Due to the New Year’s holiday, many of our regular galleries will be closed this month. Be sure to check back in for February!
All events listed occur on the first Friday of the month and are free and open to all visitors unless otherwise specified.
Annual Group Show | Sidestreet Arts
Featured artists: Anna Magruder, Ha Austin, Tamara Goldsmith, Dawn Panttaja, Amelia Opie and Melody Bush
Runs: January, 2026
First Friday Artwalk: January 2nd, 5-7pm, with artists at the opening
About the show: We are pleased to present this upcoming annual exhibition featuring the recent work of our members who are the heart of this unique venture. Sidestreet Arts mission is to operate a visual arts venue that promotes, encourages, and supports the work of its members and guest artists. We are a long-standing, collective gallery currently comprised of 6 member-owners who volunteer our time to create a welcoming creative space within which to show our art as well as that of other makers. We are proud to represent local artists, and strive to enrich our Pacific Northwest community by elevating its collective voices, inspire others through creativity and connect to one another.
5 PM – 7 PM @ 140 SE 28th Ave, Portland, OR
Contact Us
We do our best to make the list as complete as possible, if you have an event or correction you would like to see listed please send show details to Info@FirstFridayPDX.org or use our easy online event submission form.
After First Friday Monthly Art Openings
Events listed occur throughout the month are free and open to all visitors unless otherwise specified.
SATURDAY 01.10.26
Pamela Hadley: HOLDING ME, HOLDING YOU | Carnation Contemporary
Join us for Pamela Hadley’s Holding Me, Holding You, an immersive installation featuring abstract projection-mapped animation and sound compositions that open paths to new futures through ecology, relational aesthetics, and the phenomenological.
Slowness is not just a method; it is a core strategy of Hadley’s practice—a deliberate act of healing from and resistance against a culture that often reduces the value of human life to what one produces while prioritizing rapid consumption and immediate outcomes. Facilitated here by perceptual experience, slowness and stillness invite reflection and connection and create space to imagine the ways in which we will remake our world.
Visitors are ushered into the darkness by small light works before discovering the full-room installation that is the focal point of this show. There, they will navigate the space, each other, and, if they remain still for long enough, perhaps the sequestered locales within their own inner landscape.
PROGRAM SCHEDULE Saturday, Jan. 24th 7:00 pm A conversation with Dr. Grant Vetter – From Rhizomatic to Lichen Politics: Habitation as a form of Revolutionary-Becoming in the work of Pamela Hadley 8:30 pm Community Dance Party – Create some joy together! Sunday, Jan. 25th 6:00 pm Sonar Session – Sharing strategies for grief, resilience, and solidarity Find details and RSVP for all events at pamelahadley.com
PAMELA HADLEY (ARTIST) Pamela Hadley is an artist making time-based, immersive light installations. Believing that the phenomenological can be an agent of social change, their work utilizes perceptual experiences to engage people in a direct relationship with themselves and the world as a way to heal and to remember that we have the power to effect real change. Hadley has participated in exhibitions and artist residencies across the US and lives in Portland, OR. . Hadley earned an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from the Corcoran College of Art and Design. pamelahadley.com | @nosleeptillinstall
DR. GRANT VETTER (LECTURER) With over twenty-five years of experience in the arts, Dr. Grant Vetter has exhibited his work with or served as a curator for an extensive array of colleges and arts institutions in the US, Europe and East Asia. Dr. Vetter has been an instructor at institutions such as the Pacific Northwest College of the Arts, Arizona State University, Sci-ARCH, and the California African American Museum. He completed his Post-Doc in the International Curators Program at the NODE Center for Curatorial Studies in Berlin and he holds degrees from the European Graduate School, the University of California, Irvine, the Critical Theory Institute, and the Art Center College of Design and is the recipient of numerous scholarships and awards. He writes reviews of art exhibitions and is the author of The Architecture of Control (Zero Books), and Spaceboy & The Supercognate, co-authored with Justin Bower. He is currently represented by Durden + Ray in Los Angeles. grantvetter.info | @grant.vetter
