Michelle Ross, drawing/painting faculty, was chosen as a winner of the Portland Art Museum’s NW Contemporary Art Awards. The announcement concludes a several-months-long process that required sorting through 296 nominations solicited from curators, writers and arts professionals across Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington and Oregon. Ross, along with the seven other award winners, will be showing their work at the Museum this June 2011. One of the seven will also be chosen for the $10,000 Arlene Schnitzer Prize, named after the former art dealer and local patron who funded the Museum’s Northwest art program.
http://www.oregonlive.com/art/index.ssf/2011/02/portland_art_museum_announces_2.html

Image: Karl Burkheimer
Karl Burkheimer, wood department head, presents his solo show “In Site” at Disjecta Interdisciplinary Art Center in Portland, OR February 26-March 26, 2011. A special happy hour lecture is scheduled on Friday, March 11 from 6:00-9:00pm, and Burkheimer will talk from 7:00-8:00pm. Drawing from a wide range of interests and influences including extensive travel in the Middle East, design and construction of Japanese tea houses, and the utter love of making, Burkheimer’s project for Disjecta is his most ambitious work to date. Burkheimer’s sculptural installation will essentially occupy the entire cavernous 3500 square foot gallery space. Its sheer size would leave little room for an audience, however In Site addresses the nature of experience by becoming the very ground one walks upon. The explicit functions of the gallery, of artwork even, are turned inside out as the piece becomes the environment without adhering to doctrines of performance or purpose. In Site takes the form of a giant, planked walkway, a ramp, a barrier, yet the work suggests an unknown or esoteric use and results in an object that challenges associations and expectations of image, object, and architecture. The haptic experience of the viewer will ultimately complete the piece. This project is funded in part by the Oregon Arts Commission.
http://www.disjecta.org/events/kburkheimer.php

Jiseon Lee Isbara, fibers department head,  is currently showing work in a traveling exhibit entitled “Hands of Korea.“ The show was at the 2010 European Patchwork Meeting in Ste Marie-Aux-Mines, Alace, France in 2010, and will be traveling to Chungju Museum of Craft, Chungju, South Korea in 2011. Lee Isbara also exhibited in “New Fibers” at University Art Gallery of Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
http://www.handsofkorea.com

Rosalie Neilson, fibers faculty, is teaching a week-long course, “Ripped” about Rep, at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown N.C. during their Scandinavian Heritage Week March 20-26, 2011. She will also be lecturing and teaching a 3-day rep weaving workshop for the Guild of Cincinnati, Ohio from April 6-April 9, 2011. Her work will is featured in the March/April issue of Handwoven Magazine under the “Designer’s Notebook” series. The title of the article is “Juxtaposing Warp Colors in 4-block, 4-shaft Warp Rep.” 
http://www.rosalie@rosalieneilson.com