Wander Into Wonder: The 2025 Pickathon Art Lineup

Jul 31- Aug 3

Wednesday July 9, 2025

by Pickathon

At Pickathon, the forest doesn’t just host the festival—it becomes the festival. Our stages rise between trees, neighborhoods pulse with light, and tucked into every corner is something strange and beautiful waiting to be discovered. Each year, we invite a visionary group of artists to help us turn Pendarvis Farm into a living, breathing dreamworld.

For 2025, we’re excited to welcome Diane “Lego” Grundy as our new Art Director. With deep roots in Portland’s art scene—notably as Art Coordinator for the Portland Winter Light Festival—Lego brings a sharp curatorial eye and a love for immersive, interactive work. Her background in photography and film, environmental sociology, and hands-on installation makes her the perfect guide for this year’s visual journey.

VIEW THE FULL LINEUP OF VISUAL ARTISTS

Here’s a look at the incredible artists and installations coming to Pickathon 2025:

PiCraft – Layered Realities & Tarot Mirrors

Joseph “Echo” Tiegs, founder of PiCraft, brings psychedelic, laser-cut woodwork that bends space and perception, and pushes boundaries, colors and shapes. If you come across his detailed wall pieces, PiCraft invites you to pause, reflect, and get curious—how was this even made? If you find one of his Tarot vanity mirrors scattered through the grounds, take a second to check yourself out.

Fuzzy Beuys – Ripple

This teardrop-shaped light sculpture responds to your every move. Step inside and watch light ripple and shift with your presence. Created by artist duo Terry Holloway and Ian Coronado, Ripple is an invitation to slow down and witness the echo of your own energy.

Megan Wainwright – Steel Ferns

Welded from found metal, Megan’s glowing ferns blur the line between forest and fantasy. Lit from below, these steel sculptures enhance the natural path with wonder and whimsy—unexpected beauty with just a hint of danger.

Dead Brush Art Collective – Animal Friends

Dead Brush Art Collective will be bringing an Animal Friend or two to the colorful and vivacious landscapes we have been invited to. The aim of the creation is to reflect and echo the fun but feral spirit of the wild yonder that is the Pacific Northwest. Howl, Meow, Hiss, and Pur—it’s why we’re hur!

AA. Orellana – Moody Portals & Mixed Media Worlds

With a maximalist, mixed-media style and a flair for storytelling, AAO’s work adds a dose of surreal emotion and vibrant self-expression to the visual landscape. His pieces blur the line between outsider art and inner truth.

Kenzie / Meadow Base – Shaded by Daisies

Kenzie’s live painting session and accompanying workshop in the Windmill neighborhood invite attendees to witness the magic unfold in real time. With oversized florals, dreamy portals, and hidden forest spirits, her biophilic mural opens a window into her whimsical world.

Flamgu – Visionary Layers of Life and Cosmos

A visionary artist with a background in science, Flamgu explores macro/microcosmic tension through layered, luminous illustrations—meditations on death, imagination, and the cycles of nature.

Portal Arts Collective – The Carousel Menagerie

A fantastical carousel-shaped shade structure surrounded by six rideable metal creatures can be found in the Paddock Neighborhood. With mirrors, recycled materials, and illuminated details, it’s a resting place, a photo opp, and a surreal memory rolled into one.

Michael Clifford – Light Eye

Merging photography, sculpture, and lighting design, Light Eye explores how we see and process images—with mirrored reflections and backlit digital prints revealing the mechanics of perception.

Chris Herring – Light Breeze

A pioneer of interactive lighting and co-founder of the Portland Winter Light Festival, Chris brings his boundary-pushing design to Pickathon, illuminating the natural world with carefully choreographed wonder. This year he is bringing the hidden relic in the woods that gives the Windmill Neighborhood it’s name to life with a “Light Breeze.”

Mike Taluc – Trickle, Flashes of Movement and Color

In the cathedral of trees, Mike Taluc’s kinetic sculpture captures the subtle energy of stillness and motion. Simple in form but rich in relational geometry, the piece responds to air currents with shifting flashes of red and yellow—an organic dance between form and environment, infused with whimsy and movement.

Rusted Alchemy Studio / Kurt Kempcke – The Aquarium

Inspired by the graceful movement of schooling fish, Kurt Kempcke’s newest installation invites you to drift alongside a shimmering procession of sculpted fish as they appear to swim through the forest. Suspended above the path, these metallic creatures evoke a sense of quiet unity—mirroring the flow of festival-goers moving together through sound, nature, and shared experience.