prices and admission charges are far below the costs in other cities. When you pay admission or buy a work of art, say a painting, at a small artistrun organization, you will be directly supporting artists’ creative work as opposed to helping pay for some professional arts administrator’s second car or tweed suit. As you might imagine, support from public cultural agencies such as the Oregon Arts Commission (OAC) and Metropolitan Arts Commission (MAC) has rarely been given to artists’ organizations, and only in very small amounts. For example. Northwest Artists Workshop (NWAW) has shown hundreds of artists and many experimental performances since it was established nearly four years ago. It is the only arts organization to vigorously feature a full range of experimental art by local artists. Yet the Metropolitan Arts Commission, for one, steadily refused to fund NWAW until earlier this year when a very small grant of about $1,500 was finally awarded. In comparison, the Portland Art Association, with huge administrative overhead and a policy of cultural importation and reduced exhibitions of local artists, received over $35,000. So much for' local governmental (i.e., tax money) support of creative art and artists. Since tax dollars allocated for culture are rarely spent in support of local art and performance events, the public must be tapped a second time around. The abundance of many healthy independent artists’ organizations and the multitude of artists in the Portland area—between 1,400 and 1,800 visual artists alone—could not happen without grassroots public interest and support. In return, Portlanders can stay put and have the best and most contemporary art brought to them. Thanks to high-tech media, communications and cheap travel, most artists and performers are tied into an international network of exchange. Ideas and information flow and are rapidly transformed into public events or new art. In addition, Portland is a very active importer of art and culture, serving as a major touch-down point in a West Coast circuit that includes Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Nearly every arts organization. no matter how small and starved for financial support, recognizes the value of including art and artists from other areas. Importation is often done on an informal exchange basis. Within the visual arts and avant garde performance offerings, Portland Center for the Visual Arts (PCVA) almost entirely imports from New York—and its suburb, Los Angeles—for its programs. PCVA was created in 1971 as a kind of outpost of New York avant garde culture of the late ’50s and early ’60s. With this emphasis. PCVA has managed to score big with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), Oregon Arts Commission (OEA) and Metropolitan Arts Commission, as well as some corporate hot-shots. The NEA, for example, contributes between $40,000 and $65,000 yearly in grants, compared to $5,000 received by Northwest Artists Workshop. To properly appreciate PCVA. attend an opening. Afterwards stick around. After the mob thins out and the place begins to close, a hardcore group will usually escort whatever guest artist is at hand to a nearby restaurant for a bite. Tag along and see how real artists operate. That’s right: if you haven’t guessed by now, PCVA is a door, small and guarded as it is. for local artists seeking fame and fortune, big sales and maybe even a New York gallery connection. So far, a few have done well by their association. How many local artists actually exhibit at PCVA? The answer is, very few. Founders mainly, or their favorites. After all, as director Mary Beebe will tell you. PCVA is devoted to showing significant contemporary art, and how much significance could art produced in Portland possibly have? If you are interested in finding out, or simply want to see more art, drop downstairs from PCVA and check out Northwest Artists Workshop, which houses the Blue Sky Photography Gallery, The Video Access Project, Second Floor Gallery, Poets’ Space, and a number of other projects. The nearby Blackfish Gallery is a cooperative project founded and operated by member artists, located just down the street on NW 6th Avenue. It should be visited, too. Between the two spaces you may begin to question the wisdom of limiting the bulk of public support for large, very expensive and top-heavy “major” cultural institutions. In any case, you might let the Metropolitan Arts Commission or Oregon Arts Commission know what you think. After all. it’s your tax bucks they are spending. Moving into the wonderful world of dance, in Portland everyone is a. dancer. It used to be that everyone was a potter, but things have changed. Keith Martin brought in a little highbrow modern by way of Reed College. Today he operates the Northwest Dance Center, home of the Northwest Repertory Dance Company. Modern as this group is in style, do not make the mistake of expecting a Travolta disco line-up. Instead, they carry on the traditions of the grand old masters of modern dance: Widman, Graham and others. Cirque, formerly The Portland Dance Theatre, has taken the plunge into a kind of personal, introspective dance/theatre under the artistic directorship of the last remaining original PDT member. Jann McCauley. Cirque now loosely follows in the footsteps of the So and So Dance Company, sometimes found at Moving Space. Inc. Louise Steinman and Susan Banyas. of the So and So Company, have been forging ahead into new territories for dance and fusion of the arts theatre since the Portland Dance Collective days nearly six years ago. In the way of theatre, Portland has yet to develop a fully professional resident theatre group. However, the Storefront Actors' Theatre is the grandpa/grandma of experimental theatre and is a must for all refugees from TV land. While several theatre groups frequently offer gritty contemporary theatre. Storefront productions are often well off the map. usually based on work by local playwrights and involving very talented local set and costume designers. To say local is not to say limited, uninteresting, dull or provincial. Artists live here by choice, many having come from other areas and stay because of the city’s exceptional beauty and easy life style. Most artists are highly educated, both personally and formally, and often travel to reconnect with other centers and artists. Their art is no less for having been done here. If this article has read like a dumb advertisement, you're not far off. Forget you’re in Portland if that helps. Imagine you’re in San Francisco. Los Angeles or New York and hit the streets. 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