On Tuesday, September 9, 2025, at 11.30 a.m. Joseph Gallivan talks to artist Nancy Helsmworth about her paintings in the three-woman show Riparian Reflections, which is on now at Gallery 114 through Sept. 27, 2025. Helsmworth’s paintings focus on the water, sky, rocks and vegetation of Balch Creek as it flows through the west hills before it is culverted in industrial northwest Portland. She talks about the takeover of the land by white male settlers in the 19th century, the grid system for surveying land and the grid system she uses in her paintings, and her efforts to change the name to the native term for bird, Kulla Kulla Creek, from Balch Creek, a man who was hanged for murdering his son-in-law.
From the press release:
Riparian Reflections
Works by Nancy Helmsworth, Lisa Conway, and Julie Johnson
Nancy Helmsworth continues her paintings informed by kulla kulla Creek. Lisa Conway, ceramicist is inspired by the ability water has to calm and slow the world around us, even as water itself is continually in motion and in transition. Julie Johnson, plant fiber sculptor, chooses materials within a literal context while capturing movement of flow, eddy and organized turbulence.
https://www.gallery114.com/current-exhibition
About the author
Alan Wieder is a photographer and oral historian. He is the author of several books including Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War Against Apartheid and Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, but Mostly Conversation. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
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Joseph Gallivan has been a reporter since 1990. He has covered music for the London Independent, Technology for the New York Post, and arts and culture for the Portland Tribune and for Axios Portland. He is the author of two novels, "Oi, Ref!" and "England All Over" which are available lightly used.