It’s pretty unusual for an arts non-profit to last 50 years. But here in Oregon, one such organization is celebrating just that.

“It’s really rare to have a gallery last that long,” said Christopher Rauschenberg, one of five co-founders of Portland’s Blue Sky Gallery, also known as the Oregon Center for Photographic Arts.

Blue Sky is the collective brainchild of five 20-something creatives who wanted to provide space for photographers to show work outside the mainstream art world. In 1975, the young artists pooled their unemployment checks (the story goes) to open a nine-by-14-foot gallery space on NW 23^rd Avenue.

Despite dimensions Rauschenberg compared to those of a freight elevator, the name “Blue Sky” suggested the unconstrained, innovative approach to artmaking the friends shared. In addition to photographing novel subject matter, they regularly conducted experiments such as activating a camera’s timed shutter and tossing it in the air to see what kind of images it captured. The name may have also presaged the gallery’s unexpected success, which did seem to come out of the blue.

The power of an image.

In the mid-seventies, photographers Ann Hughes and Robert DiFranco were paying $40 a month for a storefront darkroom in Portland’s old Northwest district. When the weavers they were sharing the space with decided to move out, their friend Craig Hickman suggested they open a photography gallery and invited Terry Toedtemeier and Rauschenberg to join. The five friends’ original idea was to create a place for local photographers to show work. But Rauschenberg remembered Hughes taking the idea a step further.

“Ann thought about it and she said, ‘Well, that’d be good because then if a photographer comes to town, they’ll come to the gallery and we’ll meet them.’ So, the gallery was conceived as kind of a honey trap to meet photographers,” Rauschenberg chuckled.

Hughes, also a gifted graphic designer, immediately went to work on publicity posters. The posters were sent out using mailing lists borrowed from New York’s now-defunct Light Gallery and Portland Center for the Visual Arts (PCVA). The homegrown enterprise thus joined just a dozen other American galleries focused on photography. Rauschenberg described the huge response to their venture as “overwhelming.”

“As soon as we opened, we were getting show proposals from all over the country and Blue Sky became a highly sought-after place to have a show,” Rauschenberg said.

A window on the world.

Fifty years later, Blue Sky has been joined by well over 100 other photography galleries, and according to the Oregon Encyclopedia, is one of the oldest fine arts galleries in the United States operating as a collective.

In 2007, Blue Sky relocated to the Pearl District and a space 20 times larger than its original storefront. The gallery typically opens two new shows each month, selected by a committee made up of gallery members from all walks of life. It’s also home to a revolving group of 60 regional artists, whose work is selected by a guest curator for the gallery’s “Pacific Northwest Drawers” project. Each photographer presents 10 prints in flat file drawers, accessible at the gallery year-round. Semi-annual “Print Walk” exhibitions invite the public to meet the artists behind the work.

“It has this really cool dynamic of having this sort of micro impact here in our community, but then a macro impact too by providing an opportunity for emerging artists to get their work seen by curators from all over the country,” explained Blue Sky executive director Kristin Solomon.

According to Solomon, the gallery’s remarkable ability to draw local, national and international talent to a small city like Portland allows Blue Sky to stay relevant in a rapidly changing artistic landscape.

“It’s also been critical to really creating this space here in Portland that was a window into the rest of the world. And I think the strength of this gallery is that it continues to do that.”

A year-long party.

Throughout 2025, events commemorating Blue Sky’s 50^th anniversary, such as a rooftop gala and a series of openings, each of which is focused on a decade of Blue Sky’s exhibitions, have drawn enthusiastic crowds.

“The vibe has been kind of like a college reunion,” mused Solomon.

This December’s First Thursday opening, which featured past and present work from alumni of Blue Sky’s second decade (1985-1995), was also attended by gallery founders Di Franco, Rauschenberg and Hickman.

“I’ve really found it so satisfying to be playing point guard on the photography team,” quipped Rauschenberg. “I have my own shows in galleries around, and I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to help photographers further their careers by having exhibitions here. And it’s really fun to talk with other photographers about work.”

A Pacific Northwest “parade.”

The gallery has now shown more than 1000 artists and is still going strong.

“People are just really proud that we have something so special here in Portland that’s lasted so long,” explained Solomon. “When the founders talk about this gallery and everything we’ve achieved, the vision for those things have always come from the community.”

Blue Sky also reserves gallery space to elevate voices from outside established art circles, including Street Roots, P:ear, and students from PNCA and PSU.

What Rauschenberg called “a nice, communal thing to do” was also responding to a genuine need that surfaced from the creative tumult of the 1960s, combined with the down-to-earth practicality that’s always been part of living in the Pacific Northwest.

“I mean, if you’re doing something that is really actually useful, you find it self-sustaining in a certain kind of a way,” reflected Rauschenberg. “It’s been something where you feel like you’re just walking down the street, and you look behind you and find you’re leading a parade.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/12/21/portland-blue-sky-gallery-art-oregon/