Jeffrey T. Baker

In coordination with many a talented maker (see list below) at the historic Troy Laundry Artist's Studio Co-Op, I will be throwing wide the studio doors on the 2nd and 3rd of December to share works-in-progress and (hopefully) sell some past work. Please tell your friends, join me for a bit of refreshment, and take some time to enjoy the creative efforts of fifteen artists on two levels of this fantastic old Portland laundry building.

The show draws near. . .

I do hope that you can join me this coming Wednesday, May 4th from 4p.m. to 7p.m. in the Centrum building at the Oregon College of Art & Craft. 

Located: 
8245 SW Barnes Rd, Portland OR 97201

Hours: 
Monday—Thursday |  7:30a.m. - 9:30p.m.
Friday  |  7:30a.m. - 5:00p.m.
Saturday—Sunday  |  8:00a.m. - 5:00p.m.

My sincere thanks to the colleagues, friends, and family who have supported this exhibit with their time, labor, and love.

Crazy-talented artist Jonathan Hill recently contacted me to request a work for an online auction to benefit the Washington School for the Deaf where he recently gave a workshop. The proceeds from this silent online art auction will all go directly to purchasing graphic novels for the school's library. 

As the auction was to benefit children I decided to dig into the archive and retrieve a drypoint etching I did as a sample while teaching printmaking at OCAC's Art Adventures summer camp many years ago. This is the only existing drypoint from that plate and bidding starts at the insanely low price of $5.00. So don't wait, visit the auction and put down a few bids. There's some beautiful work available by a number of very talented artists, and you set the price. . . at least until someone sets a higher one. 

I've included some specific information about how the auction is structured that was sent to me by Jonathan, just in case you're one of those folks who gets into the fine print.

"Here is how it's going to work:

Each piece has a corresponding number to it. To bid on a piece, simply leave a comment with the number of the piece you want to bid on and the amount you would like to bid. At the end of the auction, I will be contacting the people with the highest bid on each piece, sending them an invoice via Paypal for the amount they bid within 48 hours. And because I've had some problems with this the last time I did this: If someone else has bid on a piece that you want - don't feel bad placing a higher bid. That's how this whole auction thing works.

Now, there's no legal obligation or what not, but I'm hoping that the people who bid are doing so for the art and to help the school, so it's all based on an honor system. If for some reason the person with the highest bid is unable to pay, I will be contacting to the person with the next highest bid. All work has a minimum bid of $5.00.

$5.00 will be added to the final bid for shipping costs."

Get bidding people. The auction closes on April 27, 2011.

Opening your studio to the public is fraught with complication. 

The first, and most pressing problem, is that the studio is not set up for the public. Storing your staple gun and glass cleaner on the lowest shelf makes perfect sense until you have toddlers running around your space. Your walls are a repository for work in progress, not a neutral (or even particularly clean) space for the presentation of finished work. Ultimately, the act of making the studio suitable for company automatically renders it unsuitable for working— a bit of a conundrum since people are, one assumes, coming to see a bit of the artist in their "natural habitat."

Furthermore (and this is really the hardest part for me as an artist), it is odd to be so exposed. When you work in isolation for so long you come to accept the faults and little journeys each work takes as it moves towards completion. You have a relationship with the locations of objects, and there is meaning in how the space is arranged that is deeply personal. To throw open your doors is to invite in a public with no context as to why this drawing is always put down next to this drawing on the worktable, or why all the lights are oriented towards a blank portion of wall. There are stories there, and they are personal, and you think about them being encountered with great brevity and a paucity of background information and you start to feel a bit self conscious. 

When I went to bed last night I thought about the first few lines of one of my favorite poems. It is titled Open House, and is written by the American poet Theodore Roethke. It illuminates, with an admirable simplicity, what I've been trying for express for the last three paragraphs:

My secrets cry aloud.
I have no need for tongue.
My heart keeps open house,
My doors are widely swung.

That's right people— here's a chance to see a considerable amount of work in progress by yours truly as well as visit a labyrinth of studios filled with everything from mask-makers to video artists.

Please note that I will only be participating on Friday night as Saturday needs to be set aside for continuing to work on the upcoming OCAC show. Nevertheless, I do hope you can stop by to chat and give me some feedback.

The address is 221 SE 11th Ave and I'm in Studio 10 on the upper (3rd) floor. The studio is just two blocks off Burnside, at the famously difficult to navigate Burnside/Sandy intersection.