Japanese gardens

Japanese Zen Garden in Portland Oregon
Phone number (503) 223-1321

The Nonmind Bonsai Yoga crew checked in with home-base to rest from the workshop tour, and of course spent time at the gardens. We did Qi Gong and yoga in the park outside the gardens. The Rose Garden is an excellent place to do movement therapy, as long as you don’t mind people staring at you. (Portland can be quite conservative, at least those who come to the rose garden. KEEP PORTLAND WEIRD! )

If you like asian culture, you may find my scarves interesting. We create shibori (Japanese tie-dye) naturally dyed silks. These pieces of art are one of a kind and in tune with nature. They are very traditional and a rare example of Japanese culture. These dyeing arts are living in Bonsai Nonmind Culture!

Street Address

Japanese Garden
611 SW Kingston Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97205

(Location details)

See contact information page for mailing address and department phone numbers.

Visitor Hours

The Portland Japanese Garden is open to visitors seven days a week year-round, closing only on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day.

Summer Season:
April 1-September 30

Tuesday-Sunday: 10am-7pm
Monday: 12pm-7pm

Shuttle from parking lot runs every day
Guided tours offered three times daily (Tour details)
6pm, Gift Store closes
6:30pm, last admission taken
Winter Season:
October 1-March 31

Tuesday-Sunday: 10am-4pm
Monday: 12pm-4pm

Shuttle from parking lot runs on weekends
Guided tours offered on weekends (Tour details)
3:30pm, last admission taken
4pm, Gift Store closes
Admission

Your admission gains access to the Garden, the Gift Store, and when offered, public tours and exhibits. Some special events are not included with admission. For more information, please see the events page.

Adults (18-61) $8.00
Senior (62+) $6.75
College Students (with ID) $6.75
Youth (6-17) $5.25
Children (under 6) Free

Tours

Guided Public Tours

Daily guided tours of the Garden are offered April-October at 10:45am, 1pm, and 2:30pm. (On Mondays the Garden opens at noon, with the first tour at 1pm.) Additionally, November through March, guided tours are offered at 1pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

Public tours are generally 45 minutes to one hour, outdoors, and on foot. Visitors may join or leave the public tour at any time—no reservations necessary.

Private Group Tours

Request a Group Tour
We ask private tours and school groups to make a reservation in advance—we provide discounted rates and personal tour guides for qualifying groups. For details, please visit the tour page.

Location

The Garden is located in southwest Portland, directly above the International Rose Test Gardens in Washington Park, at 611 SW Kingston Avenue, Portland, OR 97205. For more contact information, including our mailing address, please see the contact information page.

Directions

The Garden is served hourly by TriMet bus #63 which stops in downtown Portland and at the Zoo/Washington Park MAX Light Rail station.

By Car

From I-405 (downtown Portland) follow signs for Highway 26 West. From Highway 26 West, take the Oregon Zoo & Forestry Center Exit. Bear right after the exit and follow signs for the Forestry Center. Continue up the hill past the Forestry Center and make a right turn onto Kingston Drive (there will be a wooden sign for the Japanese Garden and Rose Garden just before the turn). Follow Kingston Drive about two miles through Washington Park. At the stop sign, make a left turn onto Kingston Avenue. You will see our parking lot on your left

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Keeping up with change and activities – Updates 4 U

Whats new with you?

We have a lot of new things happening, new people indamix, lots of events and opportunities to gather and share and help others.

We have been spending a lot of time attempting to reach the conscious music crowds of bellingham, and have found lots of good artistry via and among the Click Pop Records music scene. The Soundings group is a lot older and they do not seem to return our calls. So we have been keeping it moving the best we can with who we can reach. We devoted several hours to promoting music and events this holiday which fell on the 22nd of this month. I put in long hours this week doing weaving and yoga too.

We have also been putting up flyers and emailing lots of people in teh addy book and those who we meet online and via craigslist….

The next art show info is here….

Ten Times Amazing:
A Holiday Group Art Show

When: Sunday, December 2nd from 12pm – 6pm
Where: Firehouse Performing Arts Center 1314 Harris Avenue, Fairhaven

Ten local artists combine their individual expressions for this one-day only celebration. From whimsical, woolly, and wild to traditional, twisted and touchable. The show will delight you and someone on your holiday gift list. Warm yourself by the fireplace at the historic Firehouse Performing Arts Center in Fairhaven, support local artists and purchase an affordable original gift.

Featuring:
Andrea Fackler, pottery & weaving
Cris Pauley, metal sculpture
Dave Crabb, rustic lamps
Donald Larsen, acrylic and oil paintings
Harold Niven, batik banners, batik wear, collage magnets
Heather Smith, recycled wool bracelets
Mary Ann Dupree, wreaths
Michelle Van Slyke, hats
Therese Spaude-Larsen, wildcraft, beaded bracelets
Wayne Hagan, photographs

ONE DAY ONLY! ONE DAY ONLY! ONE DAY ONLY!
More info at Therese Spaude-Larsen, Artist (360) 766-4116

Show will be here:

http://homepage.mac.com/mattchristman/firehouse/index.html

We are also starting a weekly movie night at the new studio !!! Did you know we moved? YES! Into a bigger studio, beautiful hard wood floors and wonderful other benefits/aspects we aim to share…..

Please contact me for directions and to schedule a visit or to confirm you are coming to our first yoga session or movie night at the new place!

Weaving or unweaving a Culture Village

I recently discovered a new view of the power and meaning of “RED” via http://jayarava.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_archive.html and I was happy to hear this. Jayarava wrote, “I want to finish by restating something I’ve mentioned before about technology. The internet and the whole cellphone thing… they are about creating a sense of connection between human beings. Marshall Mcluhan said “the medium is the message”. His idea was that the form of media tell us more about ourselves and our age than the contents of the media. When I look at the enormous energy (both figuratively and literally) going into our creation of communications networks what I see is a huge desire to commune. So, practice the red rite, the rite of fascination with life, with people, with things, and transform your experience of the world by narrowing the gap between ‘you’ and ‘them’!

How have we as a world culture or Global Village changed as people since the Industrial revolution? Before we lived with handmade crafts such as handspun cloth and wheel thrown pots. How do factory made objects affect our lives and spirituality? Handmade objects give life, vibration, and beauty into our lives. Factory made objects are dead and dehumanized. Does that affect our consciousness and cause us to think in dehuman ways? These are ideas that most people never consider, so far removed is this ancient culture. Come discuss your ideas AND FEELINGS with us, on our message board, via comments and direct communication itself (We want to meet you!).

I say “we” because I am a people person and even though we are among very impersonal and uncollective types everywhere, I feel like these efforts here at this blog are about us. Even “us” is misleading, so lets say our oneness, and an awareness of the need to hold space for people who seek to create real culture. It is about us reaching for solutions, its about us holding space as 6th sensory people. Its about manifesting and communicating and establishing personal connections rooted in truth process. I pray this place becomes a plce for that kind of connecting – one that gives us room to breath. I love people and life is short- lets live!

One way I live is through weaving. “…..the form of media tell us more about ourselves and our age than the contents of the media.” How does that work for getting to know me and what does weaving stand for these days? I believe each weaving is a torch, or a lamp post on love street helping us to remember the truth about our interdependence along this dark age of the myspace road to hell. The weavings are of the other road, the one which has been hidden since the inside job of 911 – the road of peace and truth and freedom and love.

Yes, Herbert Marshall McLuhan is perhaps most remembered for his statement made in the 1960’s that “the medium is the message.”

The seed of that statement contains the kernel of truth for all mediums and messages, revealing the yin/yang nature and relationship of both.

But that kernel did not sprout until the birth and subsequent development of what has now come to be known as “Drea Fine Art Weavings.” The message of weaving, seemly so disparate and contradictory at times, is none other than the ever-present, spoken, song or silent, expression of the essential medium of all experience – - the human heart.

Weaving, when undressed and unmasked, is none other than sincerity itself. It is quintessential sincerity clothed in the robe of human experience, crowned with the hope of all who cry out for justice and a future of interdependent existence – - where not only every being, but every experience, thought, sound, touch, taste, and consciousness itself is seen as wonderfully interdependent – - and treated with the care and dignity which should be afforded to each and every infinite manifestation of life; formed or formless.

Kamal call to artists who like to share & talk about process

Please contact me if you are interested in trades and art blitz get togethers. Maybe we can split costs and attend an event in the future, make a real fun road trip out of it. Or maybe you would like to support a cause and donate some art time in a music meets cause effort, etc etc…..

WHAT IS FLATSTOCK?:

The FLATSTOCK poster show series is presented by the American Poster Institute(API). It is an ongoing series of exhibitions featuring the work of many of the most popular concert poster artists working today.
The API is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to serving poster artists and promoting the art form. Both the API and its FLATSTOCK series were organized in 2002 as a result of conversations between interested artists and supporters frequenting the popular web site gigposters.com. The best concert posters have always captured both the essence of the music they promoted and the spirit of the time in which they were produced. This is as true today as it was in San Francisco during the Sixties. The FLATSTOCK shows provide the general
public with an ongoing series of opportunities to see fine poster art in person and to meet the artists who’ve created it — they provide the API with a way to present the poster artists collectively while showcasing the breadth of individual styles they represent.

Flatstock 1 was held at Cellspace, San Francisco, CA, September 28, 2002
Flatstock 2, 4, 6, 8 and 12 have been held every march since 2003 at The Austin Convention Center during the South By Southwest Music Festival, in Austin, TX
Flatstock 3, 5,7, and 10 have been held every Labor Day Weekend since 2003 at the Bumbershoot Arts Festival in Seattle, WA
Flatstock 9 was held at Union Park during the 2006 Pitchfork Music Festival, in Chicago, Il
Flatstock 11 was held in Europe for the first time in Hamburg, Germany during the 2006 Reeperbahn Music Festival

2008 Residency Season At Artists’ Enclave at I-Park

http://www.i-park.org

Deadline:
December 31, 2007

Announcement:

2008 Residency Season at the Artists’ Enclave at I-Park

Application Deadline: December 31, 2007

I-Park announces its eighth season hosting The Artists’ Enclave. Artists’ residencies, self-directed/project oriented, will be offered from May through November 2008. Most sessions are four weeks in duration. Residencies will be offered to visual (including digital) artists, music composers, environmental artists, landscape and garden designers, creative writers and architects. Work samples will be evaluated through a competitive, juried process.

There is a $20 application processing fee required and artists are responsible for their own transportation to and from the area. They also provide for their own food and work materials. The facility is otherwise offered at no cost to accepted artists.

I-Park is a 450-acre natural woodland retreat in rural East Haddam, Connecticut. Accommodations include comfortable private living quarters in an 1850’s farmhouse, shared bathroom facilities and a private studio on the grounds. An electric kiln, music equipment, wireless internet and library facilities are provided.

International applicants welcome. To defray the cost of travel, a $1,000 grant will be offered in 2008 to two international artists whose work is held in particularly high regard by the selection committee (details to follow).

For additional project information, go to our website: www.i-park.org. Application materials for 2008, including an in depth FAQ, will be available September 1, 2007 and will be available for direct download from the website (Residency Program section).

E-mail: ipark2002*@*ureach*.*com Phone: 860-873-2468.

Dip and Dunk – Pottery Manifest

Dip and Dunk

Back on the scene with the pottery team.

Sunny day or not. Stopped by the tea hotspot to leave some yoga flyers then off to dip and dunk.

Today was a glazing day. Ten Namasteezy Spirit pots were glazed. A few of those had flashing slips applied while still moist, the others did get flashing slips applied until after bisqued (a pre-firing to make the clay hard).

The flashing slip is not a glaze but a slip (Slips have more clay content than glazes, or higher clay content). Flashing slips are used in atmospheric firings to enhance the natural fuming processes.

The flashing slip rejects the soda, and so creates beautiful effects (called flashing). Today the flash slips were applied to outside first with the dunking method, and glaze was applied to the inside of the pots. A glaze was used on the inside so that the pots would be completely food safe.

The vibe of the process was jovial, happy and lots of laughing. Glazing days can be fun like that, and you know later on everyone asks about the different glazes because they are a joy to look at.

These pots will be tumble stacked in the kiln, stacked on top of one another. So the pots will not stick together, we will place a fusion resistance clay body inbetween the surfaces of the pots. This is called “wadding” which is a high content alumina clay body. Alumina resists soda. If not used they would melt and stick together. The clay body is clay made into little balls. You can put sea shells against with wadding underneath, this will create the imprint of the shell. There is calcium, in the shell which fuses the beautiful blue mark.

I tumble stack because it creates more interesting passages for the flame. When we block the flame or create small passages we alter the look of the pots. Different pots, in relation to each other, with the different negative spaces will create different effects (flashing) on the outside of each piece.
Flashing occurs because in the volatile high temperatures elements and oxides become free born in the atmosphere (This comes from our glazes and clay body) and the flashing slip picks these up.

After the glazing and throwing, I feel dry afterwards. With your hands always wet during throwing and the constant washing of hands can turn your hands very dry.

So I have increased my water intake, and enjoy drinking as much water as I can through out the day. PDX rains so much, I must also be feeling that.

How are you doing?

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