COVER STORY

NAMES: Ian Greenfield and Abigail Pierce

AGE: Both 25

FIELD: Theater, visual arts.

HOW LONG IN PDX: A year and a half.

NEIGHBORHOOD: Hawthorne District.

ORIGINALLY FROM: Salem (Greenfield).

LOVES MOST ABOUT PORTLAND: The great outdoors.

HATES MOST ABOUT PORTLAND: The great outdoors tends to draw away weekend audiences.

STUDIO: Gatsby Building in the Pearl.

DAY JOBS: Greenfield is a freelance Web designer; Pierce works for Portland Nursery.

Ian Greenfield and Abigail Pierce left Vermont's Bennington College three years ago to strike out on their own. "It was assumed that once you left the college you would head to New York," says Pierce. "But it's so expensive there, and it's difficult to do your own work." So the couple moved to San Francisco, where Pierce, an artist and scenic designer, immediately found work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. They only managed to stay for four months. "We couldn't find any studio space to work in," Pierce says. "Much less anywhere to live," adds Greenfield.

A native of Salem, Greenfield suggested trying Portland, and within a matter of months after arriving they were on the way to becoming established. The two founded the Catamount Theatre with other Bennington friends (they have since renamed their company the Lightbox Studio), and staged a daring production of Brecht's Galileo, with Greenfield directing and Pierce performing and designing. Alone, Pierce had two critically acclaimed exhibits of her art at fringe galleries. "Some of our friends in New York became rather jealous of us," says Greenfield. "We can afford to do our own work here, while they are struggling."

Since then, Greenfield has staged a haunting production of Synge's Riders to the Sea in the couple's studio space in the Pearl District, and Pierce's simple but innovative set design picked up one of last year's Drammy theater awards. Their most recent project, Taps, showed Lightbox gathering strength as a company. This week, Lightbox launches a production of Sarah Kane's tough 4.48 Psychosis.

James Moore, the artistic director of defunkt, another adventurous new theater company, says, "Lightbox creates some of the most physically demanding theater works that I have seen in Portland."

On the day that I spoke with Greenfield and Pierce, they were elated to learn that Lightbox had just been granted nonprofit status.

"There's a cheap kind of dismissal I've found among some artists here," says Greenfield. "The idea that 'Oh, this is just Portland.' Portland's problem is that it continually compares itself to other cities, and often thinks it falls short. What's happening in Portland has validity, and doesn't need to be reflected off San Francisco or Seattle."

"Plus," adds Pierce, "just because you're here doesn't mean that Portland has to be it for you. We really want to use Portland as a base to create work that can travel. Some long-term Portland artists don't seem to realize that this is possible."

"There are dangers of becoming too comfortable here," Pierce cautions. "But Portland has given us many opportunities that we couldn't find elsewhere."

--Steffen Silvis

Originally published
Wednesday, April 24, 2002
Willamette Week