Many of you know that Portland is the beer center of the entire world, a bold statement that strengthens every day. People here love craft beer and are showing tremendous support and enthusiasm for what we wish to accomplish here in the basement of the leftbank.

The brewery is currently under construction and coming together beautifully with an expected completion date in late January, at which point we will begin producing special batches of a barrel-aged sour cherry beer, a barrel-aged old ale and a redwood smoked lager in addition to our four farmhouse inspired year-round offerings.

Upright will have a small tasting room with other local beers on tap until our first batches are ready, so we hope that you’ll stop by once we start brewing to say hi and check out our open fermenters in action.

The Independent Publishing Resource Center threw Text Ball, their annual contribution to Wordstock, at leftbank. On Saturday, November 8th the literati of Portland convened in the old Dude Ranch for cocktails, dressed in their Sunday figure-of-speech-themed best. Attendees not fully prepared with a texty outfit could line up for a temporary text tattoo. Once fully inked everyone was free to bid high and often on the silent and live auction items, all proceeds of which went to benefit the amazing work that IPRC does. If you have never checked out any of their workshops, check out their schedule or perhaps you would like to publish your own zine…

P.S. Check out Wordstock’s blog out if you want to see some serious blogging.

consider this a reminder:   Leftbank is leasing space.   Beautiful, crafty, inspired space.    A lot of folks have been asking for more pictures of the inside… and my exalted comrade Justin Gorman recently obliged.    The following are some recent shots. more

The leftbank project was fortunate enough to play host to “The Butterfly Effect: A Visionary Gesture by Leslie B. Durst”. A quick google of “butterfly effect” comes up with two answers:

1.) a property of chaotic systems (as the atmosphere) by which small changes in initial conditions can lead to large-scale and unpredictable variation in the future state of the system

2.) an Ashton Kutcher movie about a missing car and how it messed up his universe or his hair or something

The first definition is closer to PICA’s hope for their Butterfly Effect. Ten years ago Leslie B. Durst began commissioning twelve pieces of art from a different artist each year and giving them to people all over the world. Some of the recipients were actively involved members of the art community, some were not (this is where the butterfly effect comes into play). To kick off the showing, Cloud Eye Control was on hand to debut their new show “Under Polaris”. The T:BA favorites mix music, gorgeous animation, and live performance into epic tales of salvation, sea kayaks, and buffaloes. It was a great show, but don’t take it from us, here’s what the Oregonian thought:

Review: “The Butterfly Effect” at Portland Institute for Contemporary Art

“For her 60th birthday party last Saturday, philanthropist Leslie Durst unveiled a five-day exhibit in collaboration with the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art…”read more

The dust has finally settled, the fairy lights have been packed away and everyone who came for TBA has gone home, but Leftbank doesn’t feel empty any more.  That’s partially due to the tireless construction work which is going on, but also to the trans formative nature of PICA.  They came to the building with artists and friends creating canvasses, conversations, happenings and moments, we were audiences and participants.  By festival’s end I was exhausted and recharged.  We saw and experienced so many great things, included here are links to a few performance reviews and my own reflections on tiny tba, my favorite day this fall…

Willamette Week hosted a number of TBA diary articles, many with video.  Matthew  Korfage posted a great synopsis of the opening night march and Anna Halprin revival happening along with film clips provided by PICA here… Byron Beck raves about Leftbank as a venue and covers the WORKS opening night here… and Mary Christmas rounds out the evening with party photos at Leftbank.

On their website, PICA has a number of blog reviews from outstanding events at the WORKS including, the Neal Medlyn Experience (a live lipsynced Beyonce tribute), The Parenthetical Girls, Ethan Rose & Au, Occurrence Hosted by Reggie Watts, and a write up of the closing night party Brother and Sister where a few brave TBA fans celebrated tattos aquired on the scavenger hunt.

The last day of TBA at the WORKS was devoted to contemporary arts for kids, aka “tiny tba”.  This was my third year as a participant with Indiekid Films, and definitely my favorite.  Belinda and Hova along with Lil G, of Greasy Kid Stuff Mc’d the party with an amazing dance performance from Hot Little Hands , body movement from Anna Oxygen,  and songs from Elizabeth Mitchell.  My kids loved painting the art car from the Children’s Art Healing Project parked in the back lot and making their own visual and verbal poems in a workshop provided by PNCA. I brought in a number of contemporary art films for kids including Makyla Bishop’s Flowers and Love which just showed at the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival and Joan Gratz’s oscar winning film Mona Lisa Decending a Staircase.  In one of the back rooms we set up a projector and kids made an experimental film on the fly using found 16 mm footage, markers and splicers.  Insturments were on hand inculding the innards from a salvaged piano for impromptu musical accompanyment.  By the end of the afternoon the kids were covered in paint, and peanut butter and completely tuckered out.  I looked around the room and saw some of my very favorite friends from around town meeting for the very first time and collaborating on art projects and thought, “yeah, this is the way things should be.”

This past weekend The leftbank Project buildings played host to custom bike designers, their ardent fans, and more than a few roving bike gangs. The Greenroom saw some of the best bike manufactures in the country gather together to show off their wares. Wherever attendees and vendors weren’t busy admiring bikes they were admiring the many charms of the Greenroom. On Saturday night the guys and gals at Rapha threw one righteous bike shindig, complete with a cyclocross race, beer, and of course, waffles.

Here’s what Bicycling Magazine thought:

Portland Busts Out with its OWN Hand built Show

“The first-ever Oregon Manifest drew more than 3,500 people together at Portland’s Leftbank Project for a three day celebration of the Pacific  Northwest’s vibrant multi-faceted cycling culture. It was the most complete gathering of the city’s many cycling subcultures I’ve seen under one roof. Cigarette smoking messengers, lycra-clad roadies, DIY freak-bikers, half crazed cyclocross racers and completely crazed Zoo Bombers all came together for a weekend to rub tattooed elbows, drink copious amounts of beer, and celebrate their respective cults. Needless to say .. it was a damn good party….”read more

PDOT recently made a handful of moves to improve the safety of the Broadway/Flint intersection, in an effort to reduce the number of bike/car collisions at what is one of the most accident prone spots in the city…   There’s a nice article from Jonathan Maus on BikePortland.org that gives good background and insight into both the issues and present day solutions (not to mention big props to PDOT’s Greg Raisman and our neighbor Betsy from the Paramount Apartments).   If you ever move through the area, it’s definitely worth a read.  These moves are largely the product of a series of meetings organized by the Water Bureau beginning last year, and seem to run the gamut of ‘what can be done right now’.       Regarding the long term, the coming streetcar improvements have the potential to truly transform the area and offer a tremendous opportunity to fix the issues here once and for all.   A broad group of folks gathered last fall (I spoke to it a bit in an earlier post, here) to identify just what that might look like, and it was a productive session, for sure.     There’s a healthy conversation growing out of recent threads on bikeportland.org, too, and as far as streetcar improvements go, the time to share your thoughts is now.    We’ll be sure to spread the word when any streetcar meetings come up and in the mean time, ride well…

Creating a livable space and employing sustainable practices has been a primary goal in the Leftbank project.  One way we’re addressing excess is through compost.  more

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a commercial for TBA:08… starring our one and only Hazelwood building and the creative scheming of Mr. Justin Gorman. It was a riff on his recent work, results under action. Justin’s been documenting the evolution of the building for months now, and most of the interior shots you find on this site were framed by his eye and clicked by his finger. In preparation for Results Under Action, he executed several pieces within the building as well… (see bangbang). Anyway, enjoy the show…  oh, and hey- I’m the guy in the blue shirt!