The Portrait Challenge

Last weekend we attended Bumbershoot where we saw The Decemberists, Niko Case and Bob Dylan. Along with the great music, we found a fantastic exhibit in the Northwest rooms called “The Portrait Challenge”.

This exhibit was born from the need to create SOMETHING to pass the time during a guard’s rotating shifts in a museum gallery. Here’s how it started: Ryan Molenkamp, an artist and Frye Art Museum guard began sketching a “portrait” of a strange looking guy that he saw in a magazine. He enjoyed this activity and decided to see if other guards would add their own “portraits” of the same person during their shift. The Portrait Challenge evolved into this exhibit and has on-going Flicker and Facebook challenges.

I loved this because it was fun and encouraged me to spontaneously draw something. I think most people enjoy drawing as a child but it gets harder to do as one grows up. Something about becoming too self-critical.