Oregon, as we all know, is full of makers, crafters, and creators. And if you’ve been watching NBC’s Making It, now in its third season, you may have recognized a few familiar faces—or maybe even one very recognizable beard.

That’s right—Waldport’s own Gary Herd, also known as the Bearded Woodworker to his some 9,000 subscribers on YouTube, made the cut for season three of the goofily good-hearted crafting competition reality show. Hosted by Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman of Parks and Rec, contestants compete in challenges ranging from making an interactive toy that reflects their personalities to transforming a closet into a tiny-yet-meaningful nook for a friend or family member.

In this week’s episode of Footnotes, Portland Monthly news editor Julia Silverman sits down with the Bearded Woodworker himself, Gary Herd, to talk about what it was like filming the show during COVID, how Making It offers a kindler, gentler approach to an often cutthroat genre of reality TV, and how Oregon inspires Herd’s craft

Guest

• Gary Herd, the Bearded Woodworker

You may be familiar with "The Great Resignation." It’s a term coined by Anthony Klotz at Texas A&M and refers to a mass exodus of US workers leaving their jobs as we emerge from COVID. In April alone, about four million people clocked out for good, and it’s got a lot of people wondering what the heck is going on. Part of that has to do with our redefinition of success post-pandemic. 

But another piece to this Great Resignation puzzle, however, predates the pandemic: burnout, a prolonged psychological response to chronic work-related stress. In layperson’s terms: you’ve got too much to do, you’re not feeling rewarded, and you’re exhausted because of all of it. But, of course, it’s a little more complicated than that.

So for this week’s episode of Footnotes, we wanted to chat with Regan Gurung. He’s a social psychologist and professor at Oregon State University, and we wanted to pick his brain a little bit to help us break down what exactly burnout is, how to recognize it, and how we—as employees and employers—can prevent it and recover from it.

Guest 

• Regan Gurung

Last weekend saw a record-breaking heat wave in the Pacific Northwest, with some areas experiencing over 115 degree temperatures. As someone who spent a lot of my adolescence in Arizona, I can tell you that is exactly how it feels in Phoenix, and it sucks, and it’s why I left, really. But one of the saving graces of living in a town like Phoenix is that just about everybody and every building has air conditioning.

In Portland and the Pacific Northwest, it’s not quite the same, and so when the historic heat wave hit us this weekend, it hit hard, revealing just how underprepared our region is for such a climate disaster and resulting in at least 60 heat-related deaths in Oregon. 

So for this week’s Footnotes we wanted to chat with Jola Ajibade. She’s an assistant professor in the geography department at Portland State University, and her research focuses on how individuals, communities, and cities respond to global climate change. In this interview, we talk about the record-breaking heatwave that slammed the Pacific Northwest and the need for adaptation measures and climate action now. 

"It's hard for me to use the word 'normal.' I really don't want this to be normal, but if this is going to happen a bit more frequently, we need to be prepared," Ajibade says. 

Guest 

• Jola Ajibade

After a months-long search, Commissioner Carmen Rubio and Portland’s City Arts program has appointed the city’s two new creative laureates—that’s right, two. That’s a first for the city’s creative laureate program, which was created in 2012. Photographer Julie Keefe was our first creative laureate. Now, Leila Haile and Joaquin Lopez will both serve as the city’s official ambassadors to the broader creative community.

For the week’s episode of Footnotes, we chat with our two new creative laureates about what they’re hoping to bring to Portland’s creative community and how COVID and the fight for racial justice have changed our view of art in our everyday lives. Leila Haile is a queer activist and tattoo artist at Ori Gallery, focusing on curating spaces for queer and trans communities. Joaquin Lopez is a musician, performing artist, and counselor whose work is grounded in personal transformation, self-expression, and Latino queer identity. 

We are joined by Subashini Ganesan, a dancer and educator who served as Portland’s creative laureate from 2018 to 2021.

Guests

• Leila Haile
• Joaquin Lopez
• Subashini Ganesan

We are about 2 percent, or 60,000 people, away from reaching the state’s 70 percent threshold. That is, when 70 percent of the state’s residents 16 and older have at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has said she will lift most statewide restrictions—including indoor capacity limits, mask mandates, and physical distancing requirements—and reopen the state’s economy. Part of what’s gotten us this close to that 70 percent figure: Oregon’s mass vaccination sites at the Oregon Convention Center, the drive-thru sites at the Portland International Airport, and the Hillsboro Stadium. 

But with all three sites closing this month, what does that mean for the future of vaccinations in Oregon? What are the next steps? 

This week on Footnotes, the closure of Oregon’s mass vaccination sites, the continued health equity and access issues facing our state, and the role community health clinics will play moving forward toward a post-pandemic future.

Guests

• Max Janasik, CEO of One Community Health
• Lorena Mosqueda, health and wellness director at Latino Network
• Mara Gross, interim executive director at the Coalition of Community Health Clinics

For this week’s Footnotes, we're revisiting an episode from last year with Courtney Campbell, a professor in the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion at Oregon State University. We talk about Albert Camus's The Plague, the lessons we’ve learned from this pandemic, and how philosophy will continue to play a role in our everyday lives.

Guest 

• Courtney Campbell

June is Pride month, which in non-coronavirus times means a festival, a parade, and a month-long celebration. And after 2020’s festivities were scaled way back, Portland’s Pride Festival—organized by Pride NW—will cautiously return in 2021. But how has the past year affected Portland’s LGBTQ+ community, and what does the future hold? 

In this week’s episode of Footnotes, Portland Monthly arts editor Conner Reed talks about how the coronavirus shaped this year’s festivities, the Pride package in our Summer 2021 issue of the magazine, and what a return to the Pride Festival means for Portland. 

Guest 

• Conner Reed

Links

• How to Celebrate Pride 2021 in Portland
• Pride NW

Last year the Oregon Water Futures project, in partnership with Unite Oregon, the Chinook Indian Nation and other organizations, conducted a series of water-focused conversations with Native, Black, Latinx, and migrant communities around the state to learn about their cultural connections to water and their concerns when it comes to water education, access, and advocacy. And earlier this week the project released a report of their findings from those conversations to Oregon policy and decision-makers.  

So for this week’s episode of Footnotes, we wanted to talk with Alai Reyes-Santos. She’s the lead author of the Oregon Water Futures Project Report. She’s also a professor at the University of Oregon in its Indigenous, Race, and Ethnic Studies department. In this interview, we talk about the Oregon Water Futures Project Report, how COVID and the wildfires of 2020 shaped the report and its finds, and the steps we can take now to help bring underrepresented communities into our conversations about water.

Guest

• Alaí Reyes-Santos

Links

• Oregon Water Futures Project Report