November News

The Video of the Artwork Distribution for Papergirl Portland has just come out. Had a great time passing out artwork on bike!


I have 3 drawings and a few sculptures being displayed in conjunction with the Symposium on Multicultural Affairs at Lewis Clark College in Portland. The symposium lasts Wed Nov. 11th thru Friday Nov. 13th. All lectures and performances are free. Go to lclark.edu for more information.


I can't beleive this is MyDay issue #10! MyDay walking the Swan Island Industrial Park with James will be out this week. Find them at Powell's and Readingfrenzy in Portland and as always, by emailing me.


Also, I have an unbelievable number of drawings in the new issue of "Fine Lit" I think the first run has already sold out but word is a new run is being printed this month. fine-lit.com

October News

"Family" Group Show at Launch Pad Gallery.
Opening Friday October 2nd, 6pm. 534 SE Oak St- Portland
www.launchpadgallery.org

"Papergirl" Group Show at Second Nature Boutique
Opening Friday October 2nd, 6pm. 811 E Burnside, suite 119-Portland
Closing reception October 18th where all the artists will roll up their works and ride through the city on bikes as papergirls and paperboys handing out their work to strangers for free!
secondnature.blogspot.com
hoodturkey.com

I have a few drawings in the comic/art zine "fine literature" out in October and found around town, all the alternative comic fests in the west and at studiojfish.com

Going to Maine to draw orange trees. Be back mid October.

AUGUST NEWS:



Opening this week and up until September 12th. I have two large drawings at the Satellite Art Gallery in La Grande, Oregon. This summer, if you are near La Grande, I highly encourage you to stop by the gallery. The Satellite has a lot of energy and good work going into it every month. I'm always happy to be part of shows there. More info about the show and the gallery... satelliteartgallery.com

COMING DOWN:
My self portrait, "portrait of the artist as a carny (true story)", will be coming off the wall of the Good Gallery in Portland, Oregon at the end of the month. More info on the show and gallery... goodpdx.com

OCTOBER:
Opening October 2nd. I have a Drawing at the Launchpad gallery for the themed family show. More info on the show and gallery... launchpadgallery.org

ONGOING:
You can find the "my day" books for sale at awesome bookstores, Reading Frenzy, and Powell's in downtown Portland, Oregon. Current issues out: "My day at the library" "My day walking across Portland" and "My day walking to the end of Hillsboro".

portland zine symposium this weekend

I will be tabling at the zine symposium selling all 9 "My Day" books as well as James Yeary's "From Cause" and Many more Portland friends' books.

Portland State University
Smith Memorial Ballroom

Friday July 24Th 2:30-7pm
Saturday 10AM-5PM
Sunday 10AM-4PM

5 day trip down the coast alone on my bike. it rained every day.

going to idaho to paint and draw at my regular spots... it's much warmer this time around. ill be bad at answering emails until july 1st.

my day at the library. 18 pg.. letterpress cover by james yeary at the IPRC. available at powell's in portland and the reading frenzy, or through me.

satelliteartgallery.com check it out...

still one car seat left if anyone else wants to join us for the opening night!

teen challenge

asked my neighborhood thrift-store, teen challenge if they would allow me to "hangout and paint" inside last month. I had a great time, people shopped on, ignored me, talked to me, asked me about painting "you ever watch that one guy? on television? the uhhh... happy cloud guy......".Me: "Bob Ross?" Him: "yea, Rob Ross, that shits the best", and so on. One older man hopped behind a piano and and played old jazz standards for a half hour or so. Woman haggled prices, guys watched the tv's for sale on the couches for sale and the supervisors instructed the trainees to, "leave the artist guy alone and let him do his thing, he ain't bothering no one". I was an odd fixture but for the most part, people saw me, looked me up and down and continued on, I was no more a distraction to them then say a well behaved panhandler. next stop... walmart?

in idaho. attended my grandfathers funeral, painted in the freezing cold every morning, went on drives with traci. the interior west seemed exceptionally exotic. many painting will come from this week.

a friend described a homeless person pushing a shopping cart up a snowy hill last week and how his body was buried into his mobile home, making the body and material almost indistinguishable. i forgot to show my friend this sculpture after he told the story.    

Pedtown's scenic escapism, the graphic designer's Asian finches nestled in the Douglas Fir, the clean line demarcating contours that don't exist in nature (they exist in vacuums), lack of grays -in Bridge Stump, under this guy?

: too much creation, not enough recording. As if Mexicans were only worth painting if they're in Mexico and not on Ankeny. Plus I like Courbet and was thinking a revisit.

 junior varsity helping put the book together, james wrote, i drew.

my day walking across portland vol. 1: 242nd to 41st ave.  both zines are avaliable in portland  at east and west powells (powells.com) reading frenzy, tender loving empire (NW) and the together gallery (NE).  or email nathanorotn@hotmail.com.  

new paintings, this is not a plant and detail paintings of my small apartment, im currently interested in simple architecture and how it relates to my  ab-ex paintings from the early 2000's, I feel they are one in the same... both focused on color, composition, and feel.  lower left will likely by painted over.   

new my day zine, "in oregon city" out now.  can be found in portland at powells, reading frenzy, or email me (nathanorton@hotmail.com) and you can swing me 2.50$. gresham 242nd to E41st out soon...

       halloween night. made a mask and some drawings.

fight in your neighborhood!

saw this a couple of years ago.

oil on wood.  6X7" this took me 2 years to paint.

across the street of my window a shopping cart has mysteriously showed up, debating adding it in. 
.

after countless nude photos of myself in my elephant mask, over the summer an unidentifiable swarm of bugs took over my beloved vessel.  she had to be retired.

photographer!!!! i mean...painter!!!!!!!

last week i was drawing at a train stop to start a backdrop for a new painting.  my standard process for a new painting is to start with a day of drawing in my sketchbook and then finish with a couple of polaroids for reference. then work with these on a canvas.   as of late i have been playing devils advocate with all representational artists that i talk to by questioning why they would possibly use a camera to represent what they see in a apinting (most that i know do this). so they see the thing at hand, or the photo.  i have been on the fence for a year now, wether painting from a photo is a good or bad thing.   during this outing a man comes up to me and says "hey train artist, cool stuff!!! mind if i watch" "sure" i say and keep drawing.  "you know im an artist myself" the man says, "but let me show you something, here's my camera and a stack of photos. look at this... a train... but look at the background... nothing to impressive huh?"  "I guess not" I shrug. "Well say behind that train I put THIS!" The photo he slides out is a flower bed taken somewhere downtown portland.  "See, I don't have to sketch a friggin' thing, I jest take pictures, make slides of them, put them in a projector, trace what i like and then paint!" At this point I was mesmerized by this creature that looked one part homeless, and one part booger from the original nerds movie. I simply nodded and said "uh huh, un huh" over and over.  He felt that he was relinquishing  me from ever having to sit on the ground and draw perspective lines in shitty weather again. "you can just get strait to the painting now" he said. I silently stared deep into his eyes trying to figure how this man came to me in this time of my photography crisis, the silence was only broken when he quietly said... " I fucked a lot of chicks in art school".  Seconds later his train pulled up, he rose, told me about a show he had at forever art in november (look it up!!!) said his name in the wind (jeff something)and stepped into the crowd.  james varsity happend to be about ten feet away writing/drawing and said "what'd that guy want?" "oh nothing, just told me that  i shouldn't paint from photos".

-above, old drawings and flowers from wedding

rain!

rained all day today! thinking even more of winters in portland. a day of rain shuts you in,  a full day of rain puts you far away from the city, our californians and miscellaneous metropolitan implants are forgotten or at least kept a bay for the time being.  you don't have fine dining restaurants during a day of rain, no quirky shoe shops, no expensive clothes, fast cars, no pretensions. just concentration. you do as you need to, not as you want to.  above- my hallway painted during a month of rain, last january. 10X15"

park at night

oil on canvas 10X7 inches

one day junior varsity mentioned in a brief phone message that there was a shopping cart lodged high up in a tree at a park nearby.  the only time i was available to make time for this splendid scene was very late at night, my wife and i arrived to find no shopping cart in sight but instead a marvel that was almost as unbelievable: a woman on the park swing-set mumbling hysterically to herself swinging as high as she possibly could. it was unclear weather she was trying to kill herself or merely make a full rotation around the bar! off to the side were two people yelling at the drug addict pleading with her to stop and calm down, the woman did not listen. my wife and i kept our distance then left wishing that we would have seen a shopping cart in a tree since that painting would have been more comical and less depressing than the one actualized. 

last winter

been thinking about winter lately and have thought about how comforting the rain is/was. have been longing to her the rain when i go to bed and hear the same rain when i wake up in the morning.  i found this bird dead in a mud puddle last november. the painting was done that night but never finished. the painting above the sink was altered significantly. the bird was buried in the mt. hood wilderness in a severe rain storm later that week.

bikes vs. art or bikes AND art

 pic of my bike tour through the columbia gorge last month. i rode this alone and reveled in the days i spent speaking little. i saw many amazing scenes, named my bike and found about a million painting ideas.  one day, i saw a man stare at me as he stood in the doorframe of his mobile home without a shirt and wearing a worn-out pair of levis.  his eyes followed mine from the beginning to end as i was spinning  past his house in some nameless town in the high desert of central washington.  i knew at that moment that the bike tour was extremely important. most people won't walk through a nameless town, most would forget driving through this one, but biking through was just about right... if not perfect.  

national stories of terrorism

This  painting depicts two toys: a barbarian and a soldier. The viewer is free to create his/her own narrative or justification of the conflict represented. The barbarian could be looked as an American, or as a Mexican Indian, or as a Spanish conquistador or any other nationality that has forced it’s ideas, opinions, or ideals on another culture. This painting is about conflict between nations.

oil on canvas on book cover. 5X8" 

junior varsity, i don't buy more than most

transportation series

car. oil on cigar box lid.  work in progress 6X8 inches.  

after my bike tour up the WA gorge iv'e been thinking about forms of transportation and how one could live in/off of them.  thus far i have found that most don't do it recreationally like myself, (besides the fact that i have a home to come back to when im tired of camping off my bike) living off a wheeled device is a pretty sure sign that someone is impoverished. last week i read about a carpenter that had such a hard time affording 4$+ gas that he moved into his truck. i find it utterly rediculous that the state of gas prices can force people to move into their vehicles, or rather, i  find it utterly ridiculous that gas prices can affect americans so hard! i want to meet people that live in forms of transportation to understand this more, maybe im being extremely ignorant to a much larger picture (no pun).  rasta space bike her i come!  

the story of abraham, live!

action adventure theater of portland chose to act my painting  "the story of abraham". was great to see. 

                  traci and i working on a drawing for our wedding this weekend. 

i know how to!"the story of abraham" work in progress. oil on wood, 11by11"

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