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"My images aim to be twenty-first century relics with roots in the vernacular past. In both content and execution, their purpose is to chronicle the imperfections and impermanence of daily existence, affirming that at its core, life is disorderly, unpredictable, absurd, sometimes disturbing, yet always interesting, and to paraphrase Gabriel Garcia Márquez, also the best thing ever invented—even as we seem to frequently do our very best to test the limits of this idea to the point of extinction.” When artist Peter B. Leighton was nine years old, he saw the science fiction film The Amazing Colossal Man for the first time. It is an unforgettable Cold War parable, featuring a US soldier who is accidentally exposed to nuclear radiation and subsequently morphs into a 60-foot madman before being destroyed by the US Military. Leighton notes this film’s unmistakeable effect on shaping his worldview of embracing the humor and absurdity of life in spite of its tragedies. This outlook also permeates the artist’s inventive series, Man Lives Through Plutonium Blast. For this body of work, Leighton digitally pieces together analog snapshots to create imaginary vernacular photographs of the twentieth century experience, complete with “monochrome men fallen from grace, ambivalent women standing on the cusp of empowerment and reinvention, and feral, free-range children born to run, all with the enduring threat of an end of the world as they know it circling high overhead.” Peter B. Leighton is an artist currently living and working in Tumbaco, Ecuador. In the 1970s he served as an assistant to photographer Tom Wright, who was a key figure in documenting the emerging rock scenes in 1960s Great Britain and the United States. Since the 1980s, Leighton has focused his attention on digital imaging as a viable process for fine printmaking, while also serving as a corporate e-strategist for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishers, and operating a fine arts digital imprint, Penny Prints Press, in Austin, Texas. This is Leighton's first exhibition of Man Lives Through Plutonium Blast. First Thursday Opening Reception April 7, 6:00–9:00 PM Artist Talks: Peter B. Leighton: Thursday, April 7, 5:00 PM Amanda Harman: Saturday, April 9, 3:00 PM

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Participants must register through the online registration form on the YWCA Events page (link in Website). This presentation will help participants understand the root causes of sexual violence, its prevalence, its impact on survivors, and the dynamics that make sexual violence a stigmatizing crime. The presenter will discuss how perpetrators of sexual violence chose victims based on perceived or created vulnerability and lack of credibility. Oppressed communities are often perceived as more vulnerable, and have less perceived credibility than privileged classes of people and therefore are often targeted by perpetrators. Presented by Fawn Livingston-Gray (Portland Women’s Crisis Line) *fulfills training required for 40-hour Domestic Violence Advocate Training

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Portland Women in Art Lecture Series presents Ellen Lesperance on, "The Strong, Star-Bright Companions." The lecture is to take place at the Moriarty Arts Humanities Building on the Portland Community College Cascade Campus. Ellen Lesperance’s work pays tribute to direct action campaigns and feminist activism. Lesperance's paintings are based on knit garments worn by women involved in protests, sit-ins, demonstrations, and civil disobedience. She meticulously paints the patterns of these “knitted messages,” that function much like other forms of creative direct action such as picket signs, banners, street theater, body painting, and costumes. Pattern, shape, and symmetry emerge in the artist's highly detailed compositions that merge abstraction with figuration. By translating and transforming such source material into something abstract and universal, the works speak to participation and protest as being not radical, but essential and personal. They also create a political lineage, capturing the potential of past events to inspire future action through translated and coded symbols. Ellen Lesperance’s work has been exhibited widely, most recently at the Seattle Art Museum, the Drawing Center, New York, and in the People's Biennial (traveling). Lesperance’s work is represented in the following public collections: the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum; the Museum of Art and Design; the Portland Art Museum; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; and at the Kadist Art Foundation. Lesperance has been honored with the northwest regional Betty Bowen Award, a Ford Family Fellowship in the Arts, the 2015 Individual Artists RACC Fellowship, an Art Matters! Grant, a Robert Rauschenberg "Artist-as-Activist" Travel Grant, and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. She received her MFA from Rutgers University in 1999 and has received residencies at the Skowhegan School; the MacDowell Colony; the Djerassi Foundation; and the Atlantic Center. Her work has been featured in AnOther, Art in America, ArtUS, Art Monthly, Cura, GARAGE, Guernica, Intercourse, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, the Oregonian, and Tema Celeste.

Participants must register through the online registration form on the YWCA Events page (link in Website). This training provides an overview of domestic violence intervention for offenders, an interactive discussion about the causes of violence, abusive tactics, and the social context of abuse/the effectiveness of intervention. Presented by Dr. Chris Huffine (Allies in Change) *fulfills training required for 40-hour Domestic Violence Advocate Training

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Join us in celebrating the wealth of instrument making in the Pacific Northwest. The exhibit will be held in Marylhurst’s Clark Commons, with performances in BP John, upstairs in the lovely Wiegand Hall.

Portland's own nine time award winning physical comedy company, A Little Bit Off (creators of Beau & Aero), presents Bella Culpa - a slapstick comedy that follows two peculiar servants in an Edwardian manor as they bustle around trying in vain to complete all of their chores. With a mess of silver buckets, a slew of uninvited furry guests, and impressive circus-style acrobatic flair, this off-beat comedy will leave everyone chortling. Like Downton Abbey Meets The Three Stooges. "Physical comedy at its best." - London Free Press We're thrilled to announce that White Collar Crimes will be opening the evening with a short scene from their touring show Perpetual Wednesday! A Little Bit Off and White Collar Crimes toured the much of the same Fringe circuit last summer, and will be tromping around to many of the same places again this summer. THE DEETS: Show at 7:30pm Doors just after 7 Online Tickets: $15 Adults / $12 Kids 12 & Under At the Door Tickets: $20 Adults / $15 Kids 12& Under Echo Theater 1515 SE 37th Ave, Portland, OR 97214 Link to Online Tickets: https://www.artful.ly/a-little-bit-off/store/events/8624

This workshop provides a theoretical and practical understanding of oppressions and their basis in power and control. We will capitalize on participant knowledge to establish a working understanding of oppression and draw on participant interests and roles to equip participants to work more effectively for social justice. Presented by Dara Snyder, MSW (YWCA of Greater Portland) *fulfills training required for 40-hour Domestic Violence Advocate Training

Stop by and say hi!

Stop by and say hi!

Stop by and say hi!