Portland: Mmm Mmm Good!

My stomach lead the tour through Portland.  I love Portland, it's just a mere 3 hour's drive from Seattle and packed full of great eateries!  We drove down for my opening at the Hoffman Shop Gallery in OCAC last weekend.  A friend recommended Ha VL Vietnamese soup and sandwich in SE Portland.  We drove straight from Seattle to this restaurant hoping there's still food left!  They only make 2 kinds of specialty soup per day and once they sell out they close shop.  We just made it in and had their last 2 bowls of shredded chicken soup!  Many sad faces came in after us.  This place definitely lives up to it's reputation.  It's a small hidden gem, the setting is ho-hum but you can sing about the food all day long.  They use traditional herbs and spices, everything is made fresh daily.  This humble bowl of soup brings me home. :)  It's worth it to make the trek out to see them and go EARLY or you might not get a bowl.  They don't take reservations, but you can call in first to see how much is left.  If you're interested in knowing more Wandering Chopsticks has the lowdown.


Our next stop was VooDoo Doughnuts.  We've been wanting to go here since Man vs. Food featured them.  I've had a few of their doughnuts before, but have never been to their shop.  HOLY COW the line was long!  It took 30mins to get our doughnuts... we thought the line was for a special event, but apparently it was just another Thursday.  It was a fun line, people were jovial, no cranky faces.


There was a another line once we made it through the door!  It's OK, the decor kept us entertained and we got to smell the doughnuts.  I really like their stained glass windows.


My favorite has to be the "Old Dirty Bastard" doughnut!  How can you go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate?!  If you're feeling lost at what to pick I would recommend the "Fryer Flyer" special, it's a dozen of their most popular doughnuts. 


Our final stop was the beautiful OCAC campus!  They have such a beautiful facility!  I came to see a show at the Hoffman gallery in 2008/09 and they were just starting the construction of this new building.  What a difference a few years make.  MaryAnn Deffenbaugh gave us a tour of the school.
I did not take this picture, I was too busy picking up my jaw from the floor and forgot about taking pics. 


This is the interior hallway of the painting building/studios.  Amazing light everywhere, there's never a dull moment in this space.  There's a great sense of airy lightness.  The building was designed by Charles Rose Architecture, more info HERE.


A student demonstrating the repousse process in their metals studio.  I think we made it to every building except for the clay and woodworking studios.  Next time.


Graduate students hanging their thesis show. 



My work at the Hoffman Shop Gallery.  Thank you for the tour MaryAnn, it's an amazing campus.  Makes me want to go back to school again.

Hoffman Gallery Shop at OCAC

I have a show coming up at the Hoffman Gallery Shop @ OCAC.  I will be there for the opening on April 5th!  Please come by if you're in Portland, it's a wonderful campus!

Hoffman Gallery Shop
April 5th - 29th, 2012
Opening Reception 5pm-7pm

Oregon College of Art and Craft
8245 SW Barnes Road
Portland, OR 97225

Did I Poison The Squirrels?

I went out to inspect the yard a few days ago and found that most of my peony shoots had been chewed off!  Fricken' squirrels!!!  I was so mad, all I could think of was the beautiful blooms that could have been.  A few days passed and I haven't seen the squirrels in my yard.  Usually there are 3 or 4, my husband feeds them and I try to discourage him.  They started to eat our winter beets and maybe the peony shoots looked like beet greens?  I googled to see if Peonies are poisonous and they are.  Apparently very poisonous if ingested in large amounts.  Maybe the little guys are just sick and vomiting somewhere... I hope they didn't kick the acorn cap.  :(

Remembering Japan

A sunset vigil for Japan, tonight at Golden Gardens in Ballard.  More information on the Artists For Japan blog: http://artistsforjapan.blogspot.com/

A few pictures from the vigil:

The wonderful people at Kokon Taiko led the procession and ceremony.


The procession with drum beats.


A moment of silence. Sorry for the blurriness, it was my only shot.


Hello to friends:
Junko Yamamoto, one of the organizers, giving a hug to a friend.


One last prayer whispered to the sea.

Black & White

I was recently asked to make a panda crayon that was black and white.  I've tried many times in the past to incorporate different colors onto one crayons.  I would melt one crayon and drip the wax onto another crayon, think candle dipping.  But as soon as I start carving the new layer would just pop off.  The 2 colors never quite "fuse" together.  This was a fun request and I really wanted to make a 2 color crayon.

I played around with a few different methods and found one that works.  I used an inlay-like process to incorporate the 2 colors.  This is the test crayon, I'm currently working on the final crayon for the client.  I'm very excited about this new process... so many new possibility!  I think images with bold graphics would work best. 


A close-up of Mr. Panda.

Belated New House Followup Part 3

I think the most satisfying room to remodel was the bathroom.  This was the state of it when we bought our home.  I called it the murder bathroom... it's probably comparable to the Trainspotting bathroom on the yuck factor.  We have 2 bathrooms, but this the main one we use.  It's also the one that our guests uses, so it has to be easy to clean despite daily use.  It's also a small space, about 6'x9' with very little room for storage.  There were some huge challenges to making this a livable and comfortable space.


This small bathroom was made smaller by a divider wall separating the tub and sink.  It also had built-in overhead shelves.  It was a disgusting claustrophobic mess.  We decided to tear everything out and build it from scratch.  The divider wall came down as well as the built-in shelving. 


Bathroom torn up.  Wall boards, tub, toilet and divider walls removed.  I'm sure the walls had soaked up some funk after years of neglect.  I didn't want any bad Juju from anything in that room.


Our contractor Jeff Ramos did an AMAZING job with this bathroom.  He rebuilt the sub flooring as well.


New tub, new sub floor & hardi-board wall panels installed.  We left the window alone along with the wall panel that it was on.  There's no reason to disturb it.


New tub and floor.  We also moved the left wall out 6" to gain a little more room between the tub and  toilet.


Tada the newly finished bathroom!  We took out the divider wall and made a half wall to separate the tub and sink.  It gave us a lot more light and also a ledge shelf to put stuff on.  The medicine cabinet and light fixture was left here by the old owner.  It fits in pretty well.  We also removed a section of the wall to the right of the sink, giving us more elbow room and another functional shelf!
The sink, faucet and sink cabinet is from Ikea.  We had absolutely no storage in this bathroom.  This little drawer unit holds everything we need!  It's amazing!  The floating cabinet also gives the illusion of more space.

This is a very relaxing space to be in.  Many hours are spent here soaking in the tub playing Nintendo DS games! :P

The wall tiles are porcelain subway tiles from Lowes.  It's white with antique white grout... there's a huge debate on what color grout to use with white subway tiles.  I feel it's best to use a color that's slightly darker, but not too dark. You want to retain the tile subway pattern.  A white grout will make your pattern disappear and a dark grout will be too overpowering.  I used antique white grout with the b&w floor tiles too.

Our toilet is a Toto Drake II, with cyclone flushing technology.  OK, sorry for any of you that might be grossed out over toilet talk, but I have to geek out for a moment. This is the best toilet EVER!  It's a bit pricier than most systems you'll find at the box stores, but well worth it.  We've had it for over a year and it has worked flawlessly, every flush.  We don't even have a plunger and haven't needed one.  It's also very "green" having a 1.28 gallon flush.  I did weeks of research after finding this baby.  The people at Toto knows their stuff.  Here's a informational video Toto did to show you how it flushes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YugiNeWIlME


This is an Ikea Lillangen sink paired with the Godmorgon cabinet.  I like the contemporary feel of the Lillangen and the little accessories it comes with is wonderful as well.  This sink serves as a shelf, soap holder and organizer.  When you're in a tight spot you need every inch to work for you.  We were dead set on having this sink.  We also REALLY needed a cabinet with drawers to keep all of the bathroom stuff... q-tips, hair dryer, brushes & what-have-you.  Our needs really limited our design choices, but it's a fun challenge to have.
While at Ikea we saw the Godmorgon cabinet and knew that it would be perfect for our storage needs.  I stupidly assumed that all Ikea sinks were designed to be paired with Ikea cabinets.  We bought them both and when we went to install the sink realized that the sink was too short for the cabinet!  ARG!  The sink is 16"deep while the cabinet is 20"deep.  We really wanted that sink and we needed that cabinet.  So we had to make it work... Ikea hacking, another favorite activity of mine.


We just scooted the sink out by 4" so the edge of the sink meets the edge of the cabinet.  We secured a piece of 2by4 between wall and the sink to build out a ledge that we tiled.  I like the extra depth behind the sink and it gives me an opportunity to add a splash of color.  The metal soap holder comes with the sink!  The faucet is also from Ikea.


Here is the underside of the sink. I took this during the installation.  You have to drill holes for the sink bracket, it doesn't match up to any pre-drilled holes.  You can also see the 2by4 in the back between the sink and wall.  The green arrow shows that the sink moved forward.
Here are all of my bathroom remodel pics.

A quick recap with images.  Click on them to view large.

Before & After of the sink.


Before & After


A closer look at the sink.

Art Crush: Takanori Aiba

This is work from artist Takanori Aiba, my new art crush!  I'm going to write, "Mrs. Diem Aiba" all over my notebook! LOL just kidding!
The amazing detail just blows me away and I love his sense of wonderment.  Masterfully crafted... I just want to sit there and stare at it. 


Another shot without the glass dome.  These are not my pictures.