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Noah continues his travels across the US with a stop in Portland to visit Ryan Jacob Smith.

The last time I made a post about my trip, I left off at my stay in Vancouver, WA. From there I took off with Michelle and Jon and went down a few miles to the great city of Portland. It's kinda like my home in Seattle, but kinda not at the same time. It's a bit greener, but still a bit more industrial, and I think it may even have a more happening art scene. While we were there we ran a few errands to aid us on our trip, as well as check out a few of the more photogenic spots.

Some elephant...

Some graffiti on top of graffiti cover up.

We did Burnside, and even got to see Chet Childress skate a bit. I think Matt Mumford was there too. Jon and I are both recovering from recent rolled ankles (not to make excuses...) so I did more skate watching than anything. Still, was way good. Some of those guys really know what they're doing. We also made sure to hit up some photography galleries while we were in the area, where we saw these gems by Bob Farr at the Newspace Center for Photography.

So yeah, those were kinda cool. Nothing too flashy I guess.

I don't want to overwhelm ya'll with too many photos, so I'll continue my Portland adventures in another blog later on, but first I wanna show off some of Jon's stuff. He's been going to school for photography for a while now, and I really, really dig some of his work. We did an interview for the old fecalface site with a bunch of photos he took with his Holga, but now he's doing more stuff in color. These are all from a trip we took together back to our hometown of Sandpoint, Idaho last Thanksgiving.

My old roomies cat, Boo.

Those ones were kinda silly, but these ones get better, fo' sure. Seeing them through the eyes of my friend Jon mean somthing a little extra for me atleast. We spent a lot time in these little corners of the world. Keep in mind we grew up in a very boring, podunk, hickish sort of place.

And that's that. Hope you likey. But yeah, join me next time for a post about the rest of my stay in PDX, and wish me luck on my travels across the country. Later!

During my stay in Portland I made sure to visit as much artsy fartsy stuff as possible. The rest of my trip down the west coast is going to consist of very much "American" activities, so it was important for me to squeeze as much of this in before I left town. As a guide I called up my friend Ryan (Jacob Smith) to see if he knew of anything special going on. He suggested we check out the 5th ave and NW Couch St. area first, and then to come check out his studio a little later on. On 5th we first found a shop called the Motel Gallery.

Some of Ryan's stuff.

I forget her name... Anyone?

Carson Ellis.

Chris Duncan, and below a bunch or Justin B. Williams' work.

Some of Julianna Bright's.

Some airy landscapes by Meg Peterson.

Across the street we visited the Just Be Complex, where Portland's coolest kids buy all of their shoes, t-shirts, vinyl toys, and DVD's alike. Upstairs there's even a gallery called Compound.

Pencil and gouache drawings by Josh Cochran, and some pen and ink by Tyler Stout.

There was lots more, but I didn't want to overdo it, and besides that I wanted to hurry and go check out the arcade down the street! I forget what it was called, but it was so so awesome!

They had it all, even my all time favorite, Joust! Jon and I played a couple games of that, Michelle played some pinball, and then we spent the rest of our time checking out all the rad, old time video game graphics.

After that it was off to visit Ryan.

Latley he's been painting a lot of fingerboards, complete with quarter pipes.

I liked this one tons.

I thought this might make a good final photo for this cross country update. From here we'll drive south to Eugene, OR where we'll visit some friends from high school, but you'll hear all about that soon enough. Thanks to Jon and Ryan for helping us around the city, and thanks to you for reading this portion of my cross country experience. I hope to share more pics soon, but please send any helpful tips you may have! I'm still looking for places to crash during my stay in the South, and it's coming up quick. Help!