ptamùer 20.2002 •
ART
▼
Disco party art house
Creation Gallery and Design deposits queer art from around the country
right on our doorstep—with glittery flair
by
Sunday, September 29 '02
G ary M orris
Cedar Hills Recreation Center
South of Hwy. 26 (exit 68)
Korey Smith, Craig Fuller and Kevin Cox (from left) ensconced in gay art at Creation Gallery
ortland is not generally mentioned, at
media— oil paintings, watercolors, drawings
least initially, in discussions of the centers
and, from one gay artist, salvaged windows
of American queer culture. That honor
reborn as canvases. The subjects are equally ^
usually goes to San Francisco, New York
diverse— netxrlassical themes, Van Gogh-style
and Los Angeles, with passing nods to gay
still lives, urhanscapes, Dali-esque phantas
resorts like Provincetown, Mass.; Fire Island,
magoria and shimmering images of embracing
N.Y.; and Palm Springs, Calif.
men and kissing women.
But Portland’s queer-owned galleries
are multiplying as we speak. Author
V f
and art aficionado Craig Fuller opened
one of the most original this summer—
complete with a disco dance party. Cre
ation Gallery and Design, run by three
gay men, offers a gallery and decorating
service in Southeast Portland with an
emphasis on queer art.
Fuller’s collaborators are Kevin Cox, a
buyer for an electronics company and
part-time designer, and Korey Smith, an
entrepreneur with a design and decorat
ing background. Kerry Kurth, a Portland
graphic artist and interior designer, will
also work with the gallery on offshoot
projects, such as “staging”— redecorating
houses to make them more marketable.
Creation is not your garden-variety
gallery. For one thing, it’s located in a
private home in Mount Scott, not in
the Pearl District or a Beaverton strip
mall.
For another, one of its missions is to
provide art with a price tag that won’t
induce apoplexy. Everything is original
and costs between $50 and $1,800— most
is in the $200-$400 range.
And Fuller and Company intend to
focus some of the gallery’s attention on
Something for the girls
the community, with a fund-raiser
planned for a different organization every
*3 || t all started (a few] months ago after a trip
month. The first was an Aug. 24 benefit soiree
|| to Hawaii,” says Fuller. “When I got home,
for Swan House, an HIV/AIDS service center.
S I got into this creative process that I
Creation donated 40 percent of its art sale pro
couldn’t shut off. I just wanted to create.”
ceeds to the nonprofit.
This impulse led, as such impulses often do,
The gallery’s June kickoff was a combina
to the Internet, where he began to research
tion disco party (complete with lighted floor
affordable art. “I started buying stuff, and pretty
and heavy beats) and art show. This gave local
soon I had this collection, so I created a small
culture vultures, as well as aging disco queens, a gallery in the house."
chance to shake their groove thangs while
Before he knew it, he had acquired 200
viewing a wide range of pieces in & variety of
pieces. “I couldn’t believe the prices,” Fuller
f
continues. “1 would spend literally six
or seven hours a day on the Internet,
studying the art, specifically on eBay
and other auction sites. I was trying to
figure out the catch. How are these
people selling such wonderful art so
cheap? ...Every time the mail would
come I’d open it up and think, ‘This
is absolutely beautiful.’ ”
Like many avid art buyers, he
began to develop relationships with
the artists. “They can’t get into gal
leries— too many artists and too few
galleries— and a lot of them live in
obscure parts of the country with no
galleries at all.... Most of them said
they love to create. If they make
enough money to pay for their sup
plies, they’re happy.”
Still not sure what to do with both
the art or the creative rush, Fuller
learned that the house next door,
owned by his sister, was being vacated.
He convinced her to rent it to him
and moved in his massive collection.
Now expanded to 400 pieces, the
collection includes a substantial por
tion by gay artists or with gay themes. Fuller
mentions one of his most cherished by a
straight woman from the East Coast who excels
at rendering abstract male nudes: “I love doing
homoerotic art!” she told him.
Andy Weissman of Illinois uses neoclassical
motifs to telling effect. Another of Fuller’s
favorites is Portland artist Dean
Sitwell, who paints simple, striking
images on reclaimed windows from sal
vage yards.
Most of the walls in the 3,000-
square-foot home that houses the
gallery, which is open by appointment
only, are covered. Seeing paintings and
drawings in such a setting, rather than
in the insular zone of the typical
cramped (or stark) gallery, has a surpris
ing effect, allowing the viewer to experi
ence the work more intimately.
This ties in with Fuller’s idea of the
transformative power of handmade art.
“I believe that original art holds people’s
energy; the energy of the artist stays in
the art. And people respond to it differ
ently than they would to a poster. I’m
connecting the artist’s creations with
other people— so, Creation Gallery.”
The new gallery owner sees much
larger possibilities. “A multitude of won
derful things are going to happen in this
place,” he says with infectious enthusiasm.
S o far these include a hosted
gallery space to let people “experience
an art gallery in a private setting,” addi
tional fund-raisers (Basic Rights Oregon
and Cascade A ID S Project are two in the
forefront o f the collaborators’ minds), a
design and decorating service that would let
people rent the art, a kind o f ongoing queer
psychic fair in the house and, of course, a
rentable disco den complete with twirling,
silver glitter ball. J H
C reation G allery and D esign is open by
appointment only at 8 4 1 9 S .E . Clatsop Court.
Call them at 503-788-7651.
at Cedar Hills Blvd. & Park Way
11 A M * 3 PM (members only: 10-11)
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G ary M orris is a Portland free-lance uniter.
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