Culture Features

The trend in IPA's over the past few years has been to go obnoxiously big, as evidenced by one local brewery's not so long ago makeover of its IPA. This approach is generally embraced by Northwest drinkers who gobble up malt and hops like a pre-Subway Jared at an Old Country Buffet.

Underground and off the wall. Last October, Bend got its first taste of the local underground art scene when Oxygen Tattoo decided to put together a showcase of local alternative talents. This year, the festival is back, with a name - Elevate Art Festival - a bigger and better line-up of music, art, vendors and several partner organizations including The Rise Up, Grove Presents and B Positiv.
"Last year the turnout was really good, I was really surprised by the amount of people who came out to support us," says Oxygen's Derek Youngberg, "Especially with the minimal amount of preparation that went into [the event] - everything came together in four weeks basically."
Youngberg says that at least six months of planning have already gone into the upcoming festival. The event will include a public art wall, beer garden, raffles, food and vendors selling unique artwork, clothing and jewelry. This year's featured live paint artists include Mark Rada, Chris Wu, Ashley Montague, Chris Callister, Amanda Cancilla, Hawk Chait and Mosley Wotta. Music acts include Grove stalwarts such as DJs Smoke, Moksha, Rada, Swett and Barisone along with Person People and Cloaked Characters.

Multiple, by Gil bruvelGil Bruvel's work is otherworldly. His artwork references a mystical, circus-like environment, full of fantastic jugglers, women balancing on the backs of majestic horses, masked lovelies lounging while he paints their portraits. His paintings remind me of vignettes from an abstract ballet, with stages set in slightly twisted yet welcoming landscapes.

 His sculptures bring fantasy into the physical realm, as with the life-sized mermaid that will be on display this week at Lahaina Galleries in the Old Mill.
His functional sculptures are the furniture of a wine-soaked dream: a bench titled "Found in Oz" implies that the artist doesn't just imagine other worlds … he goes to them often. How does one artist ask to be invited on a tour to the 'other worlds' of another artist, especially over the phone? It's a touchy subject to ask an artist about his influences, even touchier to assume such influences exist, but Bruvel's paintings are unabashedly surrealist, a modern tradition that has influenced music, literature and film. That was the starting point of our conversation.
 "I, of course, was fascinated with the surrealists: Dali, Max Ernst, Miro-but also Klee and Kandinsky for compositions," Bruvel answers with a French accent that makes the conversation feel quite cosmopolitan.

Prepare to be Fluged.Imagine careening off a 30-foot deck into the Willamette River wearing nothing but a Speedo, life jacket and helmet in a covered wagon made out of aluminum, two-by-fours and children's bicycle tires while hopped-up on Red Bull (and probably trace quantities of alcohol). If you're Christopher Rosch, Kyle Dover, Robby Marshall, Kevin Mozingo or Pat Tyvand of Team Oregon Or Bust, this is exactly how you will be spending the first Saturday in August.
 
This group of five friends, all of whom grew up on the Eastside of Bend and attended Mt. View High School, decided that spending their summer floating the river with friends wouldn't be enough excitement this year.
"We saw the commercials [on TV] and every time we heard the music we would just get stoked," says Tyvand, who is currently housing the work-in-progress in his garage, "We just decided 'we have to do this.'"

Editor's Note: This is the first in an occasional column spotlighting local beers
and breweries
My own research into beer drinking habits leads me to believe that the number of true "porter" aficionados is a small one. With its big malty body, and chocolate overtones, a good porter pretty much overwhelms the palate - it's the drinking equivalent of double fudge cake.

Sandy Henderson and her 400 submission.You don't have to look past the name of BendFilm to ascertain where the festival originated. While the non-profit independent cinema festival is, of course, rooted in our mountain town, this month will see BendFilm cross the Cascades for its first ever out-of-town event.
 
The screening of the documentary Breast Cancer Diaries in Portland at the end of the month marks a step forward for a festival that organizers say is doing well both fiscally and artistically - which they say wasn't exactly the case only a year ago.
"With the economy the way it is now it's important to reach out to other areas. I would always want it to be a Bend-based festival because I think Bend as a town provides part of the festival's charm," says Sandy Henderson, who is in her first year as executive director of BendFilm.
The screening is set for July 28 at the Portland Center Stage, and like the Indie Reels edition of the film in Bend this past winter, features an expert panel on the subject.
"We kept trying to think of a way to reach out to Portland and make the city more aware of BendFilm and breast cancer and Bend as a destination - so it's really a three-fold mission," Henderson says.