Hello PHAME Community!

How's everyone holding up these days?

Here at PHAME, we're missing seeing our friends IRL, but we're grateful for the strength, creativity, and dedication of our community.

More than anything, this last year has made us think about how connected all of us are, and how our choices and actions—and our art—affect each other and the world around us.

This idea of togetherness got us thinking about our many partnerships with local arts organizations. We began developing our partnership program three years ago, and it has become a core element of how our organization seeks to create positive community change.

Our growing partnership program has two intertwining goals: to give our students more opportunities to learn from and work with artists from other arts organizations in town, and to give arts organizations opportunities to learn from PHAME students and staff about how to be welcoming, accessible, and inclusive to people with disabilities.

Our first full partnership was with the Portland Opera, and resulted in 2019’s rock opera, The Poet’s Shadow. From that time on, our partnerships have continued to thrive—even now during the pandemic!

In this newsletter we're spotlighting just a few of our current partners. We hope you enjoy this little slice of PHAME!

Alexis Hamilton works with PHAME student Kylee in summer 2019’s Vocal Studio.

Portland Opera

Since the completion of The Poet’s Shadow in 2019, Portland Opera has continued to actively partner with PHAME. A member of our leadership team currently serves on their Community Engagement Committee, and through this committee’s work the Opera is designing mentorship and internship opportunities at the Opera. This program is in the design phase and PHAME is among the Opera’s four partner organizations. We are working together to develop the groundwork for meaningful mentorship and/or internship opportunities for local students—including students from PHAME.

Opera staff continue to teach classes with PHAME once or twice a year, and as part of the development of the Opera's internship program, this summer we're excited to be launching a brand-new Arts Administration class co-taught by Alexis Hamilton, the Opera's Manager of Education and Community Engagement, along with our Executive Director, Jenny. The class will explore what goes on behind the scenes to make a production work, and how staff in different roles collaborate to make the magic happen.

Portland Art Museum

Some PHAME students and staff were recently featured on PAM's Art & Conversation video series—click the video link to watch!

Starting this summer, the Portland Art Museum will present a year of monthly workshops to PHAME students. These workshops will be taught by museum staff, docents, and/or by artists who are working with or at the museum.

Workshops will cover a wide range of topics. Some will highlight local artists and their practices, while others will focus on PAM Exhibitions—upcoming exhibitions include Ansel Adams, Sharita Towne, Queen Nefertari: Eternal Egypt, and Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism. Additional workshops may focus on artists highlighted in PAM's Poster Project.

Through this new partnership, PHAME students will have opportunities to learn directly from artists about their style of art, the artist’s career, and how they created their work! We think this will be an enriching experience for all our students, but especially our visual art and photography students.

Oregon Symphony

Check out this great video of Johannes Moser, one of our Oregon Symphony visiting artists.

This month and next, several musicians from the Oregon Symphony are joining PHAME students in their classes for presentations, Q&As, and special projects. In some classes, symphony musicians will be creating music with students using found objects from their homes, or demonstrating aspects of their own instruments. Some of the musicians will be joining student performance videos in our Drumming and Musical Theatre classes. And one of the guest artists, Johannes Moser, is going to be working with our Mixed Ensemble to create an entirely new piece of music to be featured in a video being created this spring. We can’t wait to see (and hear!) how it turns out!

North Pole Studio

North Pole Studio is an awesome new arts organization in Portland that supports visual artists with I/DD and helps them grow professional art careers. They're currently hosting monthly workshops for PHAME students where they explore topics in contemporary art and share demonstrations on various artistic techniques.

North Pole also runs their own series of monthly art salons featuring different local artists. Recently, our Director of Community Engagement, Rob Smith, hosted a salon focused on creative portrait photography. And PHAME student Crystal K. is slated to host a salon focused on animation later this month.

North Pole hosts art exhibitions, and right now long-time PHAME student Katie C. has a solo show of her drawings on view in their online galley. It's a beautiful body of work, and we're thrilled to see it getting the attention it deserves. A few images are below—you can see Katie's full solo exhibition here.

Black and white image of a young woman holding a drawing made in watercolor or similar medium. She has her hair pulled back and wears glasses and a floral patterned shirt.

Colorful drawing of a figure against a blue background.

Colorful drawing of a figure against a patterned background.

Announcing Our Online Summer Term!

Are you or someone you know ready to become a PHAME student? Now is the perfect time to complete a prospective student interview to get ready for Summer Term. Download our full course catalog to find out what classes we're offering, and get ready to immerse yourself in the arts—online!

Questions? Contact our Director of Community Engagement, Rob Smith, at (503) 764-9718 ext. 2.