Each year at Pickathon, the grounds of Pendarvis Farm are seeded with fantastic forms. Neon-lit apparitions and hidden creatures stalk the night, and during the day festival goers are encouraged to interact with a host of art installations to delight the mind. Curated by Portland artist and lighting designer Jean Margaret Thomas, each year the visual art at Pickathon is a wonderland that makes the festival truly one-of-a-kind. Here’s a look at what Jean Margaret has in store for us this year!
Jed Bursiek at Angry Buddha Studios
”Bird Cage”
New to Pickathon, Jed Bursiek is an Animator and Director who works under the guise of Angry Buddha Studios. “The Bird Cage” is a digital bird animation residing inside a real live bird cage. It has been recently updated for Pickathon 2023 – the greatest music festival of all time!
Portal Arts Collective
”Cosmic Crustaship”
Gather and get creative under Portal Art Collective’s newest piece! They brought us the psychedelic snail made from recycled materials last year. This year they’re bringing The Cosmic Crustaship. Shuffle sideways under the crabby creative collaboration, and be transported to a recycledelic future of convergent evolution.
Mikele Schnitman
”The Silent Drum”
Mikele Schnitman establishes a contemplative practice through designing and Crafting multi-sensory, interactive Contemplation tools to explore perception and consciousness. Through the creation of objects, sound, and sensors, the projects attempt to create multi-sensory and interactivity-based experiences to investigate perception and meaning. Drawing upon a multidisciplinary practice, exploring how direct, sensorial interactions can both shift the perception as well as ameliorate the impact of the accelerated pace of life today. This work is intended to both raise awareness and provide stress relief through the body – and thereby celebrate the potential for a more sensorial-based life to learn, heal and connect.
Chris Herring’s Tungsten Heart:
”PXL Screens”
Chris Herring, creative director of the Portland Winter Light Festival, will be bringing columns of colors to mesmerize the masses.
Mike Taluc
”Random Walk”
Subtle currents of air surround us constantly, moving our world in tiny though not insignificant ways. The mobile “Random Walk” makes those currents visible in a graceful yet mildly chaotic dance of wooden spars and leaf-like pods made of wire frames and fabric. The movements of the many components invoke feelings of peace and wonder as each influences all the others, reaching far out from the center, reeling back in, bumping against one another. At night, this play has another element added through orchestrated lights contained inside the pods, a dance sure to confuse the moths.
