portland international women's day

Sunday was the Portland International Women's Day fest. It's held every year at PSU and for the last couple years Women Build has had an info table and put on a workshop. Last year we had a great time doing power tool demos so we decided to do it again this year. Unfortunately, they changed the festival schedule so it was from 2-8 pm - on a Sunday, which contributed to the rather small turnout. It was really too bad because the organizers put together some awesome entertainment....including a hilarious feminist hip-hop duo - alphabetix, liv warfield (amazing local rb singer) and blubird.


blubird is a band comprised of two 13-year old girls. they met at the rock and roll camp for girls in 2005. They have played a couple local shows, recorded their own ep, have t-shirts, the whole deal..and they are actually pretty good. They do a great song about global warming (and call george bush an idiot :) and did a cover of Karma Police by Radiohead at this show. very cool.

The fest included a small group of vendors and info tables, including Women Build. We had a pretty good day, sold some t-shirts, signed some people up for the ole e-newsletter. Our workshop - "Power Tool Possibilities" was pretty sparsely attended. They scheduled us at 6:15 and by that point, the crowd had dwindled. But we still had a good time.

There was also a display from the Clothesline project - which always makes me think back to the college days. I think it started right around the time I was in undergrad and still quite a powerful display.I ran across another event on campus while I was out running around trying to find change for the cashbox and t-shirt sales. PSU is hosting the Iraq Body Count Exhibit for the next two weeks and I pretty much stumbled across it on the way back from 7-11. Luckily I had my camera with me. It was a gorgeous sunny day in Portland and the stark display of flags was really powerful. here's a link to the project: http://iraqbodycountexhibit.org/
Each white flag represents at least 5 Iraqis and each red flag represents 1 American killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.