Throughout February, Thump Coffee in downtown Bend exhibits a collection of Great Basin photos shot by Bend-based professional photographer Zack Jones, whose clients include bicycle companies Trek and Burley, as well as several magazines. Thump will not be open late for First Friday Art Walk this month.

“From sitting in my garden with a refreshing beverage to guiding bike tours around the world, I have kept a visual record of the places, people, creatures, and adventures I have experienced in photographs,” says Jones. “The prints shown at Thump Coffee are a selection of images from the Great Basin, a place of both quirky and sublime beauty.”

Jones explains that he is not a “purist,” instead embracing the tools of modern technology to make and share images as he sees them in his mind. “I see these tools as brushes and paint to a painter and find the true art in knowing how and when to use them,” he explains.

For more about Zack Jones Photography, visit his website.

Throughout January, Thump Coffee in downtown Bend hosts the River Song Montessori School Student Art Show, “Vision of Peace.” For First Friday Art Walk, January 6 only, the school will also present “The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama,” multi-media prints.

The acrylics on canvas paintings displayed in “Vision of Peace” were painted by River Song children, ages three to six. These works were created as part of an ongoing study of world peace leaders including the Dalai Lama, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi and Maria Montessori. According to River Song, “This January show is in honor of our great peace ambassadors and their contribution toward justice and peace for humanity.”

The children’s art will be auctioned in February. Funds from the auction will contribute to the development of a scholarship fund for community families, an organic hot lunch program and classroom materials.

River Song purchased “The Missing Peace” prints with a goal of collaborating among local schools to develop a values-oriented curriculum for children ages 3-6 to accompany the artwork.

Throughout December, Thump Coffee in downtown Bend showcases art created by children living at the Vima Lupwa Home in Luanshya, Zambia. Vima Lupwa, the locally-based nonprofit founded by Bend native Malerie Pratt, provides a loving foster home for a handful of the most needy among Zambia’s more than one million orphans.

Writes Vima Lupwa boardmember Steven Douglas: “For the children of Vima Lupwa Home, art helps facilitate the transition from an abandoned, seemingly hopeless child, into a secure, confident, productive adult ready to make a contribution to a better Zambia for themselves and their peers.”

Purchases of Vima Lupwa children’s art are a “contribution to that better future for them, and for children everywhere.”

Violet Membe, a Zambian social worker and mother of two, co-founded the Vima Lupwa Home with Pratt. She and her husband raise the foster children as part of their family, providing a truly Zambian upbringing where they are raised with their own culture, values and religion.

For more about the Vima Lupwa Homes project, as well as photos and biographies of the children, go to www.lupwahomes.org.

Throughout November, Thump Coffee in downtown Bend will exhibit a selection of local photographer Jill Rosell’s “I Love Bend, OR” images. Thump Coffee also will stay open late for First Friday Art Walk, November 4.

A natural light portrait photographer who primarily works with families, children, newborns, seniors and pets, Rosell launched an “I Love Bend, OR” Facebook page in April 2010. Each day, she takes a photo of the people and places of Bend to share on her Facebook page. Today, more than 4,500 people — local, national and international — “Like,” follow along and interact on her “I Love Bend, OR” page.

“It is the perfect way for me to intertwine my love for Bend with my passion for photography and to bring a community of people together who truly love Bend,” explains Rosell.

To view Rosell’s work, go to her facebook page or to her website.

Join us this Friday, October 28, 5-9pm for Cross Culture Caminata Art Walk, a Day of the Dead inspired celebration of bicycles, art and culture, featuring art works by Andrew Steiner, Tara Doherty and live DJ music by bPollen and thump. Our weekly Friday Traditional Cappuccino Happy Hour will extend throughout the evening. Enjoy 1/2 off on all traditional espresso drinks!

With a nod to the traditional altars of Dia de los Muertos, selected local artists will be installing interpretive pieces throughout downtown Bend businesses. This special art walk is part of a three-day-long Day of the Dead Cyclocross Festival, including cyclocross bike races in the Old Mill District, Cross Culture Caminata Art Walk in downtown Bend and the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show. Artworks will stay up in participating businesses through Halloween day before being relocated to Arts Central for exhibit from November 1-28.

To learn more about Day of the Dead Cyclocross Festival, please read more here.

Dia de los Muertos Thump Cup Skulls
Inspired by the Mexican holiday (November 1-2), use a compostable thump cup supplies provided by thump and your imagination to create your own Day of the Dead skull to honor and remember friends and family members who have died.

Gray also works as a freelance visual designer under the name alpie design, primarily focusing on logo design. In addition, Gray recently helped create a non-profit organization, theBedouins, an “artivism” for peace in the Middle East. For more, visit alpie design and theBedouins. Thump will be open late for the Fall Art Hop on Fri. 10/7. Come see Euijin’s newly added works and please also step out into the breezeway to enjoy live blues guitar by singer songwriter Joseph Balsamo, compliments of Karen Bandy Studio.

Fri. 10/28, 5:00-9:00pm: Cross Culture Caminata Art Walk

Thump welcomes the Cross Culture Caminata, a Day of the Dead inspired celebration of bicycles, art and culture, featuring live DJ music by bPollen.  According to organizers, downtown Bend’s Cross Culture Caminata is “part art walk, part pub crawl, part street parade inspired by Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead).” Maps will be available throughout downtown and will provide information about artists, as well as additional street festivities. With a nod to the traditional altars of Dia de los Muertos, selected local artists will be installing interpretive pieces throughout downtown Bend businesses, including Thump Coffee, prior to October 27. This special art walk is part of a 3 day Day of the Dead Cyclocross Festival including cyclocross bike races in the Old Mill District,  the Cross Culture Caminata Art Walk in Downtown Bend,  and the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show. Artworks will stay up in participating businesses thru Halloween day and then be relocated to Arts Central for exhibit from November 1 – 28.

To learn more about the 3 day Day of the Dead Cyclocross Festival including cyclocross bike races in the Old Mill District,  the Cross Culture Caminata Art Walk in Downtown Bend,  and the Oregon Handmade Bicycle Show, please read more at: http://www.visitbend.com/Bend_Oregon_Activities_Recreation/Day-of-the-Dead-Cyclocross-Race/

Artist, designer and activist Euijin Gray will exhibit a collection of mixed media works — entitled “being. small. simple. green.” — throughout September at Thump Coffee in downtown Bend. Thump Coffee also will be open late for First Friday Art Walk on September 2.

According to Gray, her recent work is derived from spending several months in the temperate rainforest of Tennessee, where it is much greener than her high desert home of Bend. Inspired by many continuous days spent in the forest, the work displayed is very small in scale and utilizes acrylics, photos, drawings, handmade paper, wood, canvas and board.

Gray also works as a freelance visual designer under the name alpie design, primarily focused on logo design. In addition, Gray recently helped create a non-profit organization, theBedouins, an “artivism” for peace in the Middle East.

For more, visit alpie design and theBedouins.

Local photographer Brian Bulemore returns to Thump Coffee throughout August with a collection of works entitled “Noun . . . Revisted.” The exhibit is a return to Bulemore’s long-running “Noun Project,” which he describes as “a series of images of people, places, and things in the context of urban landscapes, street portraiture, and object studies.” Thump Coffee will be open late for First Friday Art Walk on August 5.

“My vision as a fine-art photographer involves wandering of streets to seek out unusual objects and people, often in strange and quirky settings or situations,” explains Bulemore. “I have been amazed by the sheer number of weird and fascinating sights that I’ve stumbled across in these unscripted travels.”

Continues Bulemore, “Life for me is at its best when I am meeting people, laughing out loud, camera in hand…filled with the exhilaration of exploration, discovery, and the preservation of moments in time. Finding beauty in unexpected places, mirrors the open-minded approach I try to maintain in life each day.”

Bulemore lives and works in Bend as a photographer and mental health therapist. For the past five years, he has worked as a clinical director for a young adult mental health treatment program and is currently opening a private therapy practice. His photography has been featured in nearly 20 solo and group exhibitions and displays throughout the Northwest.

For more, visit Bulemore’s Abacus Photography site.