Let Art Serve the City

If you’ve seen the mural or new streetlights around the Moda Center celebrating Portland’s new G League basketball team, Rip City Remix, then you’ve seen the work of Ayla Leisure, local artist, Portlander and PSU alum.

ARTISTIC ROOTS

Ayla Leisure plays with light and reflection to create her mixed-media art. Her work is luminescent, complex and eye-catching, often drawing inspiration from her surroundings in Portland.

A lifelong Portlander, Leisure grew up going to the Portland Art Museum with her father. Art also ran in her family; her grandmother was a fused glass artist, and her mother was a graphic designer. As a child, Leisure joined the family trade when she began creating fused glass jewelry to sell at the Milwaukie Farmers Market.

In high school, Leisure started painting and thought she might want to focus on art in college but didn’t pursue it right away. It wasn’t until she transferred to Portland State from Oregon State that she decided to major in architecture and minor in drawing, painting and printmaking in the School of Art and Design. 

BUILDING A MULTIDISCIPLINARY PRACTICE

Leisure says that her time at PSU was instrumental in pushing her outside her comfort zone as an artist, and teaching her new modalities and mediums in which to work. Constructive feedback from professors and the many open labs and studios also shaped her creative practice. 

As an architecture student, Leisure explored her interests in art and design as well as in building public spaces. “I've always been more interested in creating public spaces than residential architecture,” says Leisure. “Weaving the two together has always been an interest of mine. I just think that people are more thoughtful when they're walking around, and I like being able to impact that.”

Jeff Schnabel, professor in the School of Architecture and co-founder of the Portland Winter Light Festival, studies the design of buildings and public spaces after dark. He worked with Leisure while she was a student at PSU, and is thrilled to watch her journey into public art progress.

“One of the core values of the School of Architecture is the broad exploration of various forms of media and making. Ayla was deeply engaged in both handcrafted and digital images and objects. Looking at the extraordinary work that she is currently producing, that range of experience and passion for making is clearly evident,” says Schnabel. 

After graduating, Leisure worked for a lighting company, where she explored how light can affect a space. “I wanted to combine that with art and learn more about the impact that lighting can have,” she says “I think that different lighting can really change your mood and space.” 

Leisure’s time at PSU was instrumental in pushing her outside her comfort zone as an artist, and teaching her new modalities and mediums in which to work.

Leisure went on to create two installations for the Portland Winter Light Festival, in 2020 and 2022, and has worked on multiple public art pieces, including murals in Southeast Portland and Lake Oswego, two cow sculptures for a local leather company and gameday posters for the Trail Blazers.

The gameday posters are what led Leisure to the opportunity to create a mural, and later streetlights, celebrating the launch of Rip City Remix.

RIP CITY REMIX

The Blazers reached out to Leisure back in 2023 with an idea for a mural to commemorate the unveiling of the Rip City Remix, the Trailblazer’s new G League team. 

“Originally, they wanted the painting to feel like a record that was spinning, and that the story of Portland was unfolding from that. So I designed from that,” Leisure says. “I added in the elements that I thought represented Portland, and things that I just loved about the city, like ice cream and food and the Arlene Schnitzer Portland sign.”

To emphasize the motif of music and records, the Blazers sent Leisure 35 vintage vinyl records that she then mounted on a large panel and painted over. The process of creating the mural was fast and intense. But, in the end, the tight deadline made her even more proud of the finished product. 

“At first, I wasn't sure if I would be able to complete it on time. I had one week,” she says “I got started on the background layer and had to create a custom panel. I put two pieces of wood together and then put the records on the back. I put a layer of resin over the top to seal the records in, but the resin itself takes 24 hours to dry. I think I ended up with seven days from start to finish.”

The whole thing, Leisure said, took her about 80 hours within that one week. But it was all worth it when she delivered the final product to the team’s unveiling, and got to see the community’s reaction. “I was really happy with it,” she says.

So were the Trail Blazers — so happy, in fact, that they reached out to Leisure to commission another project: streetlights outside the Moda Center.

Today, the designed streetlights lead the way up to the Moda Center, integrated into the city and accessible for anyone to view. 

“They [the Trail Blazers] wanted it to represent Portland, be inclusive and use their special game night logos. So it has a pride logo, a Women's History logo, an African American Heritage logo and a Pacific Islander logo. It is an all-encompassing design of what Portland's about – the people that live here and what they love about the city. That was the idea behind it,” says Leisure.

The team couldn’t be happier with Leisure’s work. “We have been thrilled with the artwork that Ayla has produced for us. She has been great and not only executed our vision but added in creative elements and unique touches to enhance the projects,” says Ryan Flaherty, who serves as the Trail Blazers’ senior vice president of brand strategy.

The design also captures Leisure’s own creative aesthetic, which she describes as a balance between chaotic and calm. This balance between something that is visually rich and follows an internal logic is ideal for public art. 

Leisure wants people to be drawn into her work, and to create something that can change or even reflect those who are viewing it while passing by. “I put things into my work that maybe someone wouldn’t see at first, and then maybe over time, they can start to be able to pick different things out,” she says “I like it when people can get closer and more intimate with the work, and see more things than they did before.”

FUTURE COLLABORATIONS

The future looks bright for this artistic PSU alum. Leisure wants to continue making art for and within the community. Such large-scale projects, however, can be tough to pull off alone. To recruit help, Leisure says she would love to include current PSU students, bringing her work back to her college roots.

Leisure wants people to be drawn into her work, and to create something that can change or even reflect those who are viewing it while passing by.

“Involving PSU students would be amazing,” she says. “Sometimes there are calls for art that are just too big for me to do on my own. It'd be really cool to have more hands on a project, and be able to have different perspectives.”

Light and reflective aspects in her work have always fascinated her, and she dreams about creating a huge public mural that incorporates those features.

“It would be really cool to walk by and see something in the mural change,” she says. “I want to make something that could weave in different stories from different people, so it wouldn't just be my story, but other people, too, who could come to it and see themselves in it. I want to make people feel seen, make them feel like they're a part of art. I always want to do projects like that.”