Venture Magazine 2013

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Cover and back cover photos by Jeff Hannig

Editors' Note

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s students at Mt. Hood Community College, we live on the cusp of the cultural and social diversity and innovation that Portland offers.

Every day we come across a wide variety of people, interests, special

events and ongoing activities that remind us how compelling our area of the Northwest actually is.

It’s this diversity that pushes us to explore areas unknown to us. A whole new world waits just inside the cover of a book or in the lecture hall. Taking time to learn about something new, and to explore it, is what students should do best.

With all that in mind, we bring you ‘Venture,’ where we present our readers with a range of topics: You can delve deeper into the obscure world of tea, get inside the mind of a skater with big dreams, learn the rich history and styles of natural hair, and see our campus through the eyes of Mt. Hood’s lead groundskeeper.

We bring you the 2013 edition of Venture in hopes our smorgasbord of ideas helps to open your eyes and interests to a new world, at every opportunity.

-Kylie Rogers & Shelby Schwartz

Venture Magazine is a Mt. Hood Community College student publication produced by students in the journalism department.

The articles and materials present in Venture do not necessarily represent the views of Mt. Hood Community College. None of these materials may be reproduced without written permission from Venture.

This issue of Venture Magazine was printed on 10% post-consumer fiber.

Mt. Hood Community College 26000 SE Stark Street Gresham, Oregon 97030 (503) 491-7413

Contents

Making MHCC Beautiful PAGE 2-5

Fifty Shades of Earl Grey

Visionary ramps up Portland skate scene PAGE 12-17

Rock your locks

Co-editors

writers

Designers

Photographers Advisers

Kylie Rogers Shelby Schwartz

Jeff Hannig Katelyn Hilsenbeck Mike Mata Kayla Tatum

Lauren Bakke Jeff Hannig Katelyn Hilsenbeck Kylie Rogers

Jeff Hannig Katelyn Hilsenbeck Carole Riggs

Howard Buck Dan Ernst

PAGE 18-20

PAGE 6-11

Making MHCC Making MHCC Beautiful Beautiful

By Katelyn Hilsenbeck

By Katelyn Hilsenbeck

A look into the responsibilites of Mt. Hood Community College’s lead groundskeeper, Phil Parsley.

Photo by Katelyn Hilsenbeck

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Left: Parsley checks the sprinkler system on the lawn adjacent to the baseball field. Above: One of the planters outside the Student Union.

“I

wouldn’t want to do any other work. I’ve worked outside all my life and I like it that way,” said MHCC Lead Groundskeeper Phil Parsley, who, from flowers to playing fields, oversees all that grows on campus.

From the time he was a young child, Parsley tended a large garden with his siblings that helped to feed his family in Southeast Idaho. It was a good match, from the start. “It wasn’t work. To me, as a kid, it was a lot of fun,” he said.

By age 12, he began more serious work with his brother, driving a truck and moving irrigation pipes for his neighbors.

While he acquired his green thumb out of necessity, Parsley purposely chose to build a career of it, he said. “It’s just always been with me, I guess.”

In high school he participated in a landscape technology program and took on work at landscaping centers and other landscape jobs after he graduated.

Today, Parsley is as rooted at MHCC as one of its towering firs.

He has worked in the Facilities department for 21 years, the last 12 of them as lead groundskeeper, backed by two full-time employees and two part-time workers.

“I’d have to say being able to work here in the same place doing what I like to do is extremely rewarding,” he said.

Mt. Hood provides a large campus to care for and a new challenge for him each and every day. “This is a really good job. I think anyone that develops or has an interest in plants or landscape would enjoy working here.”

Parsley said he is able to learn from his mistakes, and “when you do something right, you get to see that unfold as time goes on.”

He and his crew’s priorities change “drastically” from season to season, he said. During spring, responsibilities include sprucing up

Photo by Jeff Hannig

facilities for spring-season sports and switching out winter annuals for summertime flowers to perk up MHCC. While preparing the baseball or softball fields for their first contests of the year, Parsley tests the irrigation systems on the field.

That means firing up many sprinklers at full force and trimming the grass that grows over the sprinkler heads during winter.

He makes sure the foul lines he draws on the field previously are still clearly visible. The stands for spectators are covered in debris from trees overhead, and so he and a helper blow the debris off and away from the curb outside the baseball field.

Parsley’s goal is to make each facility free from debris and appealing to the fans attending the games.

Trash cleanup, removing storm damage, pruning, fertilizing, mowing grass and sweeping parking lots are recurring, yearlong responsibilities.

“Not only do you need to be able to relate to plants and plant systems, but you also need to be able to relate to the machinery that we get to use. And it’s really strikingly different, those two worlds,” Parsley said.

His workers also focus on various projects throughout the year.

In November, they began work transforming a large flower bed in the Main Mall to something more visually interesting.

“Projects are suggested to us, projects are suggested to Facilities, we suggest projects to Facilities, and Facilities sorts it all out,” said Parsley. In the end, the projects are selected by need, by amount of use an area gets, and by the potential benefits of a project.

“Whenever we have not-so-many demands we’ll put a project on board,” he said.

For the flower bed makeover, Parsley’s team utilized several large rocks left over from a previous project and several permanent plants

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The groundskeeping crew’s mountain-themed project, at night, in front of the bookstore.

Photo by Carole Riggs

that had been donated. His goal was “It’s nice when we to emulate a mountain valley scene, have projects, like in front with a large wetlands area in the of the bookstore, to do, middle that dries out during the because it makes your job summer. feel worthwhile. But, when The new bed “is going to you go by these areas where be an area… that we envision people are smoking and to be constantly changing, so, you don’t have time to go always providing something back and clean it up, that’s - Phil Parsley, lead groundskeeper new and interesting,” he discouraging,” he added. said, calling it one of his “I’m hoping to be able to most fun projects. “I really spread that kind of attention enjoyed that and I hope we to detail to other parts, like out in get to do more of that.” front by the bus stop. Right now, it’s just a smoking area. It deserves to be Both permanent and seasonal plants fill the bed, including crocuses, more than that... it’s the front door to our campus,” he said. a Japanese black pine, a weeping deodar cedar, a Japanese maple, and Parsley’s team has to move between flowers and the technology that Oregon native wild irises. helps the plants make the campus beautiful – such as irrigation.

Come summer, “it’s going to be filled with color,” Parsley said. During The workers also recently transformed the old flower beds outside the summer heat, petunias will replace the dying crocuses. His crew plants the Student Union into a patio area with several flower planters, tables many such flowers, such as seasonal pansies, throughout the Main Mall and chairs. beds each year.

The old beds sat atop the ceiling of a boiler room and the ceiling

“It’s nice when we have projects, like in front of the bookstore, to do, because it makes your job feel worthwhile.”

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leaked whenever it rained or the beds were watered. Workers removed the beds and nearly one foot of soil, and turned it into a new seating area.

The grounds team is kept busy prepping the area around the Aquatic Center and pool for events they will be hosting. This includes pruning the ivy, cleaning up shrub beds and making the area presentable.

“It’s going to be heavily used during the summer. There will be lots of people,” Parsley said.

Over the past year-and-a-half, the grounds team also has replaced the wiring for three of the master controllers for the campus irrigation system.

“We’ve been operating on control wiring that’s been in the ground for what, 40, 45 years,” Parsley said. This is an issue because the wire’s insulation diminishes as wires lie underground, leading to their failure.

Newly installed controllers can now turn on the system and run on a schedule. Previous to the automation, an employee had to manually turn on the system. This saves time as well as plants, because the system can recognize rain or cool temperatures, and decide when not to water.

“Those areas are functioning nicely now, so that’s out of the way,” Parsley said, ticking another project off his list.

As the MHCC crew transitions to summer work they are focused on outdoor events, such as the Portland Highland Games, and even preparing for fall term. Spreading new barkdust is usually an annual chore.

When autumn arrives, the crew turns its focus to removing fallen leaves and maintaining the fields and facilities used by the fall sports teams.

Picking up leaves and downed branches is a task that continues through March. High school football can extend past November and requires the grounds team to keep the Earl Klapstein stadium ready for use.

During the winter months, workers shift to keeping pedestrian areas, such as sidewalks, stairs, wheelchair ramps and parking lots, free from ice and snow. They also apply de-icer to parking lots, as needed.

Parsley and his workers also are responsible for upkeep of the “Back 40” natural woodland at the rear of the MHCC campus. They prune the area along Troutdale Road, mow the open areas and patrol for trash year round.

It’s not always smooth sailing.

Budget reductions have affected how many projects Parsley’s team can take on and how many plants they can buy. “Funds have been tight in the last couple years, so there hasn’t been as much planting or replanting as we’d like,” he said.

As the campus has evolved, so has his work, he said. “It doesn’t seem like my duties have changed, it’s just (school leaders have) added more to them. I still have to pick up trash, but I’m responsible for more paperwork.”

The nature of Parsley’s daily rounds, literally, has yet to grow stale.

Reflecting on his years at MHCC, he said he’s still at home.

“I made the right decision. This is where I needed to be.”

Top: Flowers in a planter outside of the Student Union. Photo by Jeff Hannig Middle: The wetland-type center of the bed in the main mall. Photo by Katelyn Hilsenbeck Bottom: Parsley discusses the water pressurizing system for the field irrigation. Photo by Katelyn Hilsenbeck

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Fifty Shades of Earl Grey

By Mike Mata

Photos by Jeff Hannig

P

icked and plucked, dried and oxidized, powdered and steeped, sipped and slurped.

The above process is how most people come to know and partake in the second-most popular beverage worldwide: tea.

The tea plant, camellia sinensis, offers a wide variety of what we know as tea: white, green, black, oolong and pu-erh. Add to that already diverse mix the plethora of chai and herbal teas and all the different plants that can be used to make a tea-like drink, and, suddenly, one beholds an entire universe of caffeinated and decaffeinated wonders.

Tea has been consumed in any one of the aforementioned forms dating back to, according to popular legend, two centuries before Christ. While the tea plant itself can only be grown in certain regions around the world, every corner of the globe consumes a tea or herbal tea, whether it’s European imported Asian teas, African bush teas or South American Mates.

The U.S. has historically been a large consumer of tea, but nowhere near its reputation as a consumer of coffee. Many look at this trend and point to the action in the Boston Tea Party in 1773 when American patriots seized shipments of tea the British government and the East India Trading Company were planning on forcing them to buy, and dumped them into Boston harbor.

Ever since, America has been the land of the brave, home of the free and mother of Starbucks.

But tea never quite left the American cupboard.

Jake Gano, the vice president of operations for Townshend’s Tea Co., said, “If it wasn’t for the Tea Party, it (tea) wouldn’t be this alternative. It would be the main thing we drink here.

“I think that’s the reason tea isn’t as popular in America, but it’s coming back up again,”

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said Gano, who suggests the drink is more popular now than at any time since the Boston harbor mayhem. For evidence, pretty much every major American city now has “some kind of tea house, or 10,” he said.

“Tea is still considered the second-most consumed beverage in the world next to water, so that tells you something about how much it’s (drunk) in some places,” said Gano. It’s a far cry from what he once thought, growing up, as “something weird my mom did.

“I feel like the awareness of tea has just gone through the roof in the last eight years since I’ve been involved,” said Gano. By then, most people hadn’t tried teas like yerba mate, but now it’s more popular, with other teas like pu-erh and oolong catching on, also.

Gano is a Portland State University graduate who has been with Townshend’s since its 2002 creation as a campus project by owner Matt Thomas while at the University of Oregon. The first teahouse for Townshend’s opened in 2006 on Alberta Street in Portland.

The company name honors Charles Townshend, a British Member of Parliament who authored the Townshend Acts in 1767 that slapped a tax on tea for the American colonies, which led to the famous Boston incident.

“The idea for Townshend’s was basically to take the coffee shop environment, being able to hang out with your laptop or meet your friends or just have a book and chill out, but with tea served alternatively, and everything that can kind of spin off of tea – (for example) bubble tea or chai,” said Gano.

“We (Townshend’s) really want to integrate tea back into our regular (American) culture... make tea something that just regular anybody is comfortable drinking. You don’t have to be a ‘tea snob.’ ” Gano added, “We’ve got teas for those people too.

We’re really passionate about the tea itself. Our biggest goal is to make it accessible.”

Charity Chalmers is the owner of Chariteas, a tea boutique in Sandy, east of Gresham. She has travelled all over eastern Asia and experienced several different tea cultures.

“In China, for instance, in that country they drink a lot of tea. It’s extremely popular,” Chalmers said.

“Coffee’s not really part of their culture, though there are Starbucks nowadays. It’s not as ingrained in the culture as tea is.” Taxi drivers will drink green tea in a water bottle throughout the day, she noted.

During more formal tea ceremonies in China and Japan, she said, participants use either large slabs of stones or tree stumps as tables, depending on the region and what’s available.

“It involves drinking tea out of little, tiny cups, about two or three sips per cup, and they constantly refill the tea in those as long as you sit there and keep enjoying the tea,” Chalmers said. In Japan gatherings, tea drinkers are given scrolls to read and sweets to eat alongside the tea.

In the Japanese tea ceremony “Chanoyu,” the scrolls focus on the respect of the ceremony. “One of their famous scrolls is ‘One time, one meeting.’ It’s kind of saying that this event will only happen once, so you can’t necessarily repeat because you might have different tea, the utensils might be different or the people in room might be different.

“It’s about having that enjoyment and learning about the tea and who produced the tea and having respect for that. And the pottery and who produced that and paying respect to that too,” she said.

Chalmers observed that the formal tea ceremonies in China and Japan are not as popular with younger generations, though people are still interested in learning about them.

Tea is fast trending upward here at home, however.

“A lot of America is heavy coffee drinkers, so tea is less popular than coffee, but that doesn’t mean it’s not popular. I definitely think it’s growing,” she said of tea culture in America.

In Beverly Dubrin’s luscious book, “Tea Culture,” she discusses additional tea cultures. She explains how Moroccans drink three glasses of green tea mixed with mint, each glass being sweetened more than the next to symbolize the bitterness of life, the sweetness of love and the gentleness of death.

Clockwise, from top left: A decorative crate inside Chariteas teahouse in Sandy; a chai bubble tea sits on the picnic table top outside of Townshend’s in Portland; an owl tea set sits on display to be taken home at Chariteas; Townshend’s wide variety of loose leaf tea is available to customers for purchase; a cup of tea made from pouring hot water over loose leaf tea set inside a strainer at Chariteas.

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Tea pots for sale are on display in Townshend’s Division Street teahouse in Portland.

There’s the Russian tradition of sweetening tea by drinking it with jam or through a sugar cube, and finally, the British custom of afternoon tea, where the debate of “milk first vs. milk last” spills over into class differences, with society’s upper crust adding milk after the tea has been poured and the working classes adding milk beforehand.

Gano described the tea culture that Townshend’s hopes to cultivate: “We’re trying to integrate to include everybody, so we take some of the ideas from all of them and put it in a platform that is accessible. As a whole, I feel like tea drinkers are looking for that perfect combo of something that tastes really good but is also a little bit better (healthy) for them,” he said.

Gano said the tea culture is certainly not about the caffeine. “I think coffee culture is much more like, ‘get in, get your shot of espresso and get out.’ Load up your caffeine and get moving.

“Maybe that’s what sets the two apart in the broadest scope, kind of like how coffee shops are a little bit louder, if you take, say, the espresso machine, the clicks of the grinder and the noise of the steam and that’s kind of part of what’s neat about a coffee shop too, is about that bustle and atmosphere they have there,” he said. “Tea generally kind of tries to go a little bit the other direction… we can have a lot of people in and out, but we try to keep our music kind of mellow.”

Gano said the music played at Townshend’s “is sort of metaphoric for that difference in culture – you’ve

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got keep it somewhat mellow, but you don’t wanna put people to sleep.” Artists such as Mum, Boards of Canada, Andrew Bird, Yo La Tengo and at times, Leonard Cohen and Otis Redding, are often played.

Some people do come to tea as an alternative to coffee for a caffeine source, but the camellia sinensis plant brings a lot more to the table than just a good jolt.

Gano described tea’s plentiful benefits. “It’s got such a range, whereas with coffee you’ve got just a stimulant, tea you could be drinking for all sorts of reasons. We’ve got a whole list medicinal herbal teas, for 26 different kinds of ailments. You’ve got caffeine, you’ve definitely got caffeine, yerba mate will jack you up a little bit, it’s got that nice riding caffeine, it doesn’t peak and crash.

People get in the mode of just, they need a caffeine that just hits them,” he said, adding that sometimes they just seek out tea for the taste or ritual of it.

According to a study titled, “Psychological effects of dietary components of tea: Caffeine and L-theanine,” in a February 2008 “Nutrition Reviews” piece contributed by Janet Bryan, tea is high in a chemical compound called theanine – a type of amino acid that has been shown to relieve both physical and mental stress, act as a mood booster and, when paired with caffeine, heighten cognitive abilities like reaction time and sentence verification accuracy.

Gano said he’s heard Oprah Winfrey talk about using tea as a means to lose weight.

“The way that it might help a person lose weight is more through the means of the antidepressant qualities, the healthier caffeine, not adding milk and sugar like you would to coffee,” Gano said. “Make a little ritual with

your tea so you’re just a little more healthy minded or getting meditation out of it. If you’re getting into tea as your alternative, you’re focusing your mind on taking care of yourself,” a big part of tea culture, he said.

Just as diverse as the world’s tea cultures are the varieties of teas and the methods of preparing them.

Most people can name a few of the major varieties, such as black, chai, green and white, though more obscure teas such as oolong, rooibos, pu-erh and an entirely different world of herbal teas are more and more breaking into mainstream awareness and consumption.

The differences between black, white, yellow, green, oolong and pu-erh all stem from the camellia sinensis plant, when tea leaves are processed differently to create new varieties. White and green tea are picked and minimally processed, mostly through drying, rolling and withering (allowing the tea to soften and lowering its moisture content).

Black teas are dried, rolled and withered but are also allowed to oxidize, which gives them their very dark hue and arguably bolder taste. Yellow tea is similar to green tea, though it is made only from the buds of the tea plant and is dried more gradually, with no heat source. Pu-erh tea, similar to black tea, is - Jake Gano, vice president of operations for Townshend’s fermented, sometimes for decades, and contains living microbes. While undergoing mostly the same process as black tea, oolong is considered a halfway point between green and black tea, as it is only partially oxidized.

According to Dubrin’s book, white, yellow and green teas are best brewed using water around 155 to 160 degrees, while black and oolong teas are best when brewed using water around 203 to 208 degrees. Most teas should be allowed to steep for about three to five minutes depending on the type of tea and the desired flavor and strength, with white, green and yellow teas commonly allowed to steep for right around two to three minutes while black and oolong tea best steeps for a full five minutes.

Gano said tea develops tannins during its processing, helping each to develop “its nuances and quirks.” He compared the varieties of tea to the many different wines being derived from the same kind of grape.

He emphasized that tea shouldn’t be over-steeped or steeped in water that’s too hot, because that will scorch the leaves and produce a

“As a whole, I feel like tea drinkers are looking for that perfect combo of something that tastes really good but is also a little better for them.”

Chariteas employee Shaylee Tjostolvson reviews inventory at the teahouse.

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less vibrant flavor.

Rooibos is the Afrikaans word for “red bush” and is a tea made from the leaves of the rooibos plant in South Africa. Dubrin writes that it is naturally sweet, low in caffeine but high in antioxidants.

As described by Dubrin, yerba mate is an herbal tea made from the South American holly tree, an evergreen. It’s popular in that continent and is the national drink of Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, where it is typically drunk from a hollowed gourd with a bombilla, a metal straw. Mate has been touted by many tea experts as being highly caffeinated and is sought as a stimulant.

Other popular herbal teas include: chamomile, known for its calming effect; ginseng, popular for improving circulatory health; hibiscus, good for lowering blood pressure and cholesterol; lavender, which is good for stress-relief and migraines; mint, for its anti-nausea effects; and lemongrass, used to provide stress relief and aid digestion. Most herbal teas are also known for containing vitamins, mostly vitamin C, but also vitamin A and several B vitamins, depending on the variety and blend.

Another aspect of tea culture becoming more important to true enthusiasts is the debate of loose-leaf versus bagged tea.

Dubrin raises the point that many companies who make bagged tea may not use the highest quality tea, as many tea experts believe that the bigger the leaf, the better quality the subsequent brew will be.

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Gano, a firm believer in and practitioner of loose-leaf tea, said, “Bagged tea, you have a couple things going on. A lot of companies don’t really put very much tea in a tea bag, so while it seems cheaper… (the) 16 servings in a bag, when we make a serving, we use the amount of two or three tea bags.” And, he said, “When you put them in each one of those bags like that, the flavor is leaving it until you get the bags sealed and vacuum packed.” He said companies typically use the lesser-quality tea for tea bags and that bleached or synthetic fiber tea bags can impart that flavor when steeping.

Gano said Townshend’s uses loose-leaf tea and provides instructions on how to steep each tea the shops sell. He said he personally prefers to steep his loose-leaf in a pitcher and then strain it to allow the leaf the most possible contact with the water.

Staring into a steaming cup, it’s quite clear that the world of tea has a bright future.

Trapped in bags, swirling in pitchers or packed in infusers, tea may seem play second fiddle to coffee bean in the U.S. but as the ever-fashionable younger generations mature, tea appreciation seems also to mature and flower with them.

With its gradual conquest of hipsters and trendy mugs around the nation achieved through the purview of the modern teahouse, camellia sinensis may bump off the Starbucks siren from the top of the podium in the race to fill commuter cups across the country.

Clockwise, from right: Shaylee Tjostolvson whisks matcha green tea; matcha green tea after being whisked and is ready to drink; after a customer selects their tea, they proceed to order it; Chariteas offers a variety of places to sit and enjoy tea; Portland Community College students share space on a couch in Townshend’s Division Street Teahouse.

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Visionary up Portla skate sc Taylor Moyer throws down a back 5-O fakie into the Unheard ramp in SE Portland.

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S

omething happens to people who stick with skateboarding: They become infected with it. It changes their biological makeup. Much like runners who say they need to run, skateboarders need to skate. It is an exercise in creativity, perseverance and passion that attracts all brands of people, yet we all have something in common: the need for a new challenge, the need to learn a new trick or just the need to be with friends and forget about everything else.

Advice older skaters often give young skaters is that skating is all mental – if a skater doesn’t believe he can do a trick, it’s likely he won’t land it. It is this attention to mindfulness that makes skateboarders so identifiable. Skateboarding is an exercise of what one thinks is possible, and physically making that a reality.

In the early ’90s, a swelling group of skaters in Portland needed a place to skate. Unlike sunny California, a haven for skateboarding and where most skate companies were based at the time, Portland didn’t offer many dry, smooth streets. And so, a core group of skaters built the unsanctioned Burnside skate park under its

namesake bridge. In 1992, the City of Portland adopted Resolution 1553 to legalize the park because neighboring business owners noticed the project was helping to revitalize the community. This type of DIY initiative, camaraderie and appreciation for something as insignificant as a bank of concrete and a waxed ledge to skate is common among skaters.

A challenge Portland skateboarding still faces is working around a rain-soaked calendar. Dry days and covered spots are universally considered a godsend.

Enter the Unheard ramp. I had heard of this warehouse ramp while skating on a dry day in October of last year. With a few clicks of a mouse when I got home, I was directed to the Thrasher website, a popular national skate publication. It showed a video of a new indoor ramp in Portland, built by the person I only knew of as the guy behind Bacon Skateboards, Colin Sharp.

This ramp, Sharp’s companies and his unflinching dedication to skateboarding compelled me to track him down and ask for an interview.

y ramps and cene Story and photos by Jeff Hannig

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Clockwise, from left: Sharp flexing outside his shop; juggling software and skateboard sales; explaining the finer points in his life’s history; decks litter Sharp’s office – this one is displayed with a pair of vintage roller skates.

W

hen I met Colin Sharp for an interview at a Southeast Portland coffee shop, I spotted him already standing in line. My split-second assessment was that he was a painter; not an artist, but a guy in his mid-forties who I could easily see wearing a paint-spattered pair of white Dickies with a plain white tee who almost certainly drove a small pickup complete with paint buckets, ladders and painting tarps. But I knew he wasn’t a painter. He was wearing dark pants, a maroon sweatshirt and a shitty looking snap-back hat.

Sharp is the force behind the Unheard ramp, The Brooklyn Street Spot and co-owner of Bacon Skateboards: all substantial contributions to the makeup of Portland’s skate scene today.

He ordered his coffee and sat down. He was modest and direct. One of the first things he said

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to me was, “I have a day job, right? So my sense of urgency for making money off this industry – there is none. My interest in this industry and the reason why I’m in skateboarding is because I enjoy the activity, and being in the industry kind of forces me to be around this culture and forces me to skate.”

Sharp started skating when he first laid eyes on a neighbor’s board. “I would borrow his deck and skate around on it. As soon as I was not scared enough to throw the board down and jump on it at the same time, all of a sudden I had ten different acid drop variations,” he said. “I was like, this is so much fun.”

A Los Angeles party scene he found “lame” during high school spurred him to spend much of his time skating. “We’d skate garages, streets, we could just go to downtown L.A. or people’s ramps

during the day.”

After graduation, Sharp moved to the Bay Area and a San Jose job that would eventually lead to his current work: He and his twin brother own a software company, Toolfarm, a third-party reseller of After Effects Plug-ins.

Bacon, the company Sharp has most been associated with since his arrival in Portland, is really the product of its founder, Ethan Bettencourt. “As soon as I met Ethan I was like, yeah, this is awesome, because he wanted to skate and I wanted to skate and it was kind of like history from there,” he said.

While Sharp was helping to grow Toolfarm, Bettencourt was teaching and establishing Bacon Skateboards in Cayucos, Calif. Bettencourt and an artist friend, Orr Menard, “were already buying blank decks and t-shirts and spray

painting them, like all DIY stuff, for almost a year, maybe,” said Sharp.

When asked why “Bacon,” Sharp said, “(Bettencourt) loves bacon – the food. He came up with a metaphor for it: ‘Bacon, the embodiment of the basic primal need for that which will one day be our demise,’ ” which applies to both the love of the food and skating.

Bettencourt also had moved to the Bay Area, and asked Sharp for help with Bacon. “He knew I could invest some money and I was like, yeah, I’d love to help build a brand and become part-

owner of this brand and start it. And that was in 2002. I definitely wanted to take some of the skills I was learning in my own business and I wanted to see how far I could take it. ” In 2006, Sharp and his family moved to Portland, and he brought Bacon with him.

“Here’s this Californian skate company moving into the Northwest, so it’s taken six years to really even be accepted,” he said. “That was a rough time for skating (the industry), as well,” he said of the late 2000s.

Sharp attributes Bacon’s survival in sketchy times to the fact that it’s not his day job. He said he never thought about the skateboarding industry as a career. “I was more realistic about that – I knew what I was doing in the visual effects industry, the software industry, was going to be way more lucrative than skateboarding.”

As Sharp and Bacon rooted in Portland, he

noticed a problem: The skaters on the team were not receiving enough credit as the real stars, the forefront, of the company. “I was kind of being typecast as ‘the Bacon guy’ when the guys on the team, riding at the time, that was them, they were Bacon,” he explained. “It wasn’t me. I was like the guy in the back… like the Wizard of Oz.” This misperception would lead directly to creation of his new board company, Lifeblood.

“I didn’t want to be just ‘the Bacon guy.’

I wanted to be my own guy, who really liked skateboarding, who likes to support the industry, likes to support local scenes and everything like that,” Sharp said. He wanted a fresh start and so he asked respected skate photographer Brice Kanights to partner with him to develop a brand they could run with in a “completely different direction than Bacon.”

Sharp borrowed the business name from the recording label Lifeblood Records that his brother, Jason, had launched in college, and Lifeblood Skateboards was born.

In September 2010, Lifeblood released a

Lifeblood rider Cody Lockwood airs out of the Unheard Ramp during “The Unheard Invitational” on May 4.

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promotional video introducing its team, but he cracks down when something needs to which consisted of Mason Huggins, Oudalay get done.”

Philavanh, Johnny Turgesen, Frank Faria, Cody t the root of Sharp’s many projects, Lockwood and Kevin Kowalski. Huggins and the motivation seems to be personal, Philavanh are no longer on the team, but the while the end result benefits the addition of Mason Merlino, Dalton Dern and community. For instance, after completing the Josh Rodriguez has the team at seven riders. construction of a concrete mini-ramp in his What does it take for a skater to make the backyard, he had some extra concrete.

Lifeblood team?

“I’ve always seen that spot (at Southeast “We manufacture them in a lab,” joked 16th Avenue and Brooklyn Street) underneath Sharp. In truth, he said he relies on the advice the walk bridge with that Jersey barrier, and I’ve of Turgesen and other skaters such as Daniel always been like, that should have a tranny up Evans and Joey Martin, business associates at to it.”

Toolfarm, to recommend riders.

That initial extra bag of concrete went into “These guys have really helped me to the handmade slope that made it possible to understand who the best guy is,” Sharp glide up the section of concrete highway barrier, said. “Originally, it had a lot to do with skill, and was the birth of what is now widely known but now it’s mostly personality – easy to get as the “Brooklyn Street Spot.” along with, you know, camaraderie – and Sharp continued: “And then we put a little that’s super important, for these guys not to bit more and we kept cleaning the spot up and be shitheads and not shit all over me. That’s some other people came and helped us out a important, right? little bit and it just kind of spiraled out of control “It wasn’t like taking these guys and from there.”

As work progressed, he made sure to building a business and a ‘they’re going to make us rich’ kind of thing,” he said. “It was include the surrounding community, as well as more like ‘hey, I love these guys, these guys city officials. He spoke first to the city and the are cool, I think these guys are really good at skateboarding and I would love to help support them.’ ” No hard feelings if a better opportunity knocks, Sharp added.

- Colin Sharp, Unheard skateboard distribution owner “I’m not going to lie, beg, steal, cheat just for you to stick with me just because I’m being selfish and I Portland police. “We asked for forgiveness, think it’s going to get us further,” he said. which is always better than asking for One those core skaters, Turgesen, is Sharp’s permission, right?” he said. “Whenever anyone right-hand man of sorts. “I started doing stuff asked us what we were doing, we were like, for Bacon, random busy work, just getting my we’re just trying to clean up this area and trying hands dirty and then he took me on full-time, to skate,” he said. mostly customer service,” Turgesen said. “It’s The local community liked the idea and the best situation I could come across.” began contributing money. Sharp saw the need The two have a unique relationship: to monitor the funds, so he started the Brooklyn Sharp is Turgesen’s boss at Toolfarm, he owns Street Spot Facebook page and publicly the company Turgesen rides for and they’re recorded every dollar he got for the project, teammates in a ping-pong league that meets on posting a running total. He won nonprofit status Sundays. “It’s pretty amazing,” said Turgesen. for the Spot, which led to his next venture, Sharp is foremost a friend, who he gets to work “Skaters for Portland Skateparks.” with: “We can go to the bar and we can skate, In August 2005 the Portland City Council

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In November 2012, Sharp and his crew began developing the opposite side of The Brooklyn Street Spot near a neighboring business building. Before construction started, Sharp talked with the business owner and cleared it with the city.

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“We asked for forgiveness, which is always better than asking for permission, right?”

The Brooklyn Street Spot is under the walkbridge at the intersection of Southeast 16th Avenue and Brooklyn Street.

The Brooklyn Street Spot started with a modest smear of concrete like the slope pictured above. Sharp built the Spot with friends and with support of the community and the city.

had approved a master plan to add 19 skate parks across Portland. Skaters for Portland Skateparks’ mission is to see that plan through.

The organization is comprised of Sharp, Kanights and its president, Mark Conahan. The next park due to be built, the sixth of the 19, is the Powell Skate Park, off Southeast Powell Boulevard and not far from the Brooklyn Spot. nheard is the distribution company that Sharp developed after his new board company, Lifeblood, gained traction and vendors began calling the Bacon office asking for Lifeblood boards.

Unheard distributes for three board companies; a truck (the axel of a skateboard) company; three wheel companies; a griptape company; and a bearing company.

While friends suggested Sharp name his new ramp the “Haight Street Ramp,” he instead paid Todd Vanderhern to paint “Unheard,” as large as

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possible. That has paid large dividends “because it’s so obvious where you are,” he said. “I said, hey, I’m paying most of the money here, I’m branding this ramp. I just called it the Unheard ramp to get free promotion, but it’s totally my personal ramp.”

“I don’t need anything in a garage sale, but I just like going to garage sales you know – I just like looking at shit,” said Sharp. “So I’d look at warehouses. See if I could find warehouses for rent – just randomly – and the guy at the ‘Epic Bowl’ told me he wanted to get rid of this bowl and his entire skate shop. He said, ‘This isn’t working. I want to get out of this business, it sucks.’ ” The two worked a deal: Sharp bought the owner’s remaining inventory, about $2,000 worth of skate merchandise in exchange for what Sharp estimates to be $40,000 in wood. Sharp sold the merchandise to a shop in Australia and almost broke even, he said.

The ramp itself was quick work. Charlie Wilkins, a pro skateboarder, and Scott Everly, “who build ramps for (the Mountain) Dew Tour and stuff like that built that thing in like, three days. It was insane,” said Sharp.

The Unheard ramp, just as the Brooklyn Spot, came with its own set of roadblocks that Sharp is still navigating. The original warehouse owner wasn’t keen on renting to “a bunch of skaters” and wanted a personal guarantee, said Sharp. “It was originally mine; but for liability reasons, I’ve actually rolled it under Unheard because I want to be protected.” He also purchased insurance for the place, for a cost he called “brutal,” but is charging $30 a month to those who want to skate the ramp.

If the ramp can draw 60 to 70 people a month, insurance will be covered, he said, “and eventually if Unheard can afford it, I’ll just make Unheard pay it.”

Sharp is a solid businessman. Asked for his formula for success, he said, “Don’t break up with your girlfriend before you have a new one, you know what I mean? You’ve always got to have a back-up plan. Just do the research. It seems kind of like common sense. You’ve just got to cover your ass.”

Looking forward, Sharp hopes to continue to grow Unheard and for it to expand in the skateboard business.

His close colleague, Johnny Turgesen, sizes up Sharp this way: “When he says he is going to do something, he does it.” And as I thought about it, I realized it could work both ways: If he doesn’t want to do something, he doesn’t do it. He is not in this business to build ramps for superficial reasons or financial gain; he is doing all this because he wants to.

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By Kayla Tatum

Photos taken by Jeff Hannig Graphics by Lauren Bakke

oom da boom boom! The flashing magenta, lilac and rosy-pink rays of light beam down the runway as chic models strut and groove to the smooth rhymes of LL Cool J’s 1990’s hit song, “Around the Way Girl.” The models, dressed in playful 1990s-inspired outfits consisting of crop-tops, sneakers, and bamboo earrings, stride with hair bouncing with shimmery curls and waves that are styled to perfection.

The pulsing exhibition of the Sah’ Rah Stylz runway show has captivated the audience, which has been transported on an ethnic hair journey to showcase African-American hairstyle transformations from the 1920s to present-day trends.

It’s the perfect climax to a late February evening of fun at the Hair-Itage Jubilee. Hosted in the Ambridge Event Center near Portland’s Lloyd District, the Jubilee brought together poets, singers, dancers, rappers and a comedian for a wider celebration of Black History Month.

The woman behind this event is Kisha Kelsey, a Portland hairstylist, entrepreneur and founder of Sah’ Rah Stylz. She created Sah’ Rah Stylz in 2009 and brought it to full form by 2011 with a “desire to assist others in achieving true self esteem through helping them find their true gift.”

Lending her own talents is Kelsey’s close family friend, Shamika Bishop, who served as creative director/scene manager of the runway show. Bishop also sought to seize the opportunity that Black History Month offers, she said. “I wanted something to be done that has never been done. African-Americans are very versatile – we created tap dance, hip hop, (different styles of fashion) – and I wanted to create a trend of how we created a trend.”

The show’s finale soared. The lighting shifted to a blue, space-age stream of stars that filled the walls of the venue as models sauntered onto the catwalk, elegantly dressed in gowns and stiletto heels. Their hair was extravagant, their makeup futuristic. The evolutionary hair journey was complete.

As the classic family reunion song “Before I Let Go,” by Frankie Beverly and Maze blared, Kelsey rose from her front-row seat and gave big hugs to her friends and received congratulations. “It feels so good. What a beautiful show,” she said with a smile. “We definitely went back in time.” he history of African-American hair is a history of controversy, racial tension, experimentation and, finally, pride and acceptance. Aspects of its history directly relate to today’s trends, including many innovators who had great influence in the positive change for the African-American hair industry.

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In 1906, the first African-American women’s hair care products to be widely distributed were created by Madame C.J. Walker. She would earn Guinness Book of World Records recognition as the first African-American millionaire.

Walker’s hair care product line was sold across the United States and included conditioners, growth stimulants, scalp aliment cures, pomade oils and an improved metal comb, used to straighten curly hair. The metal comb, known as a hot comb, was used on those who had very curly hair and wanted it completely straight.

The hot comb was typically heated on a stovetop and used in a process called “hair pressing” to help temporarily straighten the hair. Before the comb was applied, pomade oil would be applied to the hair to make it silky and shiny.

Women still use the types of products and methods that Walker used, but there are many other black-owned hair care product lines being distributed now. According to longhairforum.com, the black hair-care & cosmetic industry is worth $9 billion internationally.

Bishop, creative force behind the February runway show, named a few of her favorite eras of hairstyles. She admires the renaissance-era beehive, the Shirley Temple curl and styles reminiscent of the 1920s and 1950s. She also likes the 1980s styles, the styles of the girl group TLC, and braids.

Bishop has undergone a profound personal evolution with her own hair, however.

She’d always preferred a natural hairstyle, or sometimes, braids. That was before she began working with Kelsey at Sah’ Rah Stylz and before she switched to the Sisterlocks hairstyle – a hair care system designed to help African-American women achieve a more natural look while emphasizing versatility in personal styling.

The Sisterlocks system was trademarked in 1993 by JoAnne Cornwell.

Bishop was a quick convert. “(Kelsey) had come in and encouraged me to

get a compilation and seek having Sisterlocks. Then when she did them, I just fell in love with them,” she said. “I can wear them with jeans, dressed up, anything. I love it. It’s naturally me.”

Bishop said Kelsey persuaded her to keep her hair natural and to get involved in the larger Sisterlocks movement.

“She saw something in me that I didn’t,” said Bishop, who is now the chief officer of operations and creative director of Sah’ Rah Stylz, besides serving as a spokeswoman and model. Her new direction “broadened my horizons,” she said.

She produces lip balm, body butter, hair butter, and mixes her own oils, with Kelsey being “one of my biggest fans,” she said.

The movement toward natural hairstyles got a big push when the 2013 Oregon Legislature passed new rules that allow stylists to legally braid, cornrow, extend, lace and twist without facing costly cosmetology training and licensing hurdles. andon Crowell, owner of the multicultural hair care product line “Landon’s Own,” offers a wide variety of care approaches.

He has visited with Mt. Hood Community College cosmetology students multiple times. His “Landon’s Own” beauty line is sold at the salon on campus and is the most frequently used hair relaxer students use on their clients.

Crowell said he had no interest in the hair care and beauty industry while growing up, but got involved about 20 years ago when his brother opened a salon in Portland and needed hair dressers to work for him.

At the salon, Crowell was exposed to many more varieties of hair textures, hair problems and hair products. He became inspired to create his own hair care line, building on his own experimentation and getting formal beauty school training.

Crowell now operates his own beauty salon, “A New Place,” in inner Southeast Portland, and his line is popular. “The best-selling product that I have is my hair oil,” he said – followed, in order, by his own hair sheen, shampoo and conditioner, and hair polish.

Kisha Kelsey at Sah‘ Rah Stylz working on a client’s hairstyle.

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He has even more products ready to mix, but financing can be Kisha Kelsey works on a Sisterlocks hairstyle at Sah‘ Rah Stylz. tricky. “Being a business owner is harder than being a hairstylist,” he said.

Asked about the early entrepreneur, Walker, and her impact on American black history, Crowell said, “I think what Madame C.J. Walker did was basically give a face to a need in the industry.

“But there was so much more that she was unable to do because of money and the time that she came along, (because) there was race issues in this country,” he added. Without those limits, he said, she could’ve done “so much more in this industry.”

In the 1950s, George E. Johnson followed Walker’s successful path, founding Johnson Products with his wife. The two introduced a popular hair relaxer for men, then one for women.

A hair relaxer is a cream used to chemically straighten hair for a long time and is more permanent than using a hot comb. Also over the years, many black men and women have used perm conditioners (such as Jheri Curl a generation ago), including several celebrities.

The treatment can be rather harsh and damaging, however. stories from his own childhood, all while bobbing along to R&B music. He works “Yes, clients ask to get it done and I say, ‘Okay,’ ” Crowell said. “But I have to alongside his business partner, Nikia Asahniiruff. talk to them because if they don’t take care of (their hair) properly, then their hair Asked if he thought hairstyles recycle themselves, Woods agreed. Today’s hair will come out.” trend, he said, “is all old stuff. Just a different look.”

Does fashion influence hairstyles, or do hairstyles influence fashion? hatever the methods or materials used, hairstyles remain an integral Woods smiled and replied, “I’m going to take a barber’s stance and say (hairpart of African-American history. stylists) are the originators of style. Clothes compliment the hairstyle. When you Mario Woods is owner of “Renewed Barber & Beauty Shop” in Northeast go and get a fresh cut and you want to get dressed, a fresh haircut makes you Portland’s Alberta neighborhood. With a contagious smile and laugh, he runs a feel good.” shop that feels like a scene straight out of the movie, “Barber Shop.”

Woods leaves no doubt as to his preferred hairstyle on women: “Natural!”

Woods shares laughs with regular customers and tells the children humorous He believes more women should go natural instead of wearing a wig or a weave. “This is just my preference,” he said, adding that certain illnesses may lead women to wear a wig and “there’s nothing wrong with it.”

Wood believes media plays a big role in fashion. “I think media, music videos, and celebrities in general have (some type) of influence.

The media promotes a look that defines what they feel as beauty. Now, you have young girls or even young men that try to emulate what they see (in media),” he said.

No matter one’s race or heritage, hair defines a lot of women in America. As the hair care industry for African-Americans continues to grow, there will be more innovations and dramatic hairstyle trends.

It will be fascinating to see what the next hair trend will be and how fashion will adapt to, or actually work to shape, that trend.

Nikia Asahniiruff moisturizing a client’s hair at Renewed Barber and Beauty Shop.

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