*Note, due to the holidays posting on PORT will be more sporadic than our usual daily coverage until Jan 2 2006. Still, there will be some fun stuff to blog on between now and then.

Also, at PORT we value our readers and wouldn't consider subjecting you to the typical and nearly unavoidable slant of some multiple choice survey. Instead, we will listen to the squeaky wheel (a Portland tradition). In lieu of some faux scientific survey, simply email me your lists of the best and worst things in the Portland art scene or art world in general (use jeffATportlandart.net). I can't promise I'll publish everything (particularly the rantings of drunken monomaniacs) but whether I agree with it or not I'll add it to a series of end of the year compilations I'm doing. Of course all contributions except mine will remain anonymous and after the list comes out you can add to the discussion via our comments.

Some suggestions:

Best solo show
Most disappointing solo show
Worst show title
Most worn out idea
Most improved gallery
Hippest gallery
Most annoying art personality
Worst art review
Best art review
Best new artist of 2005
Most improved artist
Artist in the biggest rut
Gallery in a rut
Institution in a rut
Suggestion list in a rut… etc, etc.

Best Art Review: Richard Speer

"In June, George Broderick will take his trippy-dippy paintings to Havana, Cuba, for a showing at the city’s Galeria Guayasamin in conjuntion with the Cuban Minisitry of Culture, and the artist offers a preview of the show at his Portland gallery. With their outsider artist-like lack of perspective, unlikely color combinations and compositional sense, the works look like something 1960’s illustrator David DePatie would have drawn on some grappa-fueled sojourn to Portofino. On the other side of the gallery, Vanessa Calvert’s encaustic works make a properly subdued complement to Broderick’s whacked-out fantasias."