About

Portland Paper City is a collaborative paper craft installation by Jessie Bazata, Marisa Green, Sean Garrison and Rory Phillips. The show, which will take place at Disjecta, will represent the city of Portland and will solicit contributions from the community.

The founders:

Jessie

Jessie Bazata’s days are filled with design, illustration, and craft. Her nights and weekends are dedicated to a small business she co-founded, Sweet Street Gals. After graduating from the Visual Communications Program at the University of Delaware, she was hired at Gyro Worldwide in Philadelphia and hit the advertising world running. Currently, she is an Art director at Curiosity Group working with clients such as Hewlett-Packard, Disney, Dreamworks, and MercyCorps.

She enjoys gardening and baking anything with puff pastry. She has a passion for letterpress, paper craft, and handmade projects. She drives a ’74 Ford Maverick the color of an unripe banana, rides a Schwinn cruiser named Jenny and some day wants to learn to fly. One day, she will move back to New York to be closer to her family. Although her cat is named Brooklyn, the cat doesn’t want to move from the couch.

Marisa

Marisa Green has always had two big loves, travel and paper in all of its forms. As an illustration major at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, where she later earned a BFA, Marisa explored these loves through drawing, 3D illustration, painting, photography and creating handmade journals that documented her summer studies in Viterbo, Italy. After many years in Boston, designing at the prominent stationery store Bel Tempo, Marisa began her freelance career by starting Studio Danae. To-date she has worked for clients such as Wadsworth Thomson Publishing, HP, DreamWorks, and Disney—to name just a few.

Eager for an adventure, in 2006 Marisa packed up her car and moved to Portland, sight-unseen. Now a proud homeowner in the Alberta neighborhood, Marisa spends her time blogging, taking photographs, gardening, cooking Italian fare, volunteering for Art on Alberta, and running Studio Danae.

Sean

Hi, I’m Sean. This is my story…
Right now I’m sitting in my basement studio, thinking about what to write. Normally though, I would be watching T.V. or finding some other way to waste time. During the day, I go to my job and design papercrafts and printables for HP, Disney, Dreamworks, Apple and some other random clients. Portland Paper City is all about having a creative outlet that has nothing to do with getting paid or reaching a goal, which is why its so awesome!!! Before moving to Portland, I designed retail signage and marketing for Pottery Barn Kids in San Francisco. Our office was in the Mission district, within walking distance of Blowfish Sushi and St. Francis Soda Fountain. So needless to say, I got kinda fat while working there. Anyway, Before that I freelanced for a small design shop in Los Gatos after graduating from the graphic design program at CSU Sacramento. I draw inspiration from all over the place, but tend to lean towards a tacky/retro aesthetic, like illustrations in old ’80s textbooks. On the other hand, I love bright/clean design like Future Farmers, Eboy, and Kate Moross. And of course, I am a huge fan of Paul Frank.

Rory

West Belfast born and raised, at St. Mary’s is where I spent most of my days. Studying, trying to be cool or playing some rugby out behind the school. When the British government who were up to no good started causing trouble in my neighborhood. I was in one little riot and my mom got hysterical she said you’re going away to university in America. I went to UVM and when graduation came near, the Marines said join us and you can stay here. After that I could say I had experiences rare, while working and traveling here and there. Till I rolled into Portland about 06 or 7 and I said to myself  “Like, this must be heaven”. Got a post-bach in design at PSU last year and now I work and make stuff around here.