The arts are sometimes criticized as being elite priesthoods practicing arcane crafts cloistered away from the concerns of everyday life. This, of course, runs directly counter to the Portland ethos of community involvement and Creative Portland's mandate to raise the level of arts awareness in our city. Cleverly,the folks at Pickwick Independent Press have come up with a great way to take one of the most difficult and technical of all visual arts disciplines, printmaking, and take it to the streets—literally. On Saturday, Sept. 11, from 6 to 9pm, SPACE Gallery will host a Block Party that will close off and fill a portion of the Congress Street arts district with all manner of participatory arts activities. For their part in the party, Pickwick has invited printmakers from their press and other artists from around the state to carve huge 4 x 4 foot or 4 x 8 foot woodblocks for the "block" party. From 6pm on, the artists will ink up the woodblocks on the street, lay sheets of canvas on top and wait for the guest of honor, a steam roller (rented with the proceeds from a kickstarter fund for the project), to make them into art. Other interesting stuff at the block party will be Andrea Zittel's Group Formerly Known as Smockshop installation and launch event outside the Portland Museum of Art, banners made from recycled sails designed by Angela Adams in collaboration with Seabags (that will, of course, be recycled into one-of-a-kind-totes at the end of the event) and a real-time participatory still-life installation at Sylvia Kania Gallery. There will also be music along Congress Street from Port City Music Hall to One Longfellow Square, including outdoor performances by percussionists for the Portland Symphony Orchestra of Steve Reich's Clapping Music and by the high-energy Brazilian tropicalia band Garotas Suecas (for your dancing pleasure.)

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