It's Art: PDX wrap-up

Boy, regular life really takes over, especially when you get home from a trip. Well, I should probably conclude my postings on Portland with some kind of wrap-up or overview.

First, possibly my favorite picture (and it's getting a lot of hits on Flickr too):

taken with film!

I'm quite fond of the few film shots I took. Here's one of me in my fab guesthouse room:

So, Scott McCloud. The class was great, of course. It was really useful, I took a lot of notes...right now it's kind of a big blur. The things he says about comics are just awesome. He really does validate it as an art form in its own right. I've defended it as such in the past, but standing in a class listening to Scott critiquing our work, it makes perfect sense and doesn't even seem to be worth arguing about. Of course its art. It's pictures used to communicate a story and/or an idea.
One quote that stands out that I did write down: Gesture (in a drawing) ideals with "the calligraphy of human interaction."
I love the way he phrases things and I really wish I just had a recording or transcript of everything he said. His lectures are so great, informative and entertaining, and I highly recommend going if he pops up in your area (Californians take note-he's hitting your state in August!)

I think I may have mentioned already how cool it is that Scott is touring with his wife and two girls. I am insanely envious of his daughters of the experiences they are having at such a young age. I'm sure it is much more educational than being stuck in a regular school for another year. (Although I imagine that in a few ways they are looking forward to returning to real school and regular life, as exciting as it is to be on the road.) Sky, his eldest, is especially poised and confident for a girl her age. (Forgive me, I have limited interactions with teenagers, and most of the time it seems like they don't want to talk to me at all.) I ran into her at a gelato shop by Powell's and she was really friendly and outgoing. (I was just amazed that she talked to me.) Her mom was there too, and her cousin, and they were all super friendly and ended up making me feel like I was the celebrity, even though I had started the conversation by saying, "Uh, you're the McClouds, I saw you on Livejournal!" yeah. They're the type of folks you feel at ease with right away and end up wanting to talk to them and hang out with them for hours. (Unfortunately, that isn't possible. If we all got to hang out with the McClouds as much as we wanted to, they would never get to sleep.)

Here's Sky doing her highly entertaining and visually impressive Keynote presentation at the lecture (I won't tell you what it's about, in case you get to see it.)

(it really helps with this one if you click on it and go to the bigger version.)

Here's Scott in class, looking at my work (and smiling! He likes it! eeeeeeeeg!)

He really is a nice, friendly, down to earth kinda guy, with a lot of good things to say and an infectious enthusiasm for comics. It was so much fun learning from him.

Ok. Anything else? Things really shifted into high gear as soon as he got to town. Before I knew it the whole thing was over and I was back on the train. (Literally-I had to rush right from class, which was technically over but of course everyone was staying longer, to the train station.) I did go to stay with Jessa, an old friend, in North Portland for the last 2 nights of my visit. She and I spent a lot of quality time catching up and doing some more sightseeing (I gladly accepted her driving me around, after spending most of the week on foot. Walking builds character and all, but I was ready for a break. Plus, it enabled me to go see some things that I had ruled out previously because they were too out of the way to get to on foot/by bus.)
Speaking of busses, did I mention that I was able to purchase a one-week bus pass to use on the bus, streetcar, and MAX line? That was super-cool, convenient, and saved me a lot of money. I am pretty impressed with the transit system. It may not be the best ever, but it's better by far than Seattle's. I bitch about Seattle's transit a lot, but the thing is, after spending a week in Portland, I've concluded that it's partly just the way Seattle is laid out and there's not much that can be done about that. So I've stopped blaming as much the "powers that be" or the voting public (although I still think we take way too long to actually implement ideas. Jessa said that she thought the difference was that while Seattle takes forever to figure out whether or not something is the right solution, in Portland they just go ahead and build it even if it is the wrong one. She's lived in both cities, by the way.)

Here are some things I saw while driving around with Jessa:

A sea of roses in Ladd's Addition (a uniquely constructed neighborhood-the streets run out from a central point, instead of a grid-look at a map to see what I'm talking about. It's in the SE quadrant just north of SE Division, starting at 12th.)