My guest this week is Dana Lynn Lewis, a Portland artist whose work is fabulous but does not stay politely inside the gallery by any means. Dana is the founder of Gather:Make:Shelter, a long running collaborative project that brings professional artists together with people experiencing houselessness and poverty making work side by side, sharing meals.

Paying participants for their time and then bringing those stories and objects into public view in a way that refuses the kind of usual us and them bifurcation that so many cities dealing with homelessness confront. She really breaks that down with her incredibly beautiful work approach.

In this conversation, we go back to the moment that this work really ignited Dana's time in Senegal during the 2016 election. She discusses the kinda strange clarity that came from being far away looking in on the United States, people around her with every reason to be cynical, insisting that something important was happening and something good would come out of this.

And she embraced that idea. She talks about her return to Portland in a very important human moment under the steel bridge that became the seed of an idea. It quickly became gather, make shelter through the beautiful work that she does. We also talk about connection and the central role that plays in her life and work.

We venture into her background and her Jewish upbringing and the role that Jewish summer camp played in her work, and we also talk about the idea that there's Dana, the artist, and Dana, the activist. For her, it's all emergent out of this sense of connection. Finally, we do talk about her beautiful, beautiful, multimedia artistic work, and there are links for you to encounter her work up online, including the link to Gather:Make:Shelter.

This is a two-parter because we had so much to talk about. The second part of the conversation will be out next week. Enjoy my conversation with the one and only Dana Lynn Lewis

The Genesis: Conversations About Jewish Arts and Culture is conceived of and created by Rabbi Josh Rose, and is a program of Art/Lab: Jewish Arts and Culture. Theme music by Rabbi Josh Rose.

Links:

Art/Lab: Innovating Jewish Arts and Culture: www.artlabpdx.org

Gather:Make:Shelter www.gathermakeshelter.org/

Dana Lynn Louis: www.danalynnlouis.com/

Russo Lee Gallery: www.russoleegallery.com/exhibitions