Opening Reception: 6pm-10pm Saturday, November 21, 2009 November 22-29, 2009 Exhibition Hours 6pm-9pm Daily (Closed Nov. 26 & 27) Milepost 5 900 NE 81st Avenue, Portland, OR, 97213 (3 blocks south of I-84 or 3 blocks north of Glisan St. on NE 82nd Ave.) Exhibition located in Unit 406 of The Lofts Building Hor D'oeuvres by Din Din Wine provided by Milepost 5 Portland, Oregon - November 3, 2009 -Milepost 5 Artists-in-Residents Shelby Davis and Crystal Schenk spent the last 2 months using their loft space to create a site specific installation. The installation will be on view Sunday, November 22 through Sunday, November 29, 2009, from 6pm to 9pm daily. The exhibit will be closed for Thanksgiving holiday November 26 and 27. Opening reception is Saturday evening, 6pm-10pm, November 21st, 2009. The sculpture, titled West Coast Turnaround, is a life-sized tractor-trailer semi, made out of 2x4s and drywall, parked in a 4th floor artist loft. The truck sits in the middle of the space, where its trailer then merges into the walls of the room. The loft is consumed by the truck, leaving only a narrow corridor around the piece for the viewer to negotiate. This is the first collaborative project for Davis and Schenk. Their work together is driven by a shared interest in vague stories that are not completely depicted, but inferred, through their sculptural work. The two artists see the semi-truck as a childhood icon/phallic symbol/wild beast of the roads. It simultaneously represents freedom and movement, in conjunction with dominance and waste, while the domestic materials used for house construction suggest a form of stasis. Crystal Schenk received an MFA from Portland State University in 2007, and BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999. Schenk's sculptures address issues of physical and mental health/illness, class, memory, and social interaction. Much of her subject matter is drawn from her familial history. Her sculpture has been published in Sculpture and Craft magazines. She was awarded the International Sculpture Center's Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award for 2006, and was subsequently selected as the recipient of ISC's artist in residency program at Art-st-urban in Switzerland. In 2009 Art-st-urban awarded Schenk with the institution's first Emerging Sculptor Award. Schenk's work has been exhibited at galleries in Switzerland, New York, Chicago, Portland, and throughout the Midwest. She is an adjunct professor at Pacific Northwest College of Art and Portland State University. Shelby Davis is a multimedia artist who focuses on sculpture and has a penchant for found materials. He is a skilled drafts-person and craftsman who mixes high tech digital planning with a folksy and precision obsessed hand held approach. His subject matter is derived from the deeply personal, the humorous, or the paradoxical. He holds a deep interest in science and unfinished fiction. Some art is installed without permission. He is from a small town in South Carolina and now resides, works, and teaches in Portland, Oregon. Davis received his MFA from Portland State University in 2008. He has shown prolifically in Portland, cities all over the South Eastern United States and has exhibited in Los Angeles, Tennessee, and in Portland's Time Based Arts festival as a member of the art group PAINTALLICA!