Portland, the Crafty City and their Thriving Cultural and Creative Economy

Title: Double-Headed Language Daggers

Artist: Da-ka-xeen Mehner, completed in 2012

Exhibit: “This Is Not A Silent Movie” by Four Contemporary Alaska Native Artists 2014

Museum of Contemporary Craft, Portland, Oregon, USA

The city of Portland in the United states of America, is known for its vibrancy, diversity, and strong art sector. However, the city has been struggling with a housing crisis in the last decade. This crisis has affected the availability of performance space and affordable housing. The city has implemented a strategy to focus on their values to target this problem and protect the creative and cultural economy. By focusing on the direct investment of proposals and policies within the city, this has given the economy a chance to thrive and grow.

Portland is currently home to many emerging artists, amazing parks and an attractive city center. Although they are known for many things, Portland is home to the Oregon College of Art and Craft (OCAC). The OCAC has a strong community of students, faculty, mentors, and administration, that encourages students to be critical and innovative thinkers and makers. The school provides opportunities to students to show their work around the school, including the Hoffman Gallery. This gallery is open to the public and has around 50,000 visits a year. The city also ensures that they are inclusive and diverse by working with a large network of organizations, such as the Latino Network, the Muslim Educational Trust, and the Disability Arts and Culture Project. The city feels they are thriving due to their creative economy.

Our creativity drives innovation, inspires the founding of new companies, draws new employers and residents to our city, provides good jobs, and helps burnish our quality of life. Every aspect of our community would suffer without our creative culture.

– The City of Portland

Reference

Centre for Contemporary Art and Culture. (n.d.). Exhibits, Retrieved from http://mocc.pnca.edu/exhibitions/6765