Chances are you’ve seen bags by Queen Bee Creations. Thousands of people across the country carry them. The shapes, colors and designs of the popular faux leather style vary but still remain instantly recognizable.
That’s an amazing accomplishment for anyone in the accessories trade. Even more impressive? The products are eco-friendly, and designed, manufactured and marketed by a small independently-owned business in Portland, far from the fashion grid.
Sometimes, I’ll admit, I think we Oregonians come across as a a little desperate for history. Remember the neon stag sign debate? People passionately argued for preservation of the words on the Made in Oregon sign because the advertisement was part of our heritage. Never mind that the sign had previously read “White Stag” for an Oregon clothing company. And before that, “White Satin” for a sugar refinery.
But I get it. Some extraordinary Oregon buildings have been mindlessly destroyed in the name of progress, and no one wants to see that happen again. It’s heart breaking.
Lori Dennis is one of the top interior designers specializing in green and sustainable design for residential and commercial buildings. A year after graduating from UCLA’s design program in 1998 she established her own company in Los Angeles working on residential and commercial interiors nationwide. Her work has been featured in several publications including Dwell, House Beautiful, The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. She also serves on the National Sustainable Council and is the author of Green Interior Design.
Pigeon Toe is stepping out.
The menu is set. The table looks lush. All this dinner party needs is the right soundtrack. Niel DePonte, music director and conductor of Oregon Ballet Theatre, offers a playful playlist for a spring dinner party.
Portland writer Brian Libby interviewed designer Corey Martin of PATH Architecture for the April/May issue of Oregon Home. Martin’s Park Box house was a winner of a 2009 AIA Craftsmanship Award and Merit Award. Here is an extended excerpt from that interview.
Pianist, songwriter and founder of Pink Martini, Thomas Lauderdale shows Oregon Home around his fabulously eclectic downtown Portland home.
You see it every day: Passers-by hold up a cellphone and snap a digital shot of something they want to remember—a dress in a storefront window, a just-delivered plate at a spendy restaurant or a too-cute pug puppy. Then there’s mixed-media artist Tom Prochaska. Relying only on his memory, he perfectly renders 20-inch-tall by 7-inch-wide papier-mâché figures that bring to life people he last cast his eyes on fortysomething years ago.
If the harvest moon wanted its luminosity perfectly captured, it would seek out glass artist Laurene Howell to cast its portrait.
Born in Idaho and raised in Portland, Howell, 64, was a dental hygienist for six years before she decided to go to medical school at age 29 and become an ear, nose and throat surgeon. “I’ve been interested in art since grade school, but I didn’t start taking art classes until 15 years ago,” she says. “I took a watercolor class that took me to the Greek island of Mykonos, where I discovered watercolor wasn’t my medium. Then I lasted a day and a half in a three-day painting class. I’d play with collage and embellishments from time to time. I’ve always been fascinated with glass art, but when I was practicing medicine, I couldn’t do anything with glass because I couldn’t risk cutting my hands.”
Native peoples living on the islands in the South Pacific would recognize a kindred artist if they saw the bas-relief works of Ballston, Ore., woodcarver Totem Shriver.
He takes hand tools to thick planks of Oregon big leaf maple, ash, spruce, cedar, black walnut and Oregon white oak to create neo-primitive woodcarvings.
