Editor's Note

November belongs to artists who value the handmade. Look closely, and you’ll see both what the hand makes and what it leaves behind. At One Grand, Ashley Anson folds family folklore into quilting, embroidery, and paint. At Gallery 114, Olivia Johnson crochets social and political data into tapestries. At PDX Contemporary, Joe Rudko collages found photographs to ask whether any image can still be trusted. The PAM's Harvest Celebration is built around makers, pairing 54 Willamette Valley wineries with six Northwest artists.

And if you missed it: I had two pieces in PDX Parent's October issue. One looks at how Oregon Ballet Theatre's Dani Rowe programs with young audiences in mind; the other is a family-friendly guide to Portland's fall and winter performing arts.

Mini Interviews 2027: Call Closed, Thank You, What’s Next

Our Mini Interviews 2027 open call closed November 1. We received 86 submissions from painters, ceramicists, fiber artists, photographers, collage artists, and more. Thank you to everyone who applied! If you're selected for the 2027 series, you'll hear from us by December 4.

Read on for what's on our radar and happening around Portland.

Partner Features

Featured this month: the artists and spaces who support this newsletter, and a few bigger events worth your time. Thank you for keeping independent arts coverage alive.

PNCA: November First Thursday + Rehearsals for a Better World

Thursday, November 5, 5–8 PM · Free · Pacific Northwest College of Art, 511 NW Broadway, Portland

On November 5, PNCA opens its doors on NW Broadway for a full evening of First Thursday programming: exhibition openings, performances, and refreshments, all free. Five shows open across the building: Rehearsals for a Better World, The Art of Sparkling, The Art of Stop Motion, PENTIMENTO, and What Makes a Pattern?

The centerpiece is Rehearsals for a Better World, the Fall 2026 faculty and staff exhibition curated by Melanie Flood. It's a chance to see work by the artists who teach and support PNCA's students, the people shaping the next generation of Portland artists. The show stays up through December 19, with a second reception on Thursday, December 3, 5–8 PM, if you can't make the first.

Ashley Anson: Home Sweet Home at One Grand Gallery

October 30 – December 4 · One Grand Gallery, 1000 E Burnside St, Portland · Mon–Sun 12–5 PM and by appointment

One Grand welcomes back Portland-based Ashley Anson for her second solo show with the gallery. Home Sweet Home builds on her love of found textiles and the materials and processes long tied to feminine domestic labor. Drawing on quilting and embroidery, she combines textiles with painting and small sculpture to tell stories about the unseen worlds inside people's homes, where peace, chaos, and danger can all live at once. Anson turns family folklore into layered narratives about how childhood stories get remembered, exaggerated, and retold across generations. She also asks what makes a painting read as masculine or feminine, and whether you can sense an artist's gender in the work. Bringing embroidery and textiles into the historically male-dominated practice of painting, she blurs the line between the two.

A Toolbox Holiday Market

2029 SE Jefferson St., Milwaukie, OR · Tue–Sat 10–5

Toolbox Gallery's holiday group show runs November 10–December 19, with work from a group of local artists and makers to shop before the holidays — Jenn Joslin, The Vital Element, Carolyn Holman, Ha Austin, Para Winingham, Robin Occhipinti, Ann Howell, Laura Robertson, Sheryl Riley, and With Wonder Handmade, plus Sandra Alderman, Ava Moody, and Pamela Hadley. The gallery is also taking part in Milwaukie Open Studios November 14–15, open all weekend with maps to the other studios in the area.

Joe Rudko: Photorealism at PDX Contemporary Art — November 4–28 · Opening reception Saturday, November 7, 3–5 PM · 1881 NW Vaughn St, Portland · Free. Artist conversation with curator Julia Dolan Friday, November 6, 5 PM (RSVP info@pdxcontemporaryart.com). The Seattle artist starts with collaged found photos (flowers, skies, hands, friends) and extends them in oil stick into new geometric images. His question: if anything can be a photograph, can anything be photorealistic?

Artists' Heroes at The Schnitzer Collection — Through June 12, 2027 · 3033 NW Yeon Ave, Portland · Free. Who shapes an artist? This show answers with 71 works by 33 artists, from Jackson Pollock's 1951 photographic screenprints to pieces made in 2025, by way of Alex Katz, Chuck Close, Wendy Red Star, and Hank Willis Thomas. "Hero" is read broadly: activists, family, teachers, collaborators, and printmakers. Check jordanschnitzer.org for visiting hours.

Ashley Peña: Ebb and Flow + Yukai Chen: The Factory of Desire at Blue Sky Gallery — November 5–28 · 122 NW 8th Ave, Portland · Wed–Sat 12–5 · Free. Blue Sky hosts two En Foco Fellowship shows this month. In Ebb and Flow, Dominican-American artist Ashley Peña turns to Haiti and the Dominican Republic, using double exposures, alternative photographic processes, metal, and glass to explore memory, erasure, and renewal, with water as both a site of violence and a source of healing. In The Factory of Desire, Brooklyn-based Yukai Chen stages self-portraits among bright plastics and pop-culture objects from rural southeastern China, building queer spaces out of displacement and a home village that has since been demolished. Chen gives a Zoom artist talk Thursday, November 12, 5:30 PM (registration required).

Third Angle New Music: Aruna Quartet — Sunday, November 8, sets at 4:30 and 6 PM · Decibel Sound & Drink, 11380 SE 21st Ave, Milwaukie.

Josh Peters: Shine Out the Clearer at Luckygirl Gourmet Gallery — Through November 28 · Celebration Friday, November 6, 5–8 PM · 1604 NW 15th Ave, Portland · Wed–Sat 12–6 or by appointment · Free. Large abstract canvases pair bold color with faded tones, their surfaces built up through layer after layer of paint. Peters works by three rules: "follow the spark," "don't make it good, make it yours," and "deny the mistake." His own favorites in the show are collages of mistakes and edits. The celebration brings hors d'oeuvres, drinks, vinyl DJ sets, and the artist.

Anish Kapoor: Dissolving Margins at JSMA at PSU — Through December 5 · 1855 SW Broadway, Portland · Free. Four decades of Kapoor's printmaking, about 150 works, from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his family foundation. Catch the final public tour Saturday, November 21, 1–2 PM.

Robert Gamblin: Meditations on a Coastal Landscape at Waterstone Gallery — November 5–29 · First Thursday opening November 5, 5–8 PM · Artist talk Sunday, November 15, 11 AM · 124 NW 9th Ave, Portland · Wed–Sat 11–5:30, Sun 11–4 · Free. New member Gamblin paints the forest, estuary, ocean, and sky of Cascade Head with colors from the paint company he founded 46 years ago. "All of my paintings reach for the transcendent using the emotional voice of color to do the speaking."

Rubus Discolor Billboard No. 3 — November 2 – December 27 · The billboards on NW Glisan between 5th and 6th (433 NW 5th Ave, Portland) · Free. Kristina Barker's Corteconcepción paired with Francisco Vigo's Dancing in Puruchuco. In-person event Sunday, November 15, 11 AM; meet on the PNCA steps.

Purl Samoheyl: It Feels Like a Tuesday at Nationale — Project Room, November 6 – December 5 · Opening reception Saturday, November 7, 2–4 PM · 15 SE 22nd Ave, Portland · Free. A grid of small colored-pencil drawings lines the back wall: pastel cross-hatching, sinewy ribbons, curled springs, and the occasional head or window into a landscape. His book Patterning the Pandemic is also on view, including signed editions with hand-drawn covers on reused shopping bags.

Douglas Burns: Level Head at Well Well Projects — November 7–29 · Opening reception Saturday, November 7, 5–8 PM · 8371 N Interstate Ave #1, Portland · Free. Made as a tribute to his children, Burns's collaged paintings sometimes fold in his kids' drawings and direct collaborations, blurring the line between making art and making a life.

Alembic Artists in Performance at Performance Works NW — November 5–8 · 4625 SE 67th Ave, Portland. New and in-progress work from Alembic Residency Cohort #12: claire barrera (with pianist Rory Cowal), Melody Erfani's Queen Lear, and Jae Seung Hancock. Thu, Nov 5, 7:30 PM (reduced-price preview); Fri, Nov 6, 7:30 PM; Sat, Nov 7, 7:30 PM (ASL interpreted); Sun, Nov 8, 4 PM.

Beyond The Garden Room, curated by Kristen Diederich, at Chefas Projects — 134 SE Taylor St, Suite 20, Portland · Free. Diederich invited seven artists to take a closer look at the Unicorn Tapestries at the Met Cloisters, whose walled garden, the hortus conclusus, blooms and fruits all at once, outside any real season. The show asks what a garden holds in and what it keeps out. Indigo Free, C. Meier, Kaitlyn Carr, Kayla Marie Carlson, Quinha Mukai Faria, Holly Osborne, and Emily Wise respond to the tapestries' plants, boundaries, and plant-dyed colors.

Nicholas Stelter + Bethany Rowland at Laura Vincent Design & Gallery — Through November 25 · First Thursday reception November 5, 5–8 PM · A Dialogue with the Artists Saturday, November 21, 11 AM · 824 NW Davis St, Portland · Tue–Sat 11–5:30 · Free. Stelter's kiln-fired glass vessels alongside Rowland's paintings in Testament.

Around Town: Community Picks

Shows from the artists and spaces who sent their work our way this month. Have something for December? Submissions are always open.

Micah Kassell: NOUN at Gallery WDP — November 5 – December 31 · Opening reception Friday, November 6, 4:30–8 PM, artist conversation at 5 PM · Weedman Design Partners, 1905 NW 23rd Place, Portland · Free. Personal work full of memories, hats, piles, figures, and a self-portrait, built from color, intuitive shapes, and marks. "Ideas are nouns at work — and nouns are by extension, verbs at rest."

Cuong Lam: The Fact That We’re Here at WSU Vancouver — Through December 17 · Washington State University Vancouver, 14204 NE Salmon Creek Ave, Vancouver, WA · Free. Former graphic designer Cuong Lam turns to ceramics for his first solo show.

Leah Lavelle: still warm at Fine Art Fruit — Through November 15 · 925 NW 19th Ave, Suite A, Portland · Open daily 11–5 · Free. Abstract paintings and fiber works about softness, embodiment, and ritual: melted, textured, flowing pieces in saturated color that ask for a slower look.

Double Feature: Nathan McKee + Violet Aveline at The Purple Door Gallery — Through November 29 · 3557 SE Division St, Portland · Thu–Sat 2–8, Sun 2–6 · Free. In the front gallery, McKee's Oldish Portland paints the places and characters of the city he grew up in during the '80s and '90s. In the back, Aveline's The Last Rider reimagines the rodeo as if women had always been allowed to compete: wild women on wild horses, lipstick on. One show remembers what was; the other imagines what might have been.

Olivia Johnson: Tapestry/Therapy at Gallery 114 — November 5–29 · Opening reception Thursday, November 5, 5–8 PM · 1100 NW Glisan St, Portland · Thu–Sun 12–5 · Free. Hand-crocheted tapestries that translate social and political data into fiber.

Liz Borowski + Elizabeth Webber: Personal Space(s) at The Writers' Block — First Thursday reception November 5, 5–8 PM · 818 NW Flanders St, Portland · Tuesdays (with Webber) and Wednesdays (with Borowski) 11 AM–2 PM, or by appointment; closed Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks · Free. Borowski paints famous artists' studios in gouache and mixed media, chasing a feeling over a likeness. Webber's figures are caught in transit, close to each other yet distant.

Kate Garklavs: Other Contexts at Replicant — November 20 – January 9 · Opening reception Friday, November 20, 7 PM · 7033 NE Glisan St, Portland · Free. Garklavs' first solo show is a series of new "hairscapes": surreal images of hair placed in unexpected environments, exploring identity through fragmentation and reinvention

Laurie Danial: Beauty and the Long Walk Home at Froelick Gallery — On view through November 28 · 714 NW Davis St, Portland · Tue–Sat 11 AM–5:30 PM · Free. A solo show of recent paintings on panel and paper.

Sean Croghan: Unintentional Relevance at Yikes! Gallery — Opening Friday, November 6 · 1452 NE 28th Ave, Portland · Free. Poetry and music at the opening, 7:30–8 PM

Workshops

Vintage Ornament Workshop with Amy Rowan at A Sometimes Gallery — Sundays, November 8 and 15, 1–3:30 PM · 81 SE Yamhill St, Portland. Make your own holiday ornaments from vintage felt, sequins, and pipe cleaners: a figure, a snowflake, and a mini wreath. You'll leave with 3–4 handmade pieces. $75 per person. A little crafty, a little kitschy, very merry. We loved the Spooky Figures workshop last month!

House of Art and Craft: November workshops — 1235 SE Division St, Suite 118, Portland. Enamel on Copper: Free Form, Sat, Nov 7 · Little Bowls, Sun, Nov 15 (both 11 AM–1:30 PM) · Amateur Hour, Tue, Nov 24, 6–7:30 PM; Stamp Making with Nick Norman: Sun, Nov 22, 1–4 PM; Showroom Shoppe: Fri–Sat, Nov 27–28, 12–4 PM, or by appointment.

Art & About x PADA

This year we've been working with the Portland Art Dealers Association (PADA) to share what its member galleries have on view. A number of PADA galleries are also Art & About members, including PDX Contemporary Art, Waterstone Gallery, Blue Sky Gallery, Carnation Contemporary, Laura Vincent Design & Gallery, Nationale, and Luckygirl Gourmet Gallery, so you'll find their shows throughout this issue. The wider PADA roster also includes Russo Lee Gallery, Imperfecta Gallery, The Black Gallery, and Oregon Art Center, and more. Most galleries open on First Thursday, November 5. See the full lineup online.

Save the date: PADA Pop Up — Sunday, November 22, 10 AM–4 PM · Building Five at Northwest Marine Artworks, 2516 NW 29th Ave, Portland. The third annual PADA Pop Up brings 18 galleries under one roof, with artist and curator meet-and-greets. It also marks 40 years of First Thursdays, and this year's Service to the Visual Arts Award recipient will be announced there.

PICA is moving. After 10 incredible years at 15 NE Hancock, Portland's contemporary art anchor has said goodbye to its space (cue the rumblings about what's behind the move). We're super sad to see it go (that space has been so pivotal for this community, from TBA to exhibitions to everything in between), and we're still not quite sure what the actual story is behind why they had to leave. PICA says a new location reveal is coming, with a full schedule of programs in 2027 including a major spring exhibition. We'll be watching for the new address.

PSU's art school has a new home. Portland State opened the Jordan Schnitzer School of Art + Art History + Design on October 13: a four-story building by LEVER Architecture and the first mass-timber building on campus. Inside are light-filled studios, labs, galleries, an experimental-tech Catalyst Lab, an outdoor Work Yard, and some very pink stairs. PSU says it's meant to be open to the community, not just students, so it's worth a detour if you're on campus for the Kapoor show at JSMA.

Chess Club has a new home. The shop, a playground assembly of visual cultures with global magazines, design books, and a design lab, is now open at 1111 SW Washington St in downtown Portland, near Powell's.

Until Next Month: See You Out There

Submissions are always open. If you have a show, a studio, or a project we should know about, send it our my way. Follow along on Instagram @artandaboutpdx for the day-to-day.

— Ashley Gifford, Founder, Editor and Creative Director

Independent and reader-funded. Art & About runs on support from readers like you and the artists who submit. If you found something worth seeing, leave a tip and help support the next issue and the work we do.