Josh Kenyon and Jolby. They continue their proud tradition of making our jaw drop this month with a new Zine and accompanying art exhibit entitled “&1: Everyday Shenanigans.” You can tell by the title that -despite their serious talent- this collection of mustaches, monsters, and plenty more where that came from, is more boisterous than serious. That sense of amusement makes it all the more worth our consideration and your consideration. Should you happen to be in Portland, OR on August 7th, we heartily recommend showing your appreciation in person by popping into the exhibit opening at Artful Goods from 5-8pm for a heaping helping of good-natured nonsense.

Ken Tomita wanted to create an affordable piece of quality furniture that didn’t skimp on design. From this idea, the Chaboo was born. The name originates from the Japanese word “chabudai,” which means “low table.” Ken changed the spelling to reflect his use of bamboo materials, and also allow the user to define its purpose: Is it a table or is it a bench? An original Chaboo in light or dark wood goes for $250, but in less than a week you’ll be treated to a bevy of artist interpretations. Over 50 designers were invited to customize a Chaboo with their signature styles. The artists worked with watercolors, acrylics, oils, inks, silkscreen, vinyl, metal, wood, felt, laser, glass, concrete and even recycled skateboards. There will be an opening reception for Project Chaboo on March 4th from 6-10 p.m. at galleryHOMELAND in Portland and will be on display through March 7th. Shown here is a Chaboo by adorable husband/wife art team APAK.

Skateboard art just keeps getting better and better. Like graffiti, it’s made its way from street level with a flare for deliquency, to carrying content dope enough to warrant a gallery show. If you happen to be in Portland this week, be sure to check out Wood Pushers, a show curated by Monsieur T. It’s all happening at Hecklewood Gallery. Check out their site for a list of artists and some of the work to be featured. Contributing artists were given the choice of painting a blank deck, or creating a piece with a skating-related theme, which should make for some interesting eye candy.

In these modern times of souped up CD mixers and Serato, the dying medium of vinyl needs all the attention it can get — and that hype might not always involve music. Portland’s Vinyl Killers are on the wave of a stencil mini-revolution with a simple premise: plastering stencils onto records. VK collects pieces from artists all over the world and if you happen to be in Portland, OR on October 30th this year, you can check them out at the Goodfoot. Have a look at entries from previous years at the Vinyl Killers site.

If you are a long time reader of JoshSpear.com you'll know that we've raved about Monsieur T a lot. (Monsieur T is the limited edition line of street wear clothes designed by Portland based artists and founded by a French dude, just in case you forgot). We've always loved their T-shirts and followed them through all their clothing lines — now it is time for some art. A new set of fresh prints that you would expect from the T just launched on their site. As expected, they feature Portland based artist and are all limited edition and signed. Now you can style your walls as you would style your wardrobe.

Starting this Friday, the country’s best eco-friendly designers will take to the catwalk for Portland’s fifth fashion week. The sustainably produced fashion week will feature the Spring lines of over 30 earth-loving fashion labels, including some class favorites like Sameunderneath and Holly Stalder. While PFW has always been produced with mother nature in mind, this PFW 2007 will mark the first time (in the nation!) that the production of the event itself is entirely sustainable — from the products used on the models to the construction of the runway, Portland Fashion Week will be created and conducted while giving our planet every consideration possible.

If any of our readers happen to make it to PFW (you can still buy tickets here), let us know what the experience was like. Additionally, a few new eco-lines will be debuting at the event, so be sure to fill us in on the new competition…

We’ve written about Portland-based Hecklewood a fair bit around here. What do you expect us to do when we find a completely badass brand and/or store doing their own thing and doing everything right?

TANNER, Hecklewood’s sub-brand for leather goods, has been producing messenger bags and wallets for about a year now — I’m in serious need of one of their Lscape messengers; that’s a piece of beauty right there — and they’ve now moved on to the land of belts. Not these department store, last-a-year-and-fall-apart kind, but the old school could-serve-as-a-weapon-in-a-pinch belt, where the leather pretty much stands up on its own. “All of our belts are cut, edged, assembled, and branded by hand from super heavy-weight 9 oz. premium strap leather…This stuff will last a lifetime – no joke….” And, to top it off, they’re offering our faithful readers a 15% discount with the first 25 orders getting a free key leash to boot. Just enter “joshspear” as the coupon code when you check out. Then get back here and tell us who’s the first to get spanked with your new belt…or what kind of pants they’re holding up.

Just had a great afternoon hopping around downtown Portland with none other than SpearTalks own Jeff Rooney (Capacitor Design Network). We popped by Upper Playground and the Fifty24PDX gallery to see the Ricky Powell show– if you’re interested in large-format photos of The Beastie Boys, or Eazy E up close and personal– this show is certainly for you. We also dropped into Just Be Complex, a good shop with a stellar collection of shoes, prints, toys, books and gear. The current digmeout rides again show at the gallery upstairs left me speechless. An incredible collection of young and emerging Japanese artists, a must see.

Time for a quick Spearlocator update! I’m in Portland for the next three days, meeting with a certain shoe brand (you’ll never guess which one); I’ve got some free time here and there if anyone has any good tips for the city. On Wednesday afternoon I pop down to Los Angeles for Imprint Life, the Asian marketing conference put on by interTrend and giant robot. I’m moderating a panel called ‘Speed Scribes’ about blogging culture with Rob Heppler, Jeff Staple, Danny Choo and Brian Lam from Gizmodo. If you’re free Thursday, sign up and join in. I’ll have some time afterwards to meet people. Then on Friday, back across the country to NYC I go. Where next? Where next? Nobody knows…

Portland is getting another storage facility, and you’re probably thinking, “just what America needs…more mini storage,” but in this case, hell yes! The proposed Portland City Storage facility will likely be the most energy efficient storage facility in the world, if the plans come to fruition. Designed to house large-ticket like boats, cars, and PODS, the 22-story facility will be built on just 3 acres of land — a tenth of what most storage facilities need — and will utilize 175,000 square feet of solar panels, producing a surplus of energy which will be sold to the local energy company; also planned for the facility is a rainwater collection system on the roof to supplement city water supplies.

In addition to its green design, plans are in the works for bike paths and walkways to connect Portland’s nearby neighborhoods to the downtown area. The question remains as to how Portlanders will react to what may be considered an eye-sore, although it really isn’t any worse than a tall office building…because if anyone can get behind a green cause, it’s Portland.

I found myself in Portland, Oregon last week for the first time. I didn’t get too much time to explore, but due to the time change I found myself up at 6am with some time to kill — so I grabbed my camera and set off to explore for a few minutes. It didn’t take long for me to stumble onto Canoe. Obviously it wasn’t open at 6am, but a glance through the windows was enough to whet the palate. It looked like a veritable cornucopia of gifts and knick-knacks for the design-minded.

A quick exploration of their website led me to some hidden gems that weren’t apparent in my original window shopping moments such as this German designed, stainless steel condom dispenser or the Tivoli Model One radio.

If you make it out to Portland — or are a lucky local — stop by Canoe and let me know what I missed!

–Danny Nathan

The term “buyer’s regret” is sort of similar, but what do you call it when you see something you like only to find out it’s not made for you? Because I’m having a major, itchy case it after seeing Monsieur T’s upcoming fall/winter 2007 line for guys. For its next season, the T-shirt company joined forces with prolific artist Andy Rementer and art director of Spain’s Alai Ruben Sanchez, who turned out great designs, like one of a headless body about to step on its head that’s been screened onto a plain but handsome crew-neck sweater. Also, “Thee Manticore” hoodie by Martin Ontiveros has horns printed onto its hood, and there’s a submission by Ryan Berkley with just eyes and fangs that glow in the dark. Totally sick! I’m starting a petition immediately to get Monsieur T to make these gems in girls’ sizes, because if Josh and Jamie are allowed to rock them, us girls on the team should be able to, too.

Just this morning, perennial JoshSpear.com fixture Hecklewood launched their Summer ‘07 collection, Teenage Wasteland. T.W. is heavily influenced by cultural events in the 1990’s, and draws from our time as wasted youths (seriously, sometimes I wonder how we were able to emerge from that decade with our sanity and normalcy somewhat intact). It’s basically one part punk-in-gutter, and one part toxic wasteland. But that’s not all! To accompany their T.W. line, Sammy and crew have also launched a smaller collection that focuses on 3D pattern graphics that I’m really digging (’New Wave‘ t-shirt shown above). And remember everyone, Hecklewood has M’s and W’s gear– get some!

In January of 2006, after eight years as an art director and stylist, Maria Vettese was finally ready to chase down her dream of the hands-on creative pursuit for which she was truly passionate. After transitioning from city life to a quieter one in Portland, Maine, Maria turned to her background in small book publishing and typography and began Port 2 Port Press, a small letterpress studio specializing in small-batch, one time only prints. Maria’s unique artistic interpretations of the beauty in everyday life provide the inspiration for the charming stationary that she prints by hand, and her focus on keeping the company small allows her time to work on custom orders for her dedicated fans. Port 2 Port’s latest development is the photographs & prints project, a pairing of one idea, five photographs, and one letterpress print into monthly offerings of limited edition sets that Maria sells via her Etsy boutique. You can grab a set of three of her cards for $12 — a great price for letterpress stationary — and if you find yourself wanting more, you can even join The Card Society, a two-a-month subscription club that will keep you in pretty correspondence for up to a year.

Via design*sponge

While checking out the recently prettified blog of our Portland-based friends at db clay (we’re super excited about their forthcoming series of environmentally-friendly wallets), I fell hard for a new and glorious form of media player. SplashCast, a new start-up also based in Portland, enables users to create streaming media “channels” that mix together music, video, text, photos, narration, and RSS Feeds, as well as PowerPoint presentations and PDFs. SplashCast is a “skinless” media player, which means that it is wonderfully adaptable to individual sites’ branding and design- in other words, the player will blend seamlessly into whatever you’ve got going for you, without any rubbish YouTube borders, etc. SplashCast also makes it easier to track views, something that can help you figure out whether to keep up your daily posts or call it quits (just kidding; you write because you love it, right?). Because SplashCast is free — and from what I can tell, easy to use — you have little reason not to try it out. Download this little gem here, then let us know what you think.