The skanner., February 22, 2012, Page 22, Image 22

L OST N EIGHBORHOODS
Black History
v
Mapping Out Our Histories
New project looks for lost stories of Williams Avenue and the Civil Rights Movement in Portland
By Lisa Loving
Of The Skanner News
E
mma Colburn is a Portland native who works with youth
in the classroom; she has a passion for designing unusual
educational projects to connect teenagers with their her-
itage and their neighborhoods.
Last summer she led a New Columbia class in map-making
that brought kids together with senior citizens at the Urban
League.
More recently Colburn started creating an art installation built
around preserving the history of the Williams Avenue corridor.
Incorporating watercolor portraits she painted of people at the
Senior Center, Colburn is also piecing together a series of com-
munity maps and plans more art from Williams Avenue’s past.
To do that, she is counting on local residents to help her win-
now down which buildings should be memorialized in the
history project.
Her portrait collection is on display at the McCoy Academy
through the end of the month – and she is hoping people will
seek her out to share more stories of Portland’s past. Contact her
at the McCoy Academy, 503-281-9597.
The Skanner News: Tell us about this history project that
incorporates art.
Emma Colburn: The project is called Vibrant Heirlooms. I
first moved back to Portland two years ago, I heard that they
were going to be creating this development at the Coliseum
called Jumptown, to capitalize on the history of the neighbor-
hood while also playing reference to the Blazers. So that’s when
I first got involved, because I had been involved in cultural her-
itage tourism in Chicago and in Wisconsin and through working
out there I realized that sometimes there’s a potential for cultur-
al heritage tourism but that also for it to go the other way and
become kitsch if it wasn’t well done.
So I wanted to see what was going on with that and learn about
some of the neighborhood’s history myself. So I ended up writ-
ing a grant that was funded by the Regional Arts and Culture
Council. Originally it was called “Vanishing Heirlooms,” and it
was the same project but once I got into it I said, wait, it isn’t
vanishing, it’s still very vibrant. So I changed the project title to
Vibrant Heirlooms.
Artist and educator Emma Colburn with a watercolor
portrait from her series of paintings of clients at the
Urban League Senior center.
know of any curriculum about Portland civil rights, civil rights
leaders in Portland, places where rallies happened, even acts of
segregation happened – like where is the document that lists all
of the places where Black people weren’t allowed, that had
“Whites Only” signs? I’d like to see that, because I’d like to
share those locations with my students instead of reading a pic-
ture book about MLK.
So the wider picture of this project is that it will be turned into
an arts-based geography curriculum about the civil rights move-
ment using local geography. So it will be map-based. Also we’ll
use portraits and the art of portraiture to teach local geography.
TSN: When you say heirlooms and you mean buildings?
Colburn: I’m talking about both the architecture of the neigh-
borhood and the people that passed on that
inheritance. Also the people who are inher-
iting it, which I consider to be the children
of the neighborhood and also the newcom-
ers to the neighborhood. It’s called Vibrant
Heirlooms and it’s a series of watercolor
portraits of seniors who go down to the
Loaves and Fishes center on MLK. Some
of them lived in Portland, as well as Van-
port and The Villa (Columbia Villa), and
the Boise-Elliot neighborhood, and some
of them are newcomers. Like if they didn’t
spend a lot of time in Portland and they got
here in the 70s.
TSN: That’s so Portland – oh, the 70s –
40 years ago, those are all newcomers.
That’s totally the way we think.
Colburn: That’s how people describe
themselves here – ‘oh I don’t really know
about that, I’m a newcomer, I’ve only been
Colburn’s students from New Columbia spent weeks last summer visiting seniors in North
Portland, learning how to sew and listening to stories about ‘The Villa.’
here since the 70s.’
So what I realized as an educator is we
teach our students year after year about
Civil Rights, and we always talk about the
TSN: Did you already start to do that this summer with your
same leaders in the South. I think that’s a problem because I
students at New Columbia?
think we need to teach young people how to see their history in
Colburn: That was a beginning, more for myself as an educa-
their everyday landscape, because that makes them more
tor. What we did do was personal interviews with people at the
engaged in the subject that you’re teaching. Like, ‘oh, I go past
senior center who had grown up in “The Villa” when it was “The
that every day, the civil rights movement wasn’t just something
Villa” and not New Columbia. We spent time every week down
that happened in the South.’ I think it’s important that we under-
there sewing – they taught us how to sew, and that was an ice-
stand how it impacted our daily experiences. So as an educator
breaker-introduction. Because then one week we broke up into
it’s frustrating because there’s not a lot of curriculum – I don’t
one on one interviews with the seniors, who remembered grow-
ing up there.
That program was very short, so we didn’t follow it through
the way that I envision doing it eventually. I know that it was
meaningful for the seniors, and those are the seniors that I paint-
ed. I followed up, for myself as an artist. Now that I’ve painted
the images they’re going to be installed at the Urban League, on
Russell, so that’s exciting. We’re going to have a reception with
the seniors there.
Right now I work with a group of students at Grant, I work as
That’s how people describe
themselves here – ‘oh I don’t
really know about that, I’m a
newcomer, I’ve only been here
since the 70s.’
See ART on page 3
Page 2 The Portland and Seattle Skanner v BLACK HISTORY EDITION v February 22, 2012