Jessica Helgerson Interior Design, Portland, Oregon

Christmas still feels like a magic time. Christmas music, decorations, and lights that surround us are catalysts for memories from childhood. The trip to the foothills of the cascades to harvest a tree, time spent around the dinner table with family, the warmth of home bring into focus that which is most important to us. The approach to crescendo occurs in the delight of children scrambling about the Christmas tree searching for presents tagged with their names.

Then there are the gifts that come in the form of unanticipated encounters; encounters with mysterious objects that peak curiosity while defying explanation.

 

Mike Rathbun, I Have Love in my Heart as a Thief has Riches

The form of the encounter was a sculpture installed inside the Jessica Helgerson Interior Design Studio in downtown Portland. The work by Mike Rathbun, titled I Have Love in my Heart as a Thief Has Riches,  is an exquisitely crafted wood structure (see posted photographs). The work is open to a wealth of interpretations, yet there was one association in which I became entrapped. The building’s classical façade, with Corinthian columns evoke ancient civilizations. The sculpture, which stands just inside the door, somehow evoked, and then immersed me in the journey of Odysseus; lost at sea, seeking, tenuous moorings, the longing for home and connection.

The work is simply astonishingly beautiful; difficult to say more. One needs to experience it in person. Jessica Helgerson Interior Design is located at 112 SW First Avenue, Portland, OR.