Gluten Free Baking

Start baking your own gluten free baked goods! Students will learn to make a gluten free sourdough starter and use applesauce as an egg replacement for various recipes. Bake along or learn tips and tricks for baking gluten free cookies, cinnamon rolls, naan, muffins and scones.

Home Improvement for Sellers

Add value in the right place to sell faster for more money! Learn how to evaluate what improvements are necessary and find the fastest way to improve your curb appeal based on best practices in real estate, remodeling, and home staging.

Food Freedom

During this 6-week course, you will learn all about the macro and micronutrients that provide nourishment to your body. Which foods to eat and which to avoid for optimal health, the importance of digestion and how to improve it, Which fats improve your health, how to balance your blood sugar, how to read food labels. How to eat healthy on a budget. We will discuss different types of diets and how to determine which is right for you. Your instructor, Karen Davis, is a Certified Nutrition Specialist and is passionate about all things nutrition. Learn in a judgement-free, interactive style class.

Reiki Level 1

Are you curious about energy healing? Come learn this Japanese healing technique in a welcoming and fun environment! The intention is to create deep relaxation, to help speed healing, reduce pain, and decrease other symptoms you may be experiencing. Workshop will include a Reiki 1 attunement and a Reiki 1 certificate.

Barre Fusion

Enjoy a low impact, high energy, music-driven movement experience that blends the best of Dance, Pilates and Yoga. Strengthen and stretch the whole body with standing exercises using a barre (or chair back) and mat-based Pilates moves.

Collage from Your Junk Drawer

Recombine pieces of paper, photographs, fabric and other ephemera — both 2D and 3D — onto one surface to create an original image. Explore how collage can be a tool of visual expression, formal beauty or used for story-telling.

The Personal is Political: Art and Social Justice

Explore Portland through the protest art that local artists are currently making. Via mini-lectures, discussion, and your own experiments, we investigate what makes an artwork political, relevant and effective. Everyone is welcome.

Yoga in French and English

Yoga and French? Body and Mind? Let’s flow together! Enjoy Iyengar/Vinyasa yoga and learn some French. Taught by a native French speaker and longtime yoga teacher. All levels of French and yoga students are welcome.

History of Persia and Modern Day Iran

Learn about the fascinating history of the Persian Empire and modern-day Iran. This course explores the evolution of Persian civilization, including art, culture and historical events that influenced the course of Persian/Iranian history.

Improved Self Talk With Less Conflict

Is your self-talk full of conflicts and criticisms? Have you tried to “think positively” without a lasting effect? Discover tools and strategies to shift your thoughts quickly, resolve internal conflicts and take new perspectives on old conflicts.

What is the project you recently completed, with the assistance of Community Ed courses?

A photography display of my grandpa’s photographs from WWII! I have been interested in film/darkroom photography since high school, however it has been a very intermittent hobby until the past couple years. A little over a year ago I started working on photos from my grandpa’s negatives, and during this time I made large fiber-based prints of 35 photos. I initially had 170 negatives and this is what I choose from. Eventually we found other negatives as well, so I have a couple hundred more negatives from my grandpa now. Instructor Mike Riches connected me with Blue Moon Camera and Machine and they agreed to show my photos this November (they do monthly displays of photographers’ work).

How did you learn about your grandfather’s negatives?

I don’t remember exactly how it came up. I knew my grandfather had a darkroom in his house at some point. When they moved out of that house and into an independent living facility my family divided up everything from the house. My dad mentioned that his brother Ken had negatives from the war specifically. I got in contact with Ken and he mailed me the negatives.

Coincidently while I was working on this project, I went to my aunt’s house to look through some kitchen items and furniture that she was getting rid of to see if I wanted anything. While we were exploring the basement I noticed camera cases and it was my grandpa’s old camera’s which she was happy for me to take. This is how I ended up with the camera that he actually used to take the photos with!

About 10 years ago my second cousin had scanned and posted all my great uncle’s negatives from the war. I reached out to him to see if he had those negatives but the family had donated to a museum.

Did you ever have a chance to hear stories about his experience (if so, what did he tell you?)?

I never personally discussed the war with him. When I was younger it wasn’t something that occurred to me to learn more about.  Now I obviously wish I could ask him a million questions. He moved on to career and family after the war. I don’t think he discussed it much in general. However a son of someone else in the unit became very interested in his parents history and his path. He flew to Portland to interview my grandpa about his time in the Army while researching for his book, eventually publishing it in 2003.

After I completed my first print of the war photos (October 2018) I attempted to use social media to see if I could find family members or to see if anyone in the unit was still alive. It turned out that everyone has passed away with the exception of possibly one nurse – I confirmed this in the last month. The final member, a nurse, passed away a few months ago.

What inspired you to turn this into a big project with a photography exhibit?

I was already working on turning the negatives into prints. It was so exciting to have these old negatives and get a peek into that part of my grandfather’s life. Mike encouraged me and facilitated getting an opportunity to make it into an exhibit at Blue Moon in St. Johns. It was also exciting for my family – so they have also been very encouraging. I talked to my extended family more frequently and I feel closer to them than I was before. The project created so many connections and new friendships.

How have PCC courses/programs helped you to develop your skillset?

Intermediate/Advanced darkroom is a community! I have learned so many different things from Mike, but also from peers in the class. I have learned how to use split filter printing, improved dodge and burn skills. Learned about different printing styles.  Printed with fiber paper for my first time. Developed and printed medium format film for the first time. Improved at examining photos to understand the contrast, or where the eye will be drawn to. I learned how to use my grandfather’s cameras from other students in the class who use similar ones. The list of skills might be endless ….

What would you say to prospective students thinking about taking Intermediate/Advanced Darkroom with Mike Riches?

It is a great class.  Everyone has such a wealth of knowledge and you get to choose what skills or technique you want to learn or focus on.

Is there anything surprising/interesting you learned about your grandfather and his experience as a result of this process?

I already knew he was in the Army in the war and I knew we had letters he had wrote. So nothing was specifically surprising.  However in general the photos bring it to life and make it more “real.” I had never thought much about what it must have been truly like. My grandpa wrote my grandma a letter every day that he was away. I have started sorting through these to see if there are more clues behind the photos, and to learn more about his experience. My grandma also saved news articles from the time.

What are you hoping people may learn from your upcoming photography exhibit?

I think it’s just a nice way to honor my grandfather and all Veterans. I ended up with more questions than answers during this project. I hope it inspires people to connect with their family and learn their own stories.

How do you intend to keep exploring this subject matter (including both WWII and photography)?

I have been trying to figure out how to focus my attention as this could be a never ending process. The photo’s leave you with so many questions.  I would love to connect with remaining family of people from my grandpas unit. I also am exploring other places I might be able to do another exhibit.

Enrich your life!

Do It Yourself!

Oct.
Electronics for Inventors: Arduino and Soldering
Small Marine Diesel Engine Maintenance
Vinyl Cutting: Stickers, Stencils and Shirts

Nov.
Cat Furniture Construction and Design
Cat Furniture Design Studio

Emergency Preparedness

Oct.
The Big One: Earthquake Ready
Zombie Apocalypse Survival Workshop
Emergency “Grab & Go” Binder, with Cloud Backup!

Food and Drink

Oct.
Cooking with Wood-Fired Outdoor Ovens
Ravioli
Lamb: Complete Fabrication and Cooking Recommendations
Pig: Complete Fabrication and Recipes
The Art of Making Kombucha
Date Night Lasagna
Date Bento
Mexican Moles
What’s Your Sign? I Mean Wine!!

Nov.
Easy Appetizers for the Holidays
Ethiopian Cuisine: Meat and Veggie
Russian Flavors
Japanese for Foodies
Culinary Germany

Dec.
Sparkling Holidays

Garden Nature & Yards

Oct.
Trees, Shrubs and Roses
Annuals, Perennials and Bulbs
Growing Fruits, Vegetables and Herbs
Lawn Care
Pruning
Permaculture Skills: Fall Gardening

Nov.
Nature-based Stress Management
Insects and Diseases
Diseases and Weeds
Winterizing Your Yard
Foundations of Permaculture

Hobbies and Crafts

Oct.
Radio Controlled Aircraft and Drones
Genealogy: Complete Family History
Quilting: Disappearing Summer
Pendleton Needle Felting
Pendleton Wool Rug Crochet

Nov.
The Mysterious Tarot
Bridge 102: Let’s Play
Pendleton Needle Felting
Pendleton Wool Rug Crochet

Dec.
Pendleton Wool Rug Crochet

Home Improvement

Oct.
Drywall Repair: Hands On
Paint Like a Pro
Home Improvements for Sellers
Hardwood Floors: Sand and Finish
Hardwood Floors: Installation
Interior Design

Nov.
Cat Furniture Construction and Design
Catio Design Studio
Color for Your Home
Feng Shui for Your Home
Interior Design

Dec.
Interior Design

Woodworking and Metalworking

Oct.
Welding Fundamentals: MIG Welding (GMAW)
Art Welding Sculpture

Nov.
Welding Fundamentals: MIG Welding (GMAW)

Dec.
Welding Fundamentals: MIG Welding (GMAW)

Swimming

Sept.
Preschool Aquatics: Ages 3-5 Years
Learn to Swim: Ages 6-15 Years
Learn to Swim Adults: 16 Years or Older
Parent Child Aquatics: 6 Months-3 Years

Nov.
Preschool Aquatics: Ages 3-5 Years
Learn to Swim: Ages 6-15 Years
Learn to Swim Adults: 16 Years or Older
Parent Child Aquatics: 6 Months-3 Years

Not long ago, it was considered best to hire experts for seemingly everything. The notion was led by family members patiently observing the well-intentioned-yet-befuddled uncles, brothers, fathers, boyfriends of the world – and their fruitless efforts to solve common problems around the household. Now, that rationale is being shifted on a massive level, leading to an entire culture of doing it yourself, or DIY. People are fixing their own houses, making their own household furnishings, and more. PCC Community Ed offers a variety of DIY classes on popular topics. In some, you even get to reupholster your furniture under the watchful eye of a skilled instructor. Be sure to keep checking back, as our offerings may expand in the future.

The problem is that many people are not achieving the desired results from their DIY efforts. They go into projects with little or no advance knowledge, and when the project is complete, it shows. Fortunately, it is easy to fix this problem and improve your DIY skills. Our Do It Yourself (DIY) classes will help you to gain the competence needed to produce good results – without having to fumble through several important projects to gain the needed experience.

What is DIY?

DIY stands for “do it yourself.” It can involve construction and other building, repairing existing things, or even designing old items into new creations through some sort of remodeling or renovation. These processes all involve learning about and gaining the skills that are ordinarily held by professionals.

Most DIY projects involve household objects, like tables, benches and even bookcases. While there are endless online tutorials that show everything from crafts to large-scale DIY projects, they often gloss over the difficulties that can be encountered.

Fixing things on your own also allows you to avoid paying someone else to do it, but doing it well can involve learning a range of skills and techniques. For example, if you own a boat, it’s important to understand certain processes and procedures to maintain its life span. If it has a diesel engine, you can learn how to analyze and diagnose each supporting system of the engine to keep it in top shot. Doing it yourself keeps you from outsourcing these routine tasks to outside professionals.

The DIY Movement

The idea of DIY as a lifestyle or “movement” started in the 1950s, but it didn’t catch steam until the 60s and 70s, when a number of books and TV shows came into the mainstream. At that time, it was a recognized phenomenon, but still on the fringes. In the 90s, the Internet shifted the movement by making it easy to gain the needed information. The advent of YouTube really bolstered the DIY concept since it allowed people to watch skilled demonstrators do everything from making slime to constructing heated seats.

Learn How to DIY

Now, there are several options for picking up the skills needed to DIY a project. There are books, videos, and websites available for free or at a low cost. If you’re a hands-on learner, and need to develop more advanced skills, classroom instruction is the best option.

To get started with a PCC DIY course, check our upcoming schedule. Then register for the next available course to ensure that your next project is completed with pro-grade results!

Despite a modern obsession with ready-made store-bought products, the crafts of woodworking and metalworking still command interest and intrigue in Portland – and sit proudly as if atop an Iron Throne – among the ranks of our popular classes.

It’s easy to forget that across the world, many people don’t have easy access to furniture superstores, and artisans are still making functional and ornamental handcrafted objects using metalworking and woodworking skills. These skills are rewarding and versatile – with a satisfyingly creative punch. Explore this blog to determine if woodworking and metalworking courses at PCC are right for you.

Woodworking

Using the right tools and techniques, people can use wood to handcraft a wide variety of objects, including art, furniture and standing structures. As far back as 2,000 B.C., ancient Egyptians expertly crafted furnishings for their homes including beds, chairs and chests. They used woodworking skills to create any numbers of tools – and even the sarcophagi used in their tombs. Decadent!

In China, woodworking caught hold around 720 B.C. with a focus on using precise measurements to create their wares. From pots to tables, these measurements ensured the uniform creation of each piece. Many tools in use today, such as the plane and chalk line, were likely developed during this time by Chinese woodworker and proclaimed originator of woodworking in China, Lu Ban.

You can learn many of the most effective woodworking techniques developed around the world in PCC’s woodworking courses. These classes will give you the information about tools, safety measures and materials that you need to create your wooden masterpieces. You will also learn useful tricks of the trade that will help you excel in building your skillset, such as how to make woodworking joints.

Metalworking

As one part science and one part art, metalworking techniques give people the ability to create nearly anything their mind can conceive. It’s a versatile skill used for building structures, plumbing and constructing furniture – and that weird art piece created by your distant uncle. As people learned to smelt metal alloys, civilization moved into a new era of tech, called the Bronze Age. This historical period began as early as 3,300 B.C., though worldwide adoption lasted up until the Iron Age that began around 1200 B.C. in Asia.

As advancements in metalworking continued through the centuries, civilizations left behind numerous artifacts showcasing their skills. As a testament to its creator’s expertise, the Iron Pillar of Delhi continues to stand tall with little sign of corrosion despite begin constructed as far back as 402 A.D. in India. With the right level of training, you can also develop the skills needed to construct lasting works from metal materials of all kinds.

You can start learning about metalworking tools and techniques by signing up for a class at PCC. The metalworking classes will teach you all you need to know about the different types of metal cutting, shaping and joining practices used for this discipline. With the metalworking skills you learn, you can create functional products and beautiful works of art of all kinds. Whether you want to pursue this track as a hobby or a career path, your new skillset is sure to yield many rewards.

Shape and Build Tomorrow with Woodworking and Metalworking Skills

With the ability to craft objects out of wood and metal materials, these wood- and metalworkers helped their civilizations advance through the eras. You can have a hand in shaping and building tomorrow by picking up woodworking and metalworking at ˿����Ƶ. Start by learning the skills you need, and then strengthen them through advanced courses and challenging projects.

Or maybe just make weird art.

Tarot, in my view, isn’t a crystal ball that tells the future. Instead, it’s a practical (which is not to say it isn’t magical) tool for self-discovery, healing, and empowerment. When we pull Tarot cards and read them, what we’re really doing, on some level, is reflecting on our lives and how they match up with our desires. In doing so, we incorporate our personal mythologies, our stories of self, and all the data from our pasts in order to help us understand the present. From this vantage point, we can then see our likely trajectory based on our habits and patterns, our strengths and weaknesses, our action and inaction, our decisions. The Tarot helps us access these insights so we can decide to change, grow, accelerate, pause—whatever it takes to shift our paths for our betterment.

That’s why Tarot has earned a reputation for fortune-telling: because it works. Tarot tells the future because it guides us to our own agency. It equips us with self-knowledge and a bunch of reality checks and wake-up calls. It empowers us in the present to enact the future we desire.

One of the ways that the Tarot achieves this is by encouraging reflection, and the other is by reconnecting us to our intuition—a skill inherent in all of us, but one that we’ve been taught so thoroughly to ignore. The Tarot does this, I think, by speaking to us in the language of intuition, a tongue of symbols and images, archetypes and narrative, colors and numbers, and all the other elements of tarot which speak to us individually and collectively. But it’s not necessary to be a 9th Level High Priestess (no, really—I made that up) in order to read and understand the cards, and that’s because, aside from the arcane glyphs and the mythological references, what the Tarot really does is show us a story we already know: the story of ourselves. We just haven’t read that story closely enough yet.

So, maybe Tarot can be used to tell the future, but reading to know our fates is, in truth, not using the Tarot to its full capacity. Sure, we can cast some cards and get an idea of what will happen tomorrow. But more powerful and far more useful than that is pulling cards to get an idea of how we, ourselves, are causing those events of tomorrow—or, better yet, how we can heal our negative patterns and shift our behaviors in order to effect the futures we want to see. So Tarot’s most magical ability is not in telling us the future. It’s in helping us create it.

Claire Burgess (they/she) is a professional tarot reader, tarot teacher, writer, podcaster, and artist, among other things. They teach two tarot classes at PCC’s Cascade campus: the in-depth 4-week course “Tarot: the Art & Skill of Intuitive Reading,” and the 1-day introductory workshop “The Mysterious Tarot.”

You can easily get started with the craft of your choice to enjoy an engaging activity while receiving key health benefits. However, these hobbies usually require specific skills, and we have several crafting courses available to help you hone them.

1. Floorcloth Making

Transform ordinary flooring into art by learning to make your own DIY floorcloths. Floorcloths A-Z will teach you how to use acrylic paints to create your own unique designs on canvas floorcloth. The course runs from February 2, 2019 to February 16, 2019 and classes are held each Saturday from 10:00 am to 12:50 pm.

2. Quilting

Learn how to make your own starry quilt with a simple-to-make pattern in the awe-inspiring Quilting: Hunting for the Stars course. The course, which is open to experienced and aspiring quilters, runs from January 12, 2019 to February 2, 2019. Classes are held each Saturday from 9:00 am to 12:50 pm.

3. Papermaking

Would you like to improve the environment while learning a handy, enjoyable new skill? If so, the Recycled Papermaking course is sure to suit your fancy. You’ll learn how to make your own paper for cards, invitations, books and other projects using recycled paper and household tools such as a kitchen blender and picture frames. The course runs from January 26, 2019 to February 9, 2019 and classes are held from 1:00 pm to 2:50 pm every Saturday.

4. Needle Felting

Needle felting is an ideal way to create fun seasonal and holiday crafts. It’s also great for year-round activities such as adding borders to a lapel, flowers to a hat or decorative details to clothing items. The Pendleton Needle Felting Course, which teaches applique and sculptural needle felting, is a good place for any beginner to start. Courses are offered on February 9, 2019, and March 16, 2019 and they run from 10:00 am to 11:20 am.

5. Crocheting

Learn how to transform Pendleton wool scraps into a thick, fluffy rug in less than two hours with the Pendleton Wool Rug Crochet course. The course is open to beginners and advanced students alike, and you can attend on January 12, 2019 or February 16, 2019. Course times run from 10:00 am to 11:50 am.

6. Sewing

This course, which is created for students who are familiar with straight and zig-zag stitches, will teach you how to sew your very own panties and underwire bras. Lingerie Sewing is offered from January 26, 2019 to February 9, 2019. Classes take place every Saturday from 12:00 pm to 3:50 pm.

Crafting is a fun, healthy and enjoyable way to pass the time, make new friends, create handmade presents and even earn a bit of extra income. You’ll need some special skills to get started, but there’s no skill that’s too hard to learn with a bit of extra help. Check out PCC’s courses to discover new, creative classes that can help you get started with the craft of your choice.