer in the City is the brainchild of Kate Wagle, director of the UO in Portland School of Architecture and Allied Arts and interim vice provost.  Familiar with Wolf’s reputation as a photographer, Wagle wasted no time incorporating Wolf into the summertime Portland programming.  Notable in many respects, the UO Portland Summer in the City program is the brooding place of many a lauded professional in the design fields reaching out to stretch their pedagogical wings, discover talent and share creative insight.  Instructing a course with the Summer in the City program assures a small, focused group of students eager to gather experience and expertise during a few summer weeks spent in the company of creatives otherwise unavailable. It might be a short season, (summer in Oregon usually is) but it is without a doubt a rare and wonderful opportunity to access a wealth of knowledge and experience these experts deliver.  Indeed, Wolf fit right in surrounded by other exceptional creatives who partner each summer with the UO to teach at the White Stag Block as their schedules and professional work permits.  Wolf’s first foray into instructing anyone but seasoned professional photographers (which he has done often having taught at The Maine Photographic Workshop, and the International Center for Photography in NYC, as well as guest lecturing for Harvard University’s Photography Department) began with Summer in the City 2011 and his “A Journey into Yourself with a Camera.”  This summer, 2012, he offered Light and Color:  Tools of the Trade, welcoming anyone with an open mind and an enthusiasm for photography.

Image | Bruce Wolf

And, so here I was this warm, sunny afternoon at Floyd’s, face-to-face with this photographer, and not just any photographer, but BRUCE WOLF;  I was eager to discover just who he is and what his work is all about.  Although his humble appearance, worn jeans and plain white tee shirt, might make him fade into the Portland Old Town crowd, his modest looks reveal little of his importance, an engaging counterpart to the work and reputation Wolf has. At Floyd’s, Wolf entered, and ordered our coffees.  No one applauded, no one rushed over for an autograph, no one stared, no one pulled out a camera to take his picture.  He is just a plain guy…..well, not really.  I asked Bruce to talk about his images from an aesthetic viewpoint and to chat about his extensive experience in the field of advertising photography.

Image | Bruce Wolf

In print, Wolf is often referred to as “a legendary photographer,” “the master of believable artificial light,” and “truly one of the best.”  His work is praised as “timeless and creative” and as fusing “life, mystery, and narrative.” Look at any of Wolf’s photographs and you will see grace, and an exquisite and luxurious use of light, even if what you are looking at is only the inanimate objects of a well-equipped kitchen.  Each Bruce Wolf image incorporates a sense of photographic artistry while seamlessly blending a mastery of digital technology, an understanding intellect and a sense of discerning empathy. His images are of quiet and solitude, whatever is the subject is the focus, lucid and without distraction.

Image | Bruce Wolf

Perhaps existentially affirming, Wolf’s architectural and interior photos, in particular, are surreal in pristine perfection.  The more of Wolf’s work you examine and admire, the more you realize his preference for images intentionally devoid of human presence, literally.  There is space for a person, and an invitation to engage with the image, but usually no identifiable human within the image.  As viewer, you wander into his photographs by yourself, no one else is needed. These photos compel you to visualize yourself in the setting, a place where you feel you could fit comfortably alone.   A motorbike in a studio, a refrigerator in a kitchen, a chair in front of windows, a long country road in rainy navy-blue darkness, a gorgeous plate of food: each carefully planned image takes you to a place. You may have a look for yourself, here.

Image | Bruce Wolf

Wolf commented that he feels his images have a sense of “being lonely,” but is this loneliness or an opportunity to merge yourself with a product, a place, a meal?  Put yourself in the picture, with no one else yet there, it is without complications. Maybe that is the genius possessed by the brilliant commercial photographer: he takes us places, we put ourselves and our dreams in his sets.   It is that simple.  But how is Wolf such a master at the illusion of welcoming place, and of transporting us to that place with a two-dimensional image?  His ability to work with a palette of color, to infuse with light and to manipulate both to evoke a feeling is the stuff his legend is made of.

Image | Bruce Wolf

With over 40 years of experience to call upon, it is no surprise that Wolf’s eye for detail and mindfulness of the aperture’s cooperative capacity with the shutter to let in a fraction-of-a-moment’s flood of light-bathed, meaningful observation has been very keenly and benevolently developed.  The fact that his images seem to be coaxed with a sense of emotion, and delicate comprehension of both subject and setting through his lens, past any filter, and into waiting digital sensors is, really quite remarkable.  The emotional saturation of Wolf’s work becomes complete with touches from “today’s darkroom” says Wolf, graciously offering a nod to technological innovations as being a crucial part of his toolbox. He continues, “the interpretation of the moment is told” or gains that extra tinge of meaning and implication with thoughtful brushes from Photoshop, the program (or “darkroom”) allowing him to interpret an image to get it exactly to the point where the setting matches the intention of telling a story.  Long before the pixels are exposed to digital manipulation on Wolf’s computer screen, hours of set-up, preparation and contemplation have gone into a project.  Once the camera is poised, steadily mounted atop a tripod, flags or reflectors in place, and readings taken of light, color cards peered at through the lens, only then is the image ready to be captured.  Wolf takes a slow, methodical, and languishly unrushed amount of time to stare into his viewfinder, visualizing the subject, contemplating the final outcome.

On location at Yakusa with Bruce Wolf. Photo SS.

I know all this partly because following our coffee-talks, I asked Wolf if I could observe him on location, on a real assignment, commercial-style. Wolf allowed me to visit him while on location for a restaurant advertising project in North Portland at Yakuza.  He was meticulous….with everything.  Each press of the shutter release came across as a thoughtful and careful opportunity to capture something of greatness.  The process takes hours. Invariably, the outcome is stunningly beautiful: elegance saturated with sensuous quantities of light and color, but yet remaining “natural.”  [He let me steal peeks at his nearby laptop once he transferred images there.] It is this unique approach to the mixture of science and art, of light and color that pervades Wolf’s work and is testimony to a soulful understanding of elements we sometimes take for granted, the luminescence from the sun, and how that illuminousity reflects off a surface potentially bringing a sense of story-telling to an image.

Bruce Wolf Studio.com

Largely self-taught in the field of photography, Wolf partly credits his educational background in physics as enhancing his opinions and understanding of light (he earned his degree in physics from the Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute).  His lifelong passion for photography might have developed from an early childhood exposure to art history—namely the volume by Janson & Janson, The Story of Painting for Young People (1952).   Charmingly and honestly acknowledging a childhood interest in the paintings that depicted body parts and barbarity, Wolf recalls being even more impressed, visually awakened, if you will, by the paintings of Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Caravaggio.  Even as a young kid, in these masterpieces, Wolf recognized a use of light and color to show what was there, a hinting at what was underneath, what was in the shadow, or what could be gleaned from the play of light upon a surface.  In those moments of observation, the desire to find a medium he could translate a similar understanding of light and color to eventually led to a career in photography.  Apparently, Wolf became a photographer also “on the advice from ‘Bultaco’ Barney, motorcycle mechanic.”  But that’s a whole other story, that we will not go into here. In any case, apart from an interest in photography, Wolf cites his two “other great interests” as science and math:  forever inked into the underside of his burly forearms, a hydrogen atom on one (the first element in the periodic table), and the infinity symbol on the other (forever into perpetua).

Image | Bruce Wolf

I asked Wolf to comment on his work over the last 40 years.  His is a long career and no where near to winding down– spanning successes from his early days in his Manhattan studio, to his years in Paris shooting advertising and interiors for glossy European magazines, to decades as a photographer shooting projects for publications such as House and Garden and New York magazine.  The early years took up the decades fanning out of the 1970s.  The work poured in.  Wolf was in high demand with clients like Martex, Karasttan Carpets, Thomasville, Spiegel, Marlboro, Eve cigarettes, Viking, Jenn Air, G.E., and Acura, among others; and on the go-to list of renowned art directors, like Jim Sebastian, Cheryl Heller, Jerry Della Famina, Tommy Kane, Barbara Barnes, and more.  His magazine layouts expanded to include projects for Child Magazine, Metropolitan Home, Shelter, and Martha Stewart Living. He completed projects for Vogue, and Architectural Digest. Branching out from still life, interiors and architecture, Wolf was asked to do jobs where his expertise as a director for television commercials and cinematography were called upon.  His reputation for creating an exquisite visual environment for his subjects obtained a worldwide following.   In the 1990s, Wolf worked on projects alongside Helmet Newton and Bill Silano for a Johnnie Walker “Gallery Series,” an infamous poster project displayed on the walls of the Japanese subway system;  and created advertising campaigns for clients as diverse as Burger King and Perry Ellis.  The list of accomplishments goes on and on. He flourished in all areas, lending his unique sense of lingering observation, careful attention to detail and, that quality so recognizable in his work, an ability to “duplicate the sun.”

 

In 2009, with so much success and a career still going strong, Bruce Wolf gathered up his family and made the pilgrimage west to Portland putting a whole nation of Americana inbetween him and his connections and networks in New York.  But this is the age of enlightened communication and Wolf’s ties to the Big Apple were only really a quick electronic communication or airplane flight away.  If anything, he gave his work an opportunity to thrive in a new environment and to discover a Pacific coast audience. The requests to work would continue, the list of clients, too.

 

The Wolf family now call Portland their permanent home.  Moving to Portland, brought the Wolfs close to long-time family friend and Portland creative extraordinaire, John Jay, executive creative director and partner of the Wieden + Kennedy advertising agency.  Wolf also counts Jay among the art directors he has had the privilege of working with.

DeathbyCat | Bruce Wolf with Ying

In 2009, some of Wolf’s Portland work was introduced to an audience of gallery-goer’s who saw his much-debated “Oregon Journal” series.  It was described as “a mysterious series of landscape photos.”  That same year, Wolf’s images of the remains of small creatures killed and maimed by any one of his 33 cats mesmerized audiences in an eclectic Southern California exhibit  [See DeathbyCat, evoking a range of contexts:  taxidermy-cum-Smithsonian'esque natural history, that sort of it may be nature morte, but it is still life mood, the subjects having been tossed about and blessed by the love of Wolf's own domesticated pets].  Transgressing from small deceased bloody vermin, to something more suburbanly perceived as sophisticated and urbane, Wolf has even aimed his lens across rooms with a view we thought we’d never glimpse (he was commissioned to document Martha Stewart’s own home remodel).

Image | Bruce Wolf, Martha Stewart's Farmhouse pre-restoration

With such an illustrious background, Bruce Wolf is something of an enigma.  He is a New Yorker, through and through telling me he is “from The Bronx.”  I was expecting a New Yorker blase attitude or a heavily tainted East Coast accent, a bit gritty and unpolished. But, he is delightfully pleasant. He is friendly and lowkey, approachable.  He is kind and conversant, with a strength in gentleness and calmness one imagines he has made good use of in the high powered, competitive world of commercial photography.  The opportunity to sit down and chat with Wolf made it pretty obvious how he has managed to achieve his “nice guy” reputation.  He is just that, nice.  He is easy to talk to, completely unpretentious.  We chatted those afternoons for some time:  Wolf revealing in anecdotal style snipets of adventure and encounters from the images contained in his vast portfolio, which at this point, was beginning to sound a little like a Who’s Who of the rich, famous and well-built, in both individuals and objects.  Wolf blends comfortably into a Portlandia proletariat ethos, artisanal and casually counterculture.  He will enthusiastically speak of being more down-to-earth hippie than fast-paced, big city materialist.  It was charming and endearing that the only technology he pulled out during our conversations was his smartphone, tapping and joggling it to retrieve family snapshots, which, I noted were exquisite even on the small screen of his smartphone.  He will discuss science, math, art, government, and society with a gracious intellect, a liberal charm and a humble aesthetic.  He will discuss photography on a level he senses his listener is comfortable with.

 

On this particular day, the sun was settling in behind the brick courtyard of Floyd’s, we’d been chatting the afternoon away.  Prompted by my inquisitive comments, he continues, I listen, somewhat enthralled, but definitely not starstruck and keeping a level head.  He offhandedly mentions, quietly, like he’s slipping in another order for a black coffee, “Oh, did I tell you about the time….” I lean in, this is going to be good, I know. I feel like Po the Panda, face-to-face with the sage wisdom of Shifu, I must keep quiet and listen.  Wolf doesn’t disappoint, I get to hear about when he photographed John Lennon, twice in the 1970s.  And President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan, for a Christmas card.  With a sly and mischievous grin, Wolf’s “nice guy” personality shines through as bright and captivating as the light in any of his stunning architectural sets.  “Want to know what I said to them?”  he asks.  Of course, I do. . . .

To be continued. . . .

Image | Bruce Wolf