JUNE 1. 2007
iUStlOUtilS
out span 16 years of Curtis’ painting career and do
not include “Let the Waves Take Me.” All acrylic
on wood, they incorporate male and female figures,
hut no explicit nudity.
oining Curtis in the City Hall exhibit is
Jennifer Billig, who also deals with the
human body, although in a much different context.
She’s established herself as one of the city’s most
sought-after tattooists, specializing in flowers and
plants (including a pair of figs that resides on my
upper back). Billig, 36, works in inanimate media
as well. Some of her series of woodcut prints of agri
culturally invasive weeds will adorn the walls of
city commissioners’ offices.
“These images are sort of single plant portraits,”
she says. “The concept of‘weed’ kind of depends on
who’s defining it. Whether a plant is a weed or not
depends on your perspective and what you’re trying
to grow and what you’re trying to accomplish.”
Asked why she chose these particular pieces for
the Pride show, Billig says it came down to a ques
tion of size and what she had framed. “I don’t feel
like my gayness defines my work or vice versa,” she
explains. “Obviously, it informs my life and it’s part
of who 1 am, but 1 don’t do art about being gay.”
Although she holds a degree in printmaking from
New York’s Pratt Institute, Billig has been working
with wood for more than 20 years. “I like wixxlcut
because I can take it with me to work on it. 1 don’t
have to be stuck in a studio to be doing it,” she says,
adding that she worked on the mahogany plywood
cuts for this series of prints on campsites near Detroit
Lake and Middle Santiam.
Gregory Carrigan says his collage work allows him to tell stories: “If you start to look at it, you realize that there's gay
plots in it that you can kind of read.“
This show might be bittersweet for Billig, how
ever, because she and her partner will be leaving
Oregon after nine years in the fall to relocate to
Billig’s home state of Arkansas so she can be closer
to her family.
“It’s going to be really interesting going to Pride
somewhere small," she says. “|But| being around my
family is important to me, more so than being in a
cultural comfort zone.”
ollage artist Gregory Carrigan, 55, is also
a Portland transplant. He came to Oregon
from his native Las Vegas in 1979 and says he’s here
to stay.
“The longer I stayed, the more I fell in love
with Oregon,” he says. “I couldn’t leave now; it’s
my home."
Carrigan says he’s a painter at heart, but collage
work allows him to tell stories. The piece he’s
chosen for the City Hall show is one you might
want to stare at for ;i while. In the foreground is
a shirtless man Carrigan identifies as a Cuban
wrestler posing in front of a red car. Fast food,
bunny suits and a big green dinosaur are just some
of the images in this teeming composition.
“There’s a lot of little stories you can make up
Continued on Page 20
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