You’re looking at a new Evergreen Skateparks skate spot that is included the brand new Khunamokwst Park being built in the Cully neighborhood of NE Portland. What is a Khunamokwst? It’s a Chniook wawa word that means “together.” It’s actually the first park in Portland’s system that has an indigenous name, and has a fairly routine pronunciation. The larger park is scheduled to open in Spring of 2015, and although the skate spot should be completed much sooner, it seems unlikely that the fences will come down to allow skating before the whole park is finished.

Evergreen Skateparks is working on a park in Browning, Montana on the Blackfeet reservation. The project is being sponsored by Jeff Ament. The park (Big o capsule replica included) is on track to be finished in mid to late October. Meanwhile, Evergreen is breaking ground on a skatespot near the Cully neighborhood in NE Portland on September 15th.

Ryan Moran sent in pictures of a sanctioned DIY spot in a rural area of North County, San Diego area of California. The community forked over some land behind the ball fields, but it’s up to the skaters to raise the money. They must be doing pretty good because they just had their first pour.

Vice magazine has an interview with sculptor C.J. Rench who was chosen by the Red Bull panel (including Torey Pudwill) to construct a skateable sculpture for permanent installation in Seattle. Sounds like a good plan, the city gets art, the skaters are allowed to skate on it, and a corporation gets to pay for it. Red Bull has a short video on the “skate space” that shows the other artist who made it to the finalist position, as well as examples of both of works. From the sculptures shown, I’d say the chose the wrong guy. Granted, I wasn’t on the board, but the other guy’s portfolio ( W. Scott Trimble ) had some pieces in it that already leaned towards an impression of being skateable. On the other hand, CJ’s work to date appears to be they type of stationary sculpture that is isolated in a presentation space and not part of a larger environment. In fact, looking at the scale model and rendering, the sculpture appears to be marginally skateable at best. There’s a telling clue in the Red Bull video, a big part of the decision appeared to be based on who could get it done on…

There’s an article about the Brooklyn Street Skate Spot in the Portland Mercury. The picture is old, because phase one is done, right down to the pool coping! Disturbing news though, according to the article, Portland’s light rail is set to impinge on the spot’s footprint as early as 2014. However, I’m not sure if the author did her research, that might just be a reference to the fact that the pedestrian bridge is scheduled to be demolished. The MAX would have to pull eminent domain on all the adjacent buildings and homes too. We’ll see…. There’s also an appearance from the neighborhood sourpuss who again reiterates his displeasure that the whole thing didn’t go through the proper channels. [Photo: David Lansdown]