street Roots • Aug. 21-27, 2015
News
Painting Portland’s culture on the walls
Forest fo r the Trees, a
nonprofit responsible fo r
dozens o f public murals,
is about to create more
Gage Hamilton
stands in front of
“Ozymandias
(DeSoto Detached)”
at Northwest
Broadway and
Couch Street.
Hamilton, a .
painter, is the
founder o f the
nonprofit Forest For
the Trees.
BY ANN-DERRICK GAILLOT
ince 2013, summers in Portland have
have experienced a public art
renaissance. Each August,
contemporary public murals pop up on
blank walls throughout the city. The
transformation of these spaces happens
quickly and quietly but leaves a loud mark.
Images such as “Keep Your Chin Up” on
Northeast Alberta and 21st Avenue and the
purple visage of Ice Cube looking down at
the corner of Northeast 28th Avenue and
Sandy Boulevard have quickly become
beloved landmarks of the neighborhoods
they belong to.
This annual tide of public art is the
product of Forest For th e Trees, a nonprofit
mural project started by painter Gage
Hamilton. Inspired by Hawaii’s yearly Pow!
Wow! mural festival, Hamilton and Hellion
Gallery director Matt Wagner are
responsible for coordinating 35 new murals
in Portland over the past two years by local
and international artists alike; FFTT has
facilitated such works as “Everything is
Everything” by Zach Yarrington at
Southeast Sixth Avenue and Division,
“Capax Infiniti” by Faith47 at Southwest
11th Avenue and Washington Street and
“You Are Only Confined by the Walls You
Build Yourself’ by Blaine Fontana at
Northeast 22nd Avenue and Alberta Street.
This year, with $13,500 from the Regional
Arts and Culture Council and nearly $11,500
from its IndieGogo campaign, FFTT, which
recently became a nonprofit organization, is
set to paint the city again Aug. 24-30. Local
artists and international artists representing
eight countries will paint on walls
throughout Portland.
I recently sat down with FFTT founder
Gage Hamilton to talk about what the project
has in store for Portland walls this year.
S
Ann-Derrick Gaillot: Why did you start
FFTT?
Gage Hamilton: I’m from Portland.
Whenever I’d go to other cities, I’d always
see a ton of murals. I was always jealous. I
always thought there was so much culture
through that you could just pick up on as
soon as you arrive in a city and take the
train or whatever, you immediately get to
see the culture written on the walls. So it
always really frustrated me that Portland
didn’t have a lot of that, especially
considering it’s supposed to have this sort
of creative hub.
I was already painting large, and I was
just curious about painting murals, and at
the time a friend in Tokyo introduced me to
a friend of his in Hawaii that had a mural
project. I was trying to go out there to paint
a mural but just didn’t have the money at
the time to work it out, so then I was
once-
P H O T O B Y A N N -D E R R IC K G A IL L O T
thinking, Why can’t we have it here? And
that’s kind of how it just came up.
For a long time, it was illegal to paint
walls in Portland so I think a lot of people
just felt like it still was because they didn’t
know how to go about it. All that I heard
from everyone when I was starting it was
that the city’s gonna shut it down or sue you
or whatever, so I got the permits, but I
didn’t really tell any of the main
organizations like RACC about it because I
didn’t know how they’d react, and then they
reacted positively when it was done.
A.G.: What was the first FFTT like?
G.H.: It was a
much smaller
Online
budget, much ;
smaller walls. It
For Forest For the
was a lot of just
Trees moral
figuring out
locations and event
who’s around and
listings, visit
available and able
forestforthetreesnw.
to paint at a
com.
certain scale, and
it was mostly
inner Southeast.
All the artists just stayed with other artist
I had like four people on my floor. It’s kini
of expanded a bit from there, and I ’m tryii
not to let it get too out of hand. Just
naturally this sort of thing wants to get
bigger and bigger, but I’m trying to keep ii
pretty small.
A.G.: How did you find the buildings you
wanted painted?
G.H.: Just cold calling, walking around.
There’s different guidelines of which walls
you can paint so I just figured what those
were and I would just walk into places and
talk to the business owners, or I’d look up
online and try to figure out who owns it. It
was a lot of just calling people. A lot of
people said, “no” right away and
occasionally you get someone who’s <
interested.
A.G.: This year, did you still have to do cold
calling?
G.H.: Yeah I do, although there’s maybe
six or seven buildings that hit me up before
I ever called anyone, so I already had those
ready.
A.G.: I know that you put the money you
raised toward travel and equipment and paint,
but you also say that FFTT provides artists
with the creative freedom to make these pieces.
What does that mean?
G.H.: Basically, if you were to go out and
talk to a property owner about painting a
mural, then nine times out of ten they’re
going to try to direct you on what they want
it to be, especially if they’re giving you
(money). Even if they’ve given only a
hundred bucks, I still feel like they’ve
bought it.
I’ve just found it easier to raise money
separately from the property owners
because then once they give you money,
they feel like they have some ownership in
giving you creative direction, whereas the
whole point of the project is not to force
some artist to paint a Boston Red Sox
mural. It’s to let the artist paint what they
want to paint, what they would be proud of
painting and would think of as reflective of
their work. So basically, the property
owners will see past examples of their work
and sort of trust in them based off of th a t
They usually always will see a sketch before
they paint, just to make sure it’s not some
curveball or something crazy that they
wouldn’t be happy with. But I make sure
that you can’t nitpick over things or try and
direct this too much.
It’s not a commission. And most of the
artists- if they were to paint,.you a
commission mural, it might cost you like 40
grand. So it’s just much easier, I feel like, to
keep the money separate from the owners
at this point. Sometimes there’s cool
owner’s and they’ll pitch in with lifts, things
like that. But having the creative freedom is
the most important part.
A.G.: What is new about FFTT this year?
G.H.: The curation is a bit different than
it has been in the past. This year I think it’s
a lot more thoughtful in how the artist will
work with what’s nearby and matching them
up together and just trying to make more
transformed areas really and trying to create
a different experience in that regard. We’re
doing some artist panel discussions at
(Pacific Northwest College of Art). We’re
gonna have a couple nights this year
throughout the week where there will be
either music performances or dance art
video performances and stuff like that that I
think will add a different element to it.
A.G.: What do you think FFTT has
brought to the city?
G.H.: I definitely see a lot more murals
aside from what we’ve done. That’s an
obvious part of it, but also just letting people
know that it’s an option. I think it’s just
opened up the floodgates a bit for that, but
also getting property owners and the art
institutions that have been around forever,
getting them to open up to the idea of that
as being something that’s exciting that they
want to be involved with. Because at first
there was a lot of property owners that
would just immediately shut down the idea
See MURALS, page 1 1