To promote the Northwest Film Center’s 38th Northwest Film Festival in Portland, Oregon, the folks at Mutt Design decided to equate the jurying of a film festival with the judging of babies and made this trailer. As an artist in any genre the act of presenting the fruits of your creativity to an often unsympathetic audience can feel like holding your ‘baby’ up to ridicule. Hilarious.

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Portland-based Carli Davidson is an award-winning photographer and an experienced animal trainer and care worker. She captures the innate personalities of her subjects using her professional understanding of animal behavior. She spends much of her photo shoots rolling on the ground with whatever animal she is working with, and encouraging them to open up to the camera.

I always think of Nick Jaina as the modern bard, traveling from town to town with his rag-tag, ever-revolving, band of musicians in tow, sweetly singing his funny, thought-provoking and deliciously sad stories. Though a seminal figure in the music scene in Portland, Oregon, Jaina tours regularly, from one end of the continent to the other.

On his way through, he usually stays at our place, Fisch Haus (in Wichita, KS), and has treated us to countless memorable performances, and always to a packed haus of die-hard fans. The beautifully written A Bird In The Opera House, his latest album, features an amazing ensemble of Portland’s most talented musicians, and is my personal favorite among a vast repertoire of excellent projects.

I don’t live in Portland, but after watching the first episode of Portlandia, all I want to do is pack my bags and move there! The depiction of Portland and the Indie scene in general is hysterical. From femenist book store owners, putting birds on things, to flannel shirts and bikes, it’s got it all. You can watch the show on IFC, but if you don’t get that channel, there are clips on Hulu.

It’s no secret that Portland, Oregon is food nerd heaven. Innovative restaurants, giant farmer’s markets, trendsetting chefs, and an engaged and voraciously hungry public all make this Pacific Northwest town sizzling hot. As you might imagine, speciality stores must be nothing short of spectacular to keep the attention of their particular clientele. And Cacao, a shop in the heart of Portland, exceeds chocolate lovers expectations.

The serious chocolate hound will be floored by the variety and sheer amount of chocolate. It offers premium chocolate from 35+ producers from all over the world in the shape of bars, handmade confections, and even a line of signature drinking chocolate. The hushed atmosphere, perfectly curated displays, well informed staff, and brisk temperature (the store’s thermostat is set to cool to keep the chocolate happy) reminds us of a museum. A delicious museum…Just go and thank us later!

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A lot of creative types often take corporate jobs with the hope that they will one day work their way up to breaking off and doing their own thing. Matthew Foster, Fritz Mesenbrink, and Jeremy Pelley did just that, leaving their big ad agency positions to form the Portland-based Official Manufacturing Company, which is the very definition of hip and stylish, designing coffee packaging (they did Stumptown’s distinctive look), album covers, websites, print ads, t-shirts, and whatever else strikes their fancy. They also have one of the most memorable URLs out there.

The rainy weather and breathtaking scenery of the Pacific Northwest has been inspiring a lot of amazing metal bands in the past several years — Velvet Cacoon, Wolves in the Throne Room, and Agalloch all emerged from the region. Another great band coming out of Portland is Atriarch, a blackened, sludgy, doom-inspired outfit whose frontman Lenny Smith (aka Behalf) also shreds his vocal chords for the possibly defunct Trees. Hail the New Wave of Pacific Northwest Black Metal.

My band, Bloody Panda, toured recently with an amazing Portland-based band called Trees. If you like Burning Witch, Khanate, and other such slow-as-hell, crusty doom, check these guys out.

Everyone who knows about coffee in Portland knows Stumptown, but I want to plug one of the new guys in town (relatively speaking), Cellar Door Coffee.

Andrea Pastor and Jeremy Adams, the duo behind the shop and wholesale operation located on SE 11th Ave, met at a sustainable farming and gardening program at UC Santa Cruz and bonded over their love of coffee, and now they’re roasting and brewing up some pretty great cups of joe — so great that my roommate in Brooklyn and I regularly ordered from them despite the glut of coffee options in NYC. People rave about their scones too, but alas, I can’t do gluten.

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Portland-based Million Brazillians dole out some dark but groovy psych punk rife with rockabilly and free-jazz flourishes and tribal rhythms.

Landed in Portland, OR, after a record 48-hour non-stop drive from Baltimore. Got to relax, take a shower, and talk to our booking agent’s roommate, Sam Ford, a 23-year-old fellow who has a brutally bright future ahead of him.

Honing his skills as an apprentice to comic book legend Paul Chadwick, Ford currently does amazing album covers, posters, and flyers for bands such as Thrones, Black Elk, Baroness, and many other metal-oriented acts. His impossibly detailed and expressive work lends itself perfectly to the music of the bands he works with.

Josh Millard — self-proclaimed computer geek, creative type, and Metafilter admin — has been posting useless fliers around Portland, printed with silly one-liners that play with the interactivity of the format.

Think your pancake-flipping skills can rival those of the greatest line cooks? Head over to Slappy Cakes Restaurant — another killer concept born in foodie-friendly Portland, Oregon — and you can find everything you need to put your abilities to the test. Choose from a variety of batters and toppings, then get to work at one of the griddles that are built right into all of the restaurant’s tables. And you can get pretty creative. Think buckwheat pancakes with cheddar cheese and crumbled sausage, or ginger pancakes with apples and lavender honey. At Slappy Cakes, it’s all up to you.

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Attention all hipsters: Stumptown Coffee Roasters are setting up shop in the land where cafes rein king: Amsterdam. Adding to its Portland, Seattle, and New York locations, this all-too-trendy coffee boutique is due to open its European doors on 1 May.

Stateside, this independent coffee roaster has a massive reputation for pushing out copious amounts of caffeinated goodness to an ever growing, cult-like following. In Amsterdam, the bar is planning lots of espressos, a few tastings, and daily cuppings. It promises to be a great way to recover from those neighboring coffee shops.

Like its name, Beast is straightforward and simple. This Portland-based restaurant offers up prix-fixe six-course menus of uncomplicated yet refined dishes. Each week the cuisine changes according to apparent inspiration from the fields, forests, and moods of the owner and her culinary team. Foie gras bons bons may share the menu with pork, pork liver, and sour cherry pate.

Maple mustard sauce with shaved Brussels sprouts sit side-by-side with baked warm truffled potato salad with goat cheese and watercress — last week at least. To up this mouth-watering, French-grandmother-esc menu, splurge for the wine pairing. The comforting food and wine are matched perfectly with the cozy space. Like its cuisine, Beast boasts an open kitchen, chalkboard walls, communal tables, and clear elements of Portland style. So, when it comes to edging ahead in the up-and-coming Portland food scene, chilled out Beast is the place to beat.

Portland-based illustrator and graphic novelist Theo Ellsworth has a style that is odd and surreal enough for the thirty-something indie set, but also have an innocence about them that would suit children’s books — his drawings are dense enough to keep people of all ages staring at all his weirdo characters and animals.

YACHT founding members Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans live in Portland, Oregon and Marfa, Texas, and consider themselves ‘generalists’ in the fields of music, art, writing, and everything in between. Their new album, See Mystery Lights, has just been released, along with companion materials ranging from book and mixtapes to a limited-edition playable copper record of mantras. We checked in with Jona to get his thoughts on the music that inspired their own album and he started with the Radha Krishna Temple song, Hare Krishna Mantra: ‘A not-so-secret-thing about YACHT is that when we see Hare Krishna monks dancing down the street in their orange robes and shaved heads, it takes a great deal of self-control for us not to run after them. This is not to say that we want to stop them or join them. We just want to see what happens at the end of the chase’. Read the rest of Yacht’s Secret Playlist.

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Portland-based Sarah Gottesdiener creates lush, vibrant, and wonderfully ornate poster art, illustration and design work. Her paintings and videos were recently exhibited at Miami Basel as part of a show presented by Deitch Projects. Oh, and somehow she manages to find the time to play in a band called Gay Deceivers, whose debut album comes out on Cherchez La Femme Projects in February.

We checked in with Portland illustrator S Britt and asked him what part of the creative process he enjoys the most: ‘I enjoy seeing the final piece and comparing it to the original idea or sketch. It’s oftentimes surprising and yes, sometimes disheartening to see how the numerous changes throughout the process affected the finished illustration. Personally, I love simplistic, somewhat imperfect art, so I tend to prefer my illustrations that are more facile and spontaneous (think: defective and dim-bulbed). The more labored over projects tend to feel a bit wooden and lifeless to me at times’.

‘Later I can look back on them and truly appreciate all the sleepless nights and canceled play dates, but I usually have to distance myself from such projects for a few whiskey-soaked weeks. Still, it’s nice when complete strangers come up to me on the street and ask, “Say, aren’t you that guy who did that one thing?” It’s always nice to be recognized for your achievements, don’t you think?’

I’ve admired the work of Portland illustrator S Britt for as long I can remember. I checked in with him recently and asked him what attracted him to the unique retro aesthetic that his work so clearly possesses: ‘Much like a small town débutante, or casaba melon, I feel that’s a label and a genre that’s been a bit overused and tossed around in the market these past few years. It seems like a lot of up and coming artists have jumped on the retro bandwagon, because they either see it gaining popularity or they don’t feel confident enough in creating their own unique style of art, like decorative macramé wall hangings! It’s not a particularly difficult type of art to ape, in some instances, but to lovingly create an homage to any category of art, be it illustration, music, taxidermy, or so on, you must first truly appreciate it, then learn to understand it and finally add your own personality into your work. It seems like a lot of art and animation schools are cranking out cookie cutter clones of Mary Blair and the Provensens, without any of the heart and vision that the original artists brought to their craft’.

‘I actually bristle at being categorized as a “retro artist,” because you eventually paint yourself into a corner that your fans may not follow you out of (if you ever do decide to change your style or experiment with livestock). There are some really great “modern-retro” artists out there that you’d swear just stepped out of the UPA studios, that I both envy and marvel at their talent. However, if I had to categorize my own work (other than “crude participant”), I’d feel more comfortable calling it vintage (as in “moth-eaten”) or classic (as opposed to New Coke), as in the type of art I loved as a child and still continue to admire. I’m not trying to recreate a specific era or decade with my work, but rather appease my spoiled inner childish critic and hopefully bring something new, yet oddly familiar-feeling into the world (like your favorite old footed pajamas or your childhood dog, soiling your favorite pajamas).

If you were to span the history of my artwork (and you’d be a sorry fool to do so!), you would see that my style really hasn’t changed all that much over the years, although hopefully I’ve learned a few things since creating the mascot for my fourth grade alma mater, the Jackson Keller Burrowing Deer Tick’s.

I have slowly seen the retro fad rise over the past few years, but I try not to focus too much on the trends, which would explain why I got such an excellent deal on my boss new Quement SWB-2 Ham radio!

If anybody else has got their “ears on,” you can always contact me before bedtime (8 PM) and we can shoot the breeze. Just ask for Wizard Glick’.