Speaking the praises of Stumptown Coffee has become as much a Portland cliche as bragging about how you don't bother to carry an umbrella, wear a jacket or use any common sense at all when it starts pouring down raining. That said, I never see or hear anything about the art that's on display at the company's shops around town. There always seems to be something random or interesting hanging on the walls. Or at least more interesting than what you'll find down at Coffee Shop X. For example...

These portraits could be found at the downtown location last summer. I don't know if I'd put them up in my living room but I'm sure they'd serve as helpful visual aids when it comes time to explain the whole "birds and the bees" to the kids.

This one...maybe not so much. Those other two could be hanging over a blackboard in a middle school health classroom as we speak.

Just to prove that the artists Stumptown picks aren't all into subversive depictions of sexual deviancy among members of the animal kingdom, here's a cell phone photo of one of the paintings that can currently be found at the Belmont location:

The prequels really could have used some more of that. All Chewbacca was allowed to do in Episode III was stand around talking to Yoda.

Labels: coffee