Holiday Aventures in a dead mall

[olivermoss]

Ever go to a dead mall:



Where this is part of the Christmas decor:



And then it turns out that the above artist is guy you've been rolling dice with at the local gaming cafe.

Lloyd Center is in a weird zombie state right now. Most of the store fronts are closed, all the anchor stores are closed. I could not buy a diet coke there because only maybe two restaurants are still open. I had to resort to a pepsi vending machine and the pepsi bottle was room temperature.

But, on the other hand there are painting classes, a thrift store, stores featuring local vendors and they have art events like The Void Market and this, uh, festive holiday display. Sadly, Void Market was while I was in Louisiana.

I have the start of a walkthrough here on bluesky and they have a super fast walk through on their insta.

There is a cute section, horror section, wintery section and cozy section with a nice couch and some chairs to chill in. It's a collab by 41 artists. I bought a Krampus painting and will need to pick up when the show ends:


Most of the pics I took where of the creepy stuff. I might go back and shoot the reindeer with my real camera because I love it. And after I did this I went to go play in a 4 session Golden Compass mini-campaign I'm in at TPK, and found out someone in my group made the Krampus section.

Entrance to the Krampus section:



Because my tolerance for spooky is high, I am going to drop the shots below a cut.


I didn't want to be taking too many pics or videos so, uh, behind the skeleton is the bloody manger and in front is a hooded creature who is eating the remains.



The reindeer:


I love the reindeer with candy entrails. I am not sure how clearly this crappy cell phone picture reads.

Nothing quite like Christmas in Portland. Show dates and times.

Oh, and I bought some Portlandy holiday stickers. Apparently, goats are just a holiday thing here now?

Comments

[olivermoss]

Thanks!

That's really creepy. Did it actually work at all, the illusion of life and activity?

[delphi]

Some claimed that it worked to deter crime - made it feel less like you were on an empty street with no one watching, and certainly less access to glass to break - but from an aesthetic point of view, it was just sad. Like the architectural equivalent of Mrs. Havisham in her wedding dress.

[olivermoss]

Sad and creepy, might have made for some fun photos

[delphi]

They ended up tearing down the whole block a few years ago, and unfortunately these are the only photos I could find still kicking around the internet:

https://i.imgur.com/ZgACNQY.jpeg

(I wish this one were available in higher resolution, since it gives more of the effect)
https://i.imgur.com/uMQHM7e.jpeg

Compared to what the same street looked like just ten years or so before the paintings went up, and another twenty years before that:

https://i.imgur.com/rBye7Hn.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/umObVOK.jpeg

[olivermoss]

That is really weird. If it's just one store, it could look like it was just closed for renovations. But having a line of stores like that looks like aliens tried to re-create an Earth town from images, but didn't understand what the objects were