Tour de Murals

On Saturday, Sara Stout and local Muralists groups organized an excellent tour of local Murals by bike. We started at the Vita cafe at 30th and NE Alberta where we learned about the new Share the Road Mural that will be painted in June on the outside wall of Hawthorne Auto Clinic. Sara showed her idea so far for the mural. Joanne of Portland Mural Defense talked about the history of murals in Portland
and the on-going Clear Channel lawsuit that has made it difficult to get permission for murals to go up.

We then headed out down Alberta Street, stopping at the Women Mural, Tom Kramer mural, and the site of the upcoming Community Cycling Center mural. Here Robin, who got a RACC (Regional Art & Culture Council) grant to design this mural unveiled the plans - that show an amazing bike parade that includes a pirate ship and other whimsical characters (see photos!). Robin is going to need a lot of volunteers this summer so if you see folks working on the mural this late spring or summer - feel free to jump in and paint. Then we headed to the Albina Press mural, Bruce Orr's SCRAP Mural (Joanna Dyer came out to give a dynamic talk on this colorful mural made last summer, and it was the first approved mural under the new RACC rulings), and then another Tom Kramer mural near N. Williams.

Then our group of around 30 bicyclists headed South, we stopped at the Irvington Church Murals
that are on both sides of the building on the way. At City Bikes, Sara Stout talked about the Mural evolving on the building, and at SE Stark & 28th we looked closely at Ping Khaw's "Learning Beyond" mural that went up last year. In the Belmont area we stopped at few building murals, sunnyside piazza - a giant sunflower mural on the street - and the bike memorial lifehouse. Our last stop before the Hawthorne Auto Clinic was the Coffee Head mural hiding on a wall near Hawthorne & SE 39th. At the Auto Clinic we were warmly welcomed by the owner (I think) and had a huge spread of food. A planning session began for the proposed "Share the Road" mural to go up in June on the side of the building. Everyone was drawing bikes on the paper plan on the wall. So Sang Park stepped in and drew a car! But he quickly added a bike rack to the top. Check out the photos below and also the other mural links.

-Carye