52
JUNE 17, 2011
pridefiles
W W W .J U S T 0 U T .C O M
MARTY DAVIS
M
land to take over the reins at Blue Sky, the
Oregon Center for Photographic Arts.
“I am the executive director, and only full
time staff member,” says Tubutis o f his re
sponsibilities including fundraising, grant
writing and administering every aspect of
Blue Sky. “I’m steering the ship.”
In his first year here, Tubutis has had
many shifts. This last fall, he facilitated a
panel organized by the Portland Institute of
Contemporary Arts around the National
Portrait Gallery’s censorship o f David
Wojnarowicz’s A Fire In My Belly. In the
time since his arrival, he’s purchased a house
and helped Blue Sky celebrate its 35th
anniversary.
“I still feel like I’m settling in,” he says.
Tubutis moved to Portland from Chicago,
where he spent a decade working in numer
ous capacities at the Field Museum. How
ever, this is not his first time in Stumptown.
“I lived here for one year in ’92 to ’93,” he
says. Tubutis had gone to college in W iscon
sin and wanted to get out of the Midwest.
“There were only a handful o f M cM e-
namins,” he remarks o f the Portland he
knew almost 20 years ago. “The food scene
was definitely not [what it is today]. I was
actually just coming out then.”
One o f his first jobs here was working for
Lynn’s Talking Books. “It was in Lloyd C en
ter, where the Banana Republic is now,” he
says. “We rented and sold books on tape.”
These days, when not spending his time
running Blue Sky, Tubutis enjoys Portland’s
culinary culture. He spent his 40th birthday
at G rüner and lists Grain 6c Gristle, Ken’s
Artisan Pizza and Pine State Biscuits among
his favorite dining experiences.
— W ayne B und
Safety in Num bers
“W hen I started, nobody
was running the program,
there weren’t any culturally
specific services,” Mendez, 26,
says. Even after she was hired
as the new LGBTQ_advocate,
“what they had in mind was a
support group and basic advocacy stuff. There
was nothing in my job description about any
of the prevention or community education
stuff, but since that’s what I like to do I found
ways to bring it in.”
In addition to getting the support group
running again, she started a healthy rela-
Lupita Mendez educates
queer community about domestic
violence, and vice versa
W hen Lupita Mendez began working at
Bradley Angle nearly two years ago, the do-
mestic violence agency had lost its program-
ming for LGBTQ_ survivors— a major loss
because Bradley Angle was, and continues
to be, the only organization in Portland of-
fering such targeted services.
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