Skip to main content

Colored Pencils Celebrates with EcoTrust

from press release



Kick off Western New Year 2010 or shoo away Tiger Year 4707 at Colored Pencils Art & Culture Night.

In a Pacific gateway city like ours, settled on the confluence of two majestic river systems and whole lot of intercultural history – both kinds of parties are necessary. Date: January 28, 2011. Tickets are $15 including food and non-alcoholic beverage and are available at eventbrite.com or at the door. Hosted by Ecotrust at
721 NW 9th Avenue, Portland 97209. Colored Pencils is Portland's multicultural family room.

Some background: Colored Pencils is a Last Friday celebration led by traditional and contemporary painters and poets; presented by acclaimed as well as emerging musicians; and delivered by our city’s grandest elders, our tiniest dancers, and everyone of all ages, abilities, and orientations in between. Colored Pencils is a world of cuisine, lots of laughter, even unexpected tears. At bottom, we are a vision of a New Portland, an ethos and aesthetic generously drawn from our city’s newcomer and settled communities’ enormous joint bank account of social, cultural, and spiritual capital.

For 2 years running, Colored Pencils has been a community-building process and a monthly production, a demonstration of what a Bigger Us would taste, look, sound and sway like. Our monthly all-volunteer events ($132,000 in-kind) have been celebrated by nearly 2700 firmly established and just-arrived Portlanders.

Colored Pencils’ culinary, fine, and performing artists are from City River and from all points south and east – from Mexico, Central, and South America; from Western and Eastern Europe; from Africa and Arabia, from Asia and a string of island nations stretching across our deep blue Pacific right up to she blends with our rich and silty River Columbia.

Ecotrust’s Colored Pencils: 2011’s very first Last Friday, also the final Friday before beginning Rabbit Year 4708, warms up at 6pm with Bangkok cuisine and a reception for Colored Pencils artists. Performing arts begin, as always, at 7pm with a Northwest tribal invocation, a petition for blessing our evening together. Colored Pencils events are playful. Dance along in folk Iraqi, with urban salsa, or in bold Bollywood, if you dare. Or just clack along with the beat with Dhanya sticks (representing Hindu Lord Durga’s swords chasing away some very bad demons). If January 28 is your birthday or wedding anniversary or if you’re our event’s eldest elder, be ready to say so.

To learn more, check out the Colored Pencils website

Popular posts from this blog

Medicine Wheel for the Planet

Jennifer Grenz, PhD       Working toward ecological healing requires awareness of how Indigenous ancestral knowledge and living ways can complement Western scientific approaches to environmental restoration and protection practices. Dr. Jennifer Grenz (Nlaxa’pamux mixed ancestry) worked for more than two decades as a field researcher and practitioner for environmental nonprofit organizations, where she worked with different levels of government, including First Nations in Canada. "Medicine Wheel for the Planet" compiles Grenz’s most potent realizations about the lack of forward movement in addressing an impending ecological catastrophe.  A warming climate impacts not only human lives but also the natural balance that relies on reciprocal relationships rooted in deep connections to the land. She uses the metaphor of the four directions of the Indigenous “medicine wheel” to invite openness to Indigenous teachings, letting go of colonial narratives, merging lessons f...

Memento - Embracing the Darkness

Dennis "Dizzy" Doan Stories about overcoming and persevering through family dysfunction, poverty, and mental health challenges offer hope and the promise of better days. Dennis “Dizzy” Doan’s memoir Memento: Embracing the Darkness is one such story, with the added complexity of being raised in an immigrant Vietnamese family. Doan’s parents dealt with the mental and emotional aftermath of war, which forcibly uprooted them from their homeland. In the United States, they struggled to create a safe and stable life for their two sons. Doan shares his journey of finding himself, his craft, and eventually a successful tattoo business in Southern California despite personal strife and run-ins with the law. Doan is best known for developing the aesthetic language to combat anti-Asian hate that erupted during the COVID-19 pandemic. His art series titled “Model Minority” went viral, sparking conversation about Asian American identities and harmful stereotypes. In Memento, Doan showcase...

Enlighten Me

Editor's Note: This review was originally published in Los Angeles Book Review . Author Minh Lê Standing up for oneself seems like doing the right thing. Binh did just that in the face of a racist school bully who was poking fun at his Asian heritage. But physically assaulting another student goes against school policy, and it was Binh who got in trouble. Binh shares a silent retreat with his family and younger siblings. Along with other children, he learns about stories from the previous lives of the Buddha. The stories are interesting, but for Binh, it is difficult to sit still and clear his mind when he misses his Gameboy. While he struggles with silence, he learns important lessons about friendship, community, and being present. In the graphic novel "Enlighten Me," award-winning author Minh Lê and bestselling illustrator Chan Chau tell the story of a boy who gains a better understanding of himself as he works on quieting the mind and reflecting on dharma. Lê and Ch...