Come play on our team!

Hey Beautiful People! I have recently become President-elect for the small arts nonprofit I have volunteered for for the past two years, Art on Alberta. For you Portland readers, I would like to announce that we are currently seeking 5-6 new board members for our newly revamped mission.

One of the projects we have for next year that I'm most excited about is a yearlong project for next year's Art Hop. Next year will be Art Hop’s tenth anniversary along with the 150th anniversary of Oregon as a state. We are already making plans to make this an especially memorable celebration. Our featured artist will be Thelma Johnson Streat, (1912-1959). Streat was known internationally in the mid-twentieth century for her visual and performance art and for her work to promote intercultural understanding and appreciation. She was also the first African American woman to have paintings to be collected by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Although she grew up in Portland and attended the Portland Art Museum School (now the Pacific Northwest College of Art), Streat is an underrecognized name in this region and in the art world at large. In 2009, Art on Alberta will be taking the initiative to build awareness about this amazing painter, dancer, designer, and educator. One of our board members has been working with her family (who still lives in the region) and they have spent the last decade collecting back the work of Ms. Streat. Art Hop 2009 will be the place where Streat’s work will be showcased, some for the very first time. We are also already talking with many city arts leaders and organizations about partnering for this project, and will work with grant writers to fully fund this interesting exhibit.

If you'd like to be a part of making things like this happen, click here. This year's Art Hop will be in May and we picked three artists to feature, who represent the cultural diversity of this neighborhood. The artists are Adrienne Cruz, Tripper Dungan, and Analee Fuentes. I will probably post a blog entry closer to the event, so stay tuned!