Earlier this year, Tiffany Conklin of the Portland Street Art Alliance explained her group’s project paying homage to what’s regarded as Portland’s first instance of street art — the Lovejoy Columns.
We asked her what makes Portland feel like home, including her first love among the city’s street art projects:
“Almost 20 years [ago], I very purposely moved here from the East Coast, from Florida, looking to get the most different kind of environment that I could possibly get to at that time. So for me, what feels like home now in Portland is our trees. Our abundance of beautiful evergreen trees is just striking and so magnificent.”
Her no. 1 spot for trees is one she can see from her window: Mt. Tabor.
“[There’s] the fact that it's an extinct volcano. It's just like a little secluded piece of heaven up there. You can get up on the top of Mt. Tabor and feel like you're not really in the middle of the city.”
Kachka 🍽️
“I love traveling, and time and time again, I'm always comparing it back to Portland. Portland still does it better. We have just such an amazingly high standard of food here. The love and the passion of our chefs really shine through. I go to Kachka, the Russian restaurant, as often as I can afford to. That's the gem of our restaurant scene.”
- 🍴 Go-to dish: Tvorog vareniki, the farmer cheese dumplings with garlic broth. “That is some really good comfort food, and you can get it a little cheaper on happy hour, too, if you get there early.”
- 🍸 Favorite cocktail: “If it's a little later in the evening, a horseradish vodka with a pickleback would be my drink of choice.”
This spot was her first love — in terms of Portland public art.
“I come from the skateboarding community in high school. Burnside Skatepark was one of the first places I wanted to go see before even moving here. That was just really amazing seeing something that you see in video games, in 'Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.' You and all your friends know [it] visually in your head already without even seeing the space in person.”
“There's such an amazing sense of community down here. It was just a special moment to see something really DIY like that in full effect and in all its glory. And it's still there and it's still thriving. Amazing.”
