Christopher Truax’s sculptures seem as though that they can come alive and start moving at any moment. After experimenting with animation and model making, Truax was inspired to express himself in a 3-D format. His figures seem almost robotic. His sculptures are a combination of hard and soft materials. His mix of metal and organic wings adds an element of the unexpected to his sculptures. His flying Toaster, a suspended shinny toaster with a giant wingspan, is a perfect example of this creative juxtaposition. “Inspiration is all around me everyday, sometimes I can’t help but to see things pop out. My art is far more than the finished piece; it’s the flashes and glimpses of otherworldly insight. It’s the joy of the process, it’s the dance.”

The Clackamas County resident is a parts technician for his father, who owns the Bird Nest in West Linn, specializing in Thunderbird parts for cars from 1958 to 1966. But Truax takes vintage car parts that might otherwise be discarded and turns them into art.

“Most of my art incorporates the feel of emotion, and most pieces have a movement – they are pose-able and unique on a detailed level,” he said. Some of his pieces are robotic in nature, with parts that “mimic and bend like a normal joint,” while others are whimsical, like a toaster with wings.

Last spring, Truax won best in show at an art exhibition at Clackamas Community College for Lilli, which he describes as robot with “beautiful wings coming out.” She is made “mostly from Thunderbird parts from 1955 to 1966. Basically it took me a year and a half to make her.”

Lilli’s wings are crafted from a real goose. He looks upon the use of the wings as “recycling,” and said he saved the wings from being destroyed. “I went on You Tube and learned how to taxidermy the wings, so there is no smell,” he said.

Another of his creations is Elli, an elephant made from “90 percent Thunderbird hardware and 10 percent tea pot,” he said. He incorporated a red low-fuel light into Elli’s body for a reason. “There is meaning behind my madness. I saw a low-fuel light and realized that some Asian elephants are being depleted [by starvation].”

For sheer whimsy, it is hard to beat the flying toaster with three sets of wings. “I used an old vintage chrome toaster – it is funny. It is meant to be,” he added.

http://www.christophertruax.com/

Michelle now resides in SE Portland, working at Art Media while continuing to breach new territory with her artwork. Her new series of figurative works as well as her vast array of abstracted landscapes, animals, and cityscapes have been well received and landed her shows and exhibitions throughout Portland.

It’s been years since I’ve worked on the figure.  The last time I considered the human body as an artistic direction, I was 22 years old, in college, and living 3000 miles away.  Five years, hundreds of small, architectural marker drawings, and a complete change of geography later, I have returned to it once again.

These six pieces have come together due to a series of photographs I took of my beautiful sister last summer.  The photos were taken all in the span of time it took for her to smoke one cigarette.  It was amazingly intriguing – to see her facial expression and mannerisms change so drastically in such a short period of time.  It was a character study really – being the voyeur, watching her mood shift, her thoughts moving and changing with her physical body.  It intimately inspired me.

I realized through this body of work that I had been pushing away the figure.  I’ve spent years of my life here in Portland looking outward, at my surroundings.  As amazingly gorgeous as nature and architecture can be, painting the figure forces us inward.   It makes us see ourselves as individuals as well as a single body lurking our way through the whole of humanity.

Portraying the physicality of the human figure can be overwhelming at times.  It is an entirely visceral experience, urging us to consider our own mortality, our own flesh and skeleton.  It can be an extremely difficult, yet necessary, process.

It took me over five years to artistically return to the human figure, to possess enough self-confidence as an artist to do it justice – to do my own self-image justice.  To quote the artist Marisol,  “Everything the artist makes is always a kind of self-portrait.” Although inspired by photographs of my sister, these pieces are, of course, a reflection of myself.

Tyler also discovered that being able to draw better than anyone else in his family made him special and it was clearly destiny that art was his ticket to fame and fortune. Unable to get into design school at NC State, Tyler spent a few years in fruitless pursuit of a political science degree. Eventually, after a couple years spent managing an organic food market, Tyler moved with his wife, Emily, to Portland, OR where he attended and graduated from the Pacific Northwest College of Art. Upon graduation Tyler received several awards, including the prestigious William H. Givler Award for outstanding thesis work.

After graduation Tyler made a living doing freelance design and illustration work until he eventually landed a full-time position as an interactive designer. He is happy to spend his free time running, hanging out with his wife and baby, and fixing up their house in North Portland.

Tyler is also currently illustrating a children’s book and exploring a non-linear narrative based on the death of Sir Bishop Jenkins. Despite a packed schedule Tyler still is able to find time for drawing robots and ninjas and making toys he would like to own.

Falling somewhere between classical and blues, folk and gospel, old time and indie. Alone, Apinyakul displays a fast, dark, and emotive finger picking style as if Mississippi John Hurt listened to Dead Moon, but more often Shoeshine Blue consists of a larger lineup of violinist Shawn Mclain (Blind Pilot), bassist William Joersz (Nick Jaina, Run On Sentence), singer Ali Wesley (Super XX Man), and drummer John Vecchiarelli of more bands than I can count, plus his own wonderful songs. This bare bones, tonally complex combo, produces wistful backdrops for lyrics full of political fervor, high romance, and heartland poetics. Shoeshine Blue recently released their new album titled “ Howl at the Wooden Moon.”

Howl at the Wooden Moon

Howl At The Wooden Moon” is an album written and recorded during a period of war, broken love, sketchy loans, and automated joy. All a songwriter needed to do was build a good mirror, hold it up, and let the world writhe in the ecstasy of its own truth. But it’s not easy. In the high stakes game of writing good songs, there’s no room for lies or lazy observations. “Howl At The Wooden Moon” is Shoeshine Blue’s best and most honest contribution. It is a love letter to the natural world, a love story between two people, and a keen eye on the moment. In other words, a monument to all things doomed and beautiful. Songwriter, Michael Apinyakul, made a departure from the last Shoeshine Blue album, “Talk Real Slow”, where he produced, recorded, and played most of the instruments. Howl at the Wooden Moon draws from a larger pool of Portland’s talented musicians. Recorded to half inch 8-track at Telltale Studios in Portland Oregon, and engineered by Antreo Pukay, the album has a honey-glow sound, reminiscent of the great folk and psychedelic albums of the 60’s and 70’s. Lyrically sharp, simply layered, and accidentally gospel.

Kevin Cross is a local Portland illustrator/ cartoonist. A San Francisco native, Kevin moved to Portland in 2006 where he lives with his wife, Laura, and their cat, Mr. Chips. As a youth, Kevin fed himself on a steady diet of monster movies, comic books, skateboarding, rock and roll, and art. As an adult, not much has changed.

Kevin received a Bachelor of Fine Art in Illustration from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. In addition to his freelance work, he has shown at various galleries including the New York Society of Illustrators. He has also self published comics, founded The Mini-Comics Dump Truck , is currently writing and illustrating an all-ages comic book called ” Monsters Are Go! “, and writing and illustrating a webcomic called “Monkey Mod”.

Aside from living the life of a jet-settin’, highfalutin’ illustrator, Mr. Cross likes to collect old mod, garage rock, and punk rock records on vinyl and enjoys a good piece of pie. Additionally, for over twenty years, Kevin has been the guitar player of many rock and roll bands including Big Rig ( Lookout Records), The Nerve Agents ( Revelation Records), and Pitch Black ( Lookout Records, Revelation Records, and Cheetah’s Records).