Fall Term Registration Information

Registration for Multnomah Arts Center's Fall Term 2024 is opening soon! Most fall term classes and activities will run the week of September 30 through the week of December 9. Our fall schedule will be available to view online here starting August 6.

Registration opens at 9:30 am:

• September 10 for classes and activities that begin September-November 3
• October 10 for classes and activities that begin November 4-December 15

Registrations can be processed in a variety of ways!

• ONLINE: View MAC's fall activities online starting 8/6. Search for classes by age, category, or keyword and register through your Portland Parks account. We highly recommend utilizing this method due to the possibility of long wait times with phoning in or coming in person.
• PHONE: Call any PP&R site when registration opens. We also highly recommend phoning in your registration to the PP&R Customer Service Center at (503) 823-2525 (Monday-Friday, 8:00 am-5:00 pm).
• IN PERSON: Any PP&R facility can process your registration, including the Customer Service Center located on the first floor of the Portland Building at 1120 SW 5th Ave.

First Friday Arts for All: The Odyssey

MAC is proud to present its August First Friday Arts for All event: a theatre production of The Odyssey by MAC's Studio Theatre students! This performance will take place Friday, August 2 from 5:30-7:30 pm in the MAC Courtyard. Directed by MAC's own Dawn Panttaja and Timothy Scarrott, here is a description on the play their students have been working on:

The Trojan War is over! It's been 10 long years of battle and Odysseus and his crew are ready to go home. Little do they know the journey has just begun. Wiki note: "Odysseus' name means "trouble" in Greek, referring to both the giving and receiving of trouble. They got that right! Played like chess pieces by the gods and goddesses of Olympus, this crew is plagued by monsters and captured by various witches, sirens, nymphs, and island maidens. Adding insult to injury, his kingdom at home is overrun by brash suitors who wish to marry his wife and kills his son. Will they get home in time? This will be epic!

All are welcome to this free community event! Snacks and refreshments will be provided following the show at 7:15 pm (free popcorn will be popped during the show). All ages are welcome but we do recommend ages 6 and up for this event.

MAC Program Spotlight: Musical Theatre Production Camp

This summer season, MAC revitalized its musical theatre program with a summer camp intensive centered around staging a full-fledged production of Matilda JR. the musical. Over the course of three weeks, MAC performing arts faculty rehearsed with 15 campers on how to put on a musical, introducing them to every step of the process from auditions to tech and final dress rehearsals. All three performing art forms were taught and kids received a crash course in how to read music, how to create characters, and how to learn choreography. At the end of the three weeks, campers were ready for the stage and presented two performances to the public on July 19 and 20 (over 300 audience members enjoyed the show!).

Musical theatre has not been offered at MAC since pre-pandemic, so staff were incredibly excited at the opportunity to come together and provide this special and highly requested program offering to the community. The campers showed up every day excited to collaborate together and express their ideas.

Musical theatre holds a very special place in my heart because I have seen firsthand the positive impacts it has on kids in developing self-confidence, emotional intelligence, and teamwork. MAC hopes to return next summer season with another musical production camp, but in the meantime keep an eye out for a new youth musical theatre class this upcoming fall...

Musicals are labor intensive and are absolutely a team effort, so special thanks to the following MAC staff: Jessica Bartlett (Music Director), Fiona Smith (Choreographer), Sasha Beebe (Costume Design), Dawn Panttaja (Costume Support), Rye Kwiecien-Roick (Stage Manager/Props/Camp Counselor), and Audrey Golden (Light Board Op/Camp Counselor).

- Patrick Browne, MAC Performing Arts Coordinator

Updates from the MAC Gallery

Arielle Brackett – metalsmithing & mixed media

Britt Block – pastel paintings

August 2 – September 7, 2024

Reception on Saturday, August 10 from 1:00-3:00 pm

With paintings that explore the world from a bee’s perspective and mixed-media works calling attention to the 215 species of flora and fauna facing extinction in the Tillamook Rainforest, this exhibition by Arielle Brackett and Britt Block invites contemplation and action.

Britt Block creates large-scale pastel paintings that take invite the viewer into the “underlying radiance” of our world. “Through contemplation of the lives and lessons of bees, through appreciating their unsung centrality to our existence, we draw closer to the most important things about ourselves and our world,” says Block. She is speaking of wholeness, and our part in it. Block has an MFA in Painting from JFK University in Berkeley, CA.

Arielle Brackett is a metalsmith and mixed media artist who has shown nationally and internationally. Her current artwork focuses on the Tillamook Rainforest in Oregon, and the damage that is being caused by logging, urban development, and pollution. She uses materials as wide-ranging as sterling silver and velvet to discarded objects gathered during her recent Glean residency at the Metro Central transfer station. Much of her use of materials is symbolic as well. “I gathered materials to conceptually connect to the destructive human impacts of Tillamook Rainforest. For instance, wood symbolizes logging practices, cement and old clothing stand in for urban development, fishing rope and netting for overfishing and old tires to represent agriculture,” she says.

Gwynn Goodner  – oil paintings

September 13 – October 19, 2024

A solo exhibition of paintings inspired by the theatrical score called “Black Rider” by Tom Waits. In this heartful show, Goodner’s beautiful and intimate paintings invite the viewer to grapple with the devastating effects of gun violence. Goodner is focused in particular on the impacts felt by women, BIPOC communities, children, those who are homeless, and the LGBTQIA+ peoples.

MAC Artists Named RACC Grant Recipients

The Regional Arts and Culture Council (RACC) recently awarded its spring cycle grants to artists seeking funding for projects designed to enhance and cultivate community arts in the Portland-area. We are thrilled to announce that many MAC staff were named as grant recipients! Here are the staff who were awarded RACC grants:

Arielle Brackett, who teaches in our metals department, received a RACC grant in support of her international artist residency at the Fish Factory in Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland. During her residency, she’ll create a body of contemporary jewelry as well as small-scale metal and fiber sculptures based on the shapes, lines, and beauty of water. She also hopes to create site-specific work in the village of Stöðvarfjörður. You can see her two-person show in the MAC gallery from August 2 - September 7. www.ariellebrackett.com

Patrick Browne, our performing arts coordinator, received a RACC grant on behalf of MACA to purchase a new LED follow spot, which will enhance our theatre arts, music, dance, and literary arts performances. It’s a modern, energy-efficient model that will provide a much-needed upgrade to our Auditorium lighting. The instrument was installed just a few weeks ago and received its inaugural use during MAC's summer musical theatre production of Matilda JR.! When he is not at MAC he directs musical theatre in the community, his most recent credit being Sherwood Foundation for the Arts' production of The Addams Family.

MAC’s gallery specialist, Megan Hatch, has had artwork in several exhibitions this year, including one as far afield as the FotoNostrum Gallery in Barcelona, Spain. Her next show will be at the Hoffman Center in Manzanita this fall, where she was invited to participate in the bi-annual Word & Image exhibition, opening on October 5th. In July, she began a 6-month fellowship run by the National Guild for Community Arts Education. www.meganhatch.com

Erinn Kathryn Hatter, who teaches painting at MAC, was awarded grants from RACC and Oregon Arts Commission (OAC) in support of her project In The Frail, a series of “constructed poems” built from one text (Persons & Places, George Santayana). In September, a chapbook of all 25 poems is being published by Portland’s Buckman Journal. To coincide with the book release, Erinn will present an exhibition of the original works alongside a limited series of handmade artist books, artist-led community activities, & live readings. www.erinnkathryn.com

Our visual arts lead, Jennifer Rabin, is the grateful recipient of grants from RACC and OAC in support of her artist residency at Pine Meadow Ranch in Sisters, Oregon. She continued work on her mixed-media sculpture series, Home, which explores themes of isolation, disability, and resilience. The grants also support an exhibition of the work she created while in residence and beyond. www.jenniferrabin.com

MAC Staff Spotlight: Aimé Kelly, Community Engagement Coordinator

Aimé Kelly has spent the last 25 years of her professional life dedicated to MAC's arts education mission and efforts (she came in to MAC to meet a friend for a sandwich in the summer of 1999 and knew that day she had found her home away from home). Recently, she has transitioned from overseeing MAC's Youth Visual Arts, Dance, and Theatre programs to her new role as MAC's Community Engagement Coordinator, taking her skills and passion forward in support of MAC's "arts for all" mission.

This summer season, she is the point person for the MAC Arts in the Park team. With funding from MACA, Arts in the Park partners with PP&R's Free Lunch + Play to destigmatize food scarcity via the arts. Three mobile arts studios (two mixed media and one ceramics) are visiting 23 parks across Portland over the course of 9 weeks.

Following the summer season, Aimé's work will transition to school year programming. She is currently planning to partner with Ventura Elementary School to complete an 8' x 20' mural and will also be programming extensive visual and performing arts programming at Rosewood Initiative to bring arts education to SE Portland.