The Church of Elvis, the stripper-turned novelist, the guitarist with a hundred piercings. The all-night cabarets, the all-day hackathons, the secret dinner parties, rogue theatrical acts, punk-rock painters and backyard ballets. The drugstore cowboys, streetcar poets, dopesick troubadors, the circus with the unpronounceable name.
The disappearing food carts. The art bar turned Top-40 lounge. The high-rise named after the field razed to build it. The chain restaurant and the shuttered independent record store.
You've seen the stickers, maybe, or the mural: “Keep Portland Weird.” But the truth is, the weird that put us on the map has been quietly repressed in the rising tide of “progress,” scared safe by rising rents and declining audacity.
Based out of a converted warehouse in the eastside industrial district, The Steep And Thorny Way To Heaven is Portland's home for the underground arts: an artist-run venue and production house hell-bent on repairing the Rose City's broken heart. We're tired of dwelling on the past, and we're working hard to MAKE PORTLAND WEIRD AGAIN.
Stop mourning the lost city we fell in love with, and help us build it anew.
Join our growing artistic community, or show your support by proudly displaying our call-to-arms: 100% OF STICKER AND T-SHIRT PROCEEDS go directly towards facilitating creatively ambitious work in the performing arts.