If you missed it this summer at City Hall, you have a chance to catch some of the stories again!
Over the past year, Reeva Wortel has been painting portraits and interviewing families in Portland. In this process she has gathered images and stories of the politics, history, and culture of Portland as well as stories of survival, love, and transformation. One of these life size painting portraits & interviews is with myself & my Dad, Ben Webb:
October 3
6:00-7:00 PM
The Webb Family Portrait with Anna Fritz on cello
The bar will be open, and the first drink is on Portland Center Stage! There will be light hors d’ouevres. Also, you can receive $10 off tickets to any performance of Our Town with the promotion code “REEVA”.
I will also be one of the local actors involved in the performance event on September 27th (as well as October 3rd), please see full schedule below:
Lobby of the The Gerding Theater at The Armory
128 NW 11th Ave, Portland, OR 97209
Free event!
Here is the schedule of events for the next two weeks:
September 22
6:00-7:00 PM
Bob and Alazar Manning Portrait with Anna Fritz on cello
September 24
6:00-7:00 PM
The Gavin Family Portrait with Leon Cotter on saxophone
September 27
12:00-1:00 PM
The Wortel Family Portrait and The Damien, Acacia and Bronsin Portrait with Anna Fritz on cello
October 1
6:00-7:00 PM
The Cushman Family Portrait with Leon Cotter on saxophone
October 3
6:00-7:00 PM
The Webb Family Portrait with Anna Fritz on cello
October 4
12:00-1:00 PM
The Brings Plenty Family Portrait and The Cushman Family Portrait with Anna Fritz on cello
Here is the link to the blog http://www.pcs.org/blog/item/
Creative Face Time with Portrait Artist Reeva Wortel
Over the past year, artist Reeva Wortel has been interviewing and painting portraits of families in Portland, Oregon. Wortel was awarded a grant from the Regional Arts & Culture Council for this project, in which she collaborated with Portland City Hall to create a portrait installation and interactive performance about the city’s politics and culture, development and gentrification. The project examines disparities and similarities of family life in Portland, told through stories of survival, love, and transformation. In this reprise exhibition, Wortel will host her portrait subjects, and discuss with guests the process and relevance of docu-drama work in today’s creative landscape.
Reeva Wortel is an interdisciplinary artist who creates narrative portrait-based projects that combine interviews, social commentary, performance, and large-scale installation. Driven by a commitment to develop the technique of portraiture beyond its traditional limits, Wortel has worked in communities as a social worker and teaching artist, honing a technique to narrate the individual stories of our time through her portraiture work, a process that involves in-depth interviewing, photography, painting, performance, and installation. In 2014 Wortel completed her work on SPILL, a play based on interviews and an installation of life-size portraits of people affected by the Deepwater Horizon tragedy and subsequent BP oil spill in the south coast of Louisiana. For SPILL, Wortel collaborated with the Laramie Project head-writer Leigh Fondakowski. SPILL premiered in the spring of 2014 in Louisiana and will premiere in Chicago in the fall of 2015 and in New York in 2016. She lives in Portland, Oregon.