ARTISTSINTERVENE IN THEIR

ENVIRONMENT

“At some point I realized my problem was I had no time

to make art. Also, I had almost no money. A tiny voice

in my intuition told me that it was up to me to make art

despite these obstacles. The result is a series of

collaborations I call Walkshops. Each Walkshop starts when

one or more people start walking around and it ends whe

n they have interacted or intervened in thier surroundings

in some way. A photo is then taken to document the process.”

For more visit: avalonkalin.com or art327.tumblr.com

Marilyn marilyn-cisneros.tumblr.com

Trang montrang.tumblr.com

John rauj.tumblr.com

AI artandsocialpractice.tumblr.com

Chia Wen amandasung.tumblr.com

Sylvia sylviaw327.tumblr.com

Scot xnavy.tumblr.com

Alexandra art327withalexandra.tumblr.com

Nick nickstheone.tumblr.com

Ellie ellie-nelson.tumblr.com

Sarah awhiterose.tumblr.com

Ju Yu juyus.tumblr.com

Isidro interian31.tumblr.com

Colleen colleenpeddycord.tumblr.com

Narayani artbynarayani.tumblr.com

Andrew newblackgold327.tumblr.com

My best friend and I found a cool map in the park. We had so many ideas of what we could do with it. But the sharpie marks made this piece interesting. Made us wonder about the map. Is it telling a story? Or is it directions to some-where? And to where? Then as my flash went off on my phone.. we noticed that our hands created unique shadows. So we played with that idea.

After going to St. Michael church on Sunday with my roommate, we found the tree with 2 big funny eyes in the parking lot near there. The simple smiley faces came to my mind, so I picked up some papers and twist them to make a mouth with different emotions. Along the way home, I also saw some clumps of elephant grass in front of US bank that look so funny. Actually, I do like the round shape, so I made a bike with some dried braches lastly. But my friend said it looks like glasses though … haha.

This is WalkShop I experienced with my friend Caroline, we explored many different areas on our walk in downtown Portland, we experimented with visual placement with street signs and items in stores. We used store items to create sculptures. We used structures on the streets and in stores to create human sculptures such as bike racks and human hangers. It was a very fun experience, we are looking forward to doing another one soon. Next time we hope to work with more strangers on the streets!

Portland Walkshop

At Peal district

AI

Do a Walkshop.

It was a super sunny Saturday, so I went to Tanner Springs Park (pic 1) to do the walkshop with my classmate Ai Matsushita. Tanner Springs Park is a very cool place to hand out with family or friends, especially under a sunny weather, it will make you relieve some stress. Therefore, we thought it would be a perfect place to find some secret treasure into our creation. My project is basically divided into three parts…

Brown Funny FaceI found this soil which looked like a face shape, so I collected some stones to make the eyes and straw to make the mouth. While I was doing the face, here came to a little cute girl, showing me her secret treasure inside her basket, and I asked her “where did you find your treasure?” she answered “everywhere!!!”…haha, I thought it was a very cute conversation :)

Little FountainWhile I was walking around the park, I found this small fountain with clean water, so I made my evil plan which was to find some sticks and stick them into the hole, and see what would happen (pic 6) After I put those sticks in, I found sticks and bricks look quit interesting, so I took photo by using my cell phone app [Camera Fun] and chose the mirror mode…..woolala! Interesting pattern there it is.

Handmade Straw BridgeMy inspiration for this one came from the ants. I thought if I can make a bridge, instead of walking all the way through the ground, they can walk through the straw bridge. And then I chose the mirror mode to take the photo again…..I just love the effect how it creates the pattern. Awesome!

Tanner Springs Park

During a visit to my Brothers house in Damascus, I decided to do my Walkshop walk-around in the upper middle-class Trillium neighborhood where he and his family reside. I went on the walk with my 7 year-old Nephew who decided to give the neighborhood tour while circling me on his BMX bicycle. He led me to what he and his friends refer to as the “mystery house,” which was an abandoned multi-million dollar mansion on a large estate. I soon found out that approximately two years ago, the family residing on the estate were victims of the hard recession. They lost everything, and were evicted from the estate never to be seen or heard from again. The bank foreclosed on the property, leaving the premises vacant, and left to suffer from neglect. My nephew pointed out some items on the ground to use for the Walkshop project; a child’s plastic baseball cap, and an empty clear plastic food container probably left by the family as they were rushed to vacate the premises. We took the baseball cap, as it represented a previous resident, most likely a small child who was an innocent victim of the bankruptcy, eviction, and foreclosure the family faced, and arranged it with the food container along with the word “Vacant” created with fragments of rocks. The intent was to make a statement regarding the current status of the estate, and the residents who had to suffer the hardships of the recession leading up to its current vacancy.

Damascus, Oregon

GROUNDSCORES

My friend Peter and I tooka walk with the goal to have as much fun as possible while doing this project. We both enjoy photographs so we indulged in taking many during our interpretation and copycat of Avalon’s walk-shop as seen at avalonkalin.com. Peter and I both love SE so this walk was dedicated to the Ladd’s Addition of Portland with a focus on the alleyways in that area as well.

Walkshop.

Light Bulb takes his dog for a walk.

Light bulb is hanging out with a rough crowd.

Light Bulb Adventure

Light Bulb gets offered a cigarette at the bus stop..

Light Bulb is hanging out with friends.

Light Bulb plays a game of baseball Light Bulb has a bad day.

FOREST Adventure

The Mountain Art Walkshop: Part I & II

Collaborative works by Sarah Stevens, Skye Robbins & Tevya Robbins using natural materials.

Walk the Everyday Walk and found double rounds everywhere! collaboration with dm.

we walked the streets that i walk everyday to take max, i was always in a hurry to pay attention to anything, and he only drives around. So i think it’s a pretty good idea to do a walkshop on the streets we are supposed to be familiar with.

i walked, we walked. he talked, i listened. i responded, he talked back. He told to take a photo of the face ornament on someone’s car antenna, the antennas on the building, then i saw the two rounded pieces by the sidewalk, for some reason, i wanted to put a leave with it. Then i saw the pattern.

i saw those double rounded stuffs as eyes. and i kept finding rounded stuff comes in pairs. what’sup with that? circle doesn’t work as one?? 0_0??

towards the end of our walk, i was those cracks on the streets and found the shapes they created super organic and interesting, and without any intention, those images reflect the first photo i took with our feet, there were cracks there too! what a coincident!

On the Job

My friend Ramiro and I went on a regular everyday run, and we decided to go jogging at his neighborhood. In our jog, we accidentally got lost because of the conversations we were having distracted us. As we found our way out of the unknown place, we happened to notice some objects in the back of a forsaken house. We gathered all the objects together, and we designed these hands on art work. Shortly, after this amazing experience we finished our run.

PLANTS

Walkshop.

“Walkshops are walking art collaborations. We walk around and talk about anything that comes to mind; about art, about life, about what is around us on our walk. As we walk we look for opportunities to make art with what we find. Then use one or more of these opportunities to make art.” We walked around the Pearl District talking about life and getting to know each other a little. Having a mission in creating art on our walk we realized we had to actually make something and so we started looking for supplies on the very clean streets on Portland. I was stoked when we passed a pile of cardboard by a recycling bin. We each snagged a piece and walked on. Looking at art through windows, the pretty dressed up people walking by and the stylish neighborhood we kept up an interesting conversation. It was a great score when we discovered a shopping cart by a dumpster in a parking lot. We loaded it with our cardboard and other found supplies and pushed it along. Haha I have never pushed a shopping cart without food in it along the street. At that point we became something for the stylin people of the pearl to look at. We walked through the park blocks getting odd looks and I picked up a branch. Andrea stopped to check out windows of peeling paint and began to create his own addition “Ouch & Arrow” near a bullet hole in the window. It was here that I began to arrange the supplies in the shopping cart. We decided that this cart and its contents would be our art piece for the day. Noticing we had a branch Andrea pulled out a dollar to add to our Dollar Tree cart, creating our own dollar tree. I kept noticing how people were reacting to us digging around in this shopping cart so when a guy came up asking for directions I got an idea. When he was walking away I asked him “Hey do you have any thing in your pocket you would like to add to our art cart?” Like on auto pilot he responded “I gave all my cash to the last guy”. I said “No we don’t want your money. Were inviting you to add something to our art cart, like junk in your pocket.” So he rolled back to us and offered us a receipt. Andrea invited him to add it anywhere he wanted in the cart. He placed in next to the dollar and smiled for the camera and when on his way.

COLLABORATION

So in the spirit of “Social Art” we invited the next people we saw to add to our Art Cart. They were excited to participate and pulled out a huge chunk of cotton and added it to our Art Cart. We could have kept going but the sun was setting so we snapped some photos and left our Art Cart for the world to experience. Right away a guy walked up and dug around in it. Our next destination was to wash our hands and grab a bite to eat. Overall it was a fun experience that I will continue to do with others, and probably invite passers by to participate too.

To set the tone for our walkabout, Narayani and I both began out adventure with brief run ins with other people. Myself with a couple of friends who gratefully said “hello”… and Narayani with, well, some guy. I saw this lovely sign, and found it peculiar for two reasons. 1. because of the choice of font used, implying that they put some minimal effort into the creation of this sign, and 2. because its most likely poop that is unwanted, not dogs… everyone loves dogs. c’mon now. we decided it would be a good idea to atleast start collecting things we found on our walk, and we hit gold when we found a “Dollar Tree” shopping cart to aid us on our journey. We loaded up the cart with some cardboard we chose from next to a buildings recycling, and a weird plastic water vile made for keeping boxed flowers alive, and we were off!We joked about what other people might think seeing two seemingly obviously NOT homeless people pushing a shopping cart full of “trash” … We walked through the park blocks, and turned west, and i stumbled upon these peeling painted windows, which i decided would be a good opportunity to draw on. I took my key and started scratching, scratching, untill i got an arrow, and the word “ouch”, pointing out a hole that someone put in the window.All of the meanwhile, while stopped, Narayani began arranging the “trash” in our cart, which ended up becoming the last stop of our trip, and more importantly the focal point of our walk about art project. Upon noticing the relevancy of the “Dollar Tree” cart, and the roses, and sticks we had gathered, our piece started to take form. We took some good pictures, and were starting to feel satisfied, and a man walked by, and asked us for directions to Powells book shop. We gave him some vague directions, and he started to walk away. Narayani then yelled “do you have anything you want to give to us for our project!” … and the man said “I already gave someone some money”, or something along those lines, and Narayani responds by clarifying “no! its for our art project!” …The man walks back, wreaking of whiskey (he had a notable swagger) An obvious tourist, he fiddles about his downtown Portland map, and pulls out a receipt for us to use, and he goes on his way.

With our run in with a stranger, we both knew we found our calling… we stood and waited, a few more minutes, for our next strangers to come by and add to our found art project. A group of 3 people walked by, and upon being asked to be a part of our installation, they were quite excited! … we paused for a brief photoshoot, while the lady dug through her square leather bag, only to come up with a piece of fluff! it dawned on me that i had no idea why this woman was carrying cotton fluff, but it didnt matter! because both Narayani and I knew that this would be a cloud on our dollar tree installation. We placed the fluff, rearranged, and I added a piece of colored lines from one of the boxes, and voila! We took some final photos, and celebrated with a much needed hand washing, and some sushi!

I present to you:“Dollar Tree”-Cardboard, Spray Paint, Cotton Fluff, Peeled Acrylic Paint, Plastic Vile, Tree Branches, receipt, and Shopping Cart …. on sidewalk.