Tilikum Crossing suspension bridge under construction

For nearly two years my walks north along the Willamette River passed the construction site of the Tilikum Crossing suspension bridge (now completed). Like other structures nearby, the bridge is a bold superimposition of Euclidian geometry upon the natural rhythmic chaos of nature. This past Thursday on the way to gallery openings in Portland’s Pearl district I barely noticed the bridge as I walked by.   But on the way back it once again loomed large in the landscape. Its geometry had assumed new meaning.

At Froelich Gallery, Michael Schulthesis’s paintings explode with mathematical equations interspersed with geometric shapes described within the polar coordinate system, as maps of mind in which memories continuously intersect with and overwrite other memories. The shapes that float through space morph between the precision of mathematics and the biomorphic forms of jellyfish, that in fact were variations of the limaçon of Pascal. At Blackfish Gallery, Heather Songbird’s Semblant Geometries, Euclidian geometric constructions become metaphors for tales from Karel Jaromirs Erben’s North-West Slav Legends and Fairy Stories from 1897. Across 9th street at Elizabeth Leach Galleries, the theme of Lee Kelly’s steel sculptures and works on paper reference the Observatory at Jaipur, a World Hertiage site in Jaipur India, renown for its architectural scale astronomical instruments dating from the early 18^th century. Here one finds the geometry of ancient celestial co-ordinate systems in play.

At Whitebox, on 1^st Avenue Katherine Longstreth documented choreographic process, movement, of head, shoulders, arms, torso, legs, feet; intersecting arcs, rhythms in time and space, sensuous geometries.   Her show, Marginal Evidence (an interactive experience of dance-making) was an ode to the exceptional efforts that an artist makes to create geometric relationships in time. Here the x,y,z, Cartisian coordinate system of an individual human body practicing in the studio or performing on stage lies superimposed within the much more expansive coordinates of space and time defined by culture, city, country, and world.

On this mild October evening, as my mind filled with thoughts of geometric relationships expressed in movement, paint, steel, and the narrative arc of folk tales, I began to imagine yet another kind of geometry, one which describes the topology of conversation.  There was a distinct and satisfying asymmetry to the conversations of the evening, first with Michael Schulthesis and then with Heather Birdsong. It was the asymmetry of intentional and inquisitive listening punctuated only by questions and comments of interpretation.. In the geometry of proximity, the infectious connectivity of their ideas, for a short time I joined the artists on their journeys.