To loyal readers of the Sentinel site and consistent users of our community calendar:

The Sentinel site is scheduled to lock-down this coming August 3. Staff content production ceased earlier this month but the site continues to be actively used by the community. However, after some effort on my part, I have been unable find a sustainable business model or partnership that would allow continued service.

Last month The Sentinel and the Oregon News Incubator ceased their publishing and office share arrangement. The partnership produced a significant amount of coverage throughout the spring. However, by June it was clear that taking on news assignments was more demanding for ONI members than the rewards yielded by relatively free workspace in North Portland. The ONI continues to meet and conduct its work of supporting freelancer reporters. I wish them well.

Despite the fact that no partnership or staff reporting has occurred recently, some 8,000 users still traffic and post to this site. I believe this proves that both the publication and the online model we created here turned out to be a useful resource to the community.

After August 3, the site and it’s data will continue to be publicly available through search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo. However, all dynamic features will cease to publish. No new comments, events, or other new material may be added after July 31.

The site’s files will be transfered to the non-profit group North Portland Community Works. The NPCW will maintain the files so that they can still be accessible through the web. A set of the Sentinel’s paper editions will be donated to the City of Portland's archives and another set will go to the St Johns Heritage Society.

When I found Automorphosis director Harrod Blank in the parking lot of Milwaukie's Pietro's Pizza,  he had his giant frame tucked under the hood of his prized art car, a VW bug adorned with more designs, sculptures and odd bric-a-brac than most consignment shops. He was casually retooling the bug to keep it primed for its constant treks across the country, trips Blank takes to document the movement(s) of art cars like his. 

On Saturday the Pietro's lot was hosting a live rock band and eight or nine other vehicular sculptures, most made by local artists that we've all seen here and there, motoring around town. 

Portland window-painter Scot Campbell was in the lot, showing off his newest work-in-progress, a brass-covered van/sculpture that, like most car-artists, he uses for everyday transport. Campbell has lived in Portland for years and makes his living designing advertisements and decorations for store windows (including those of Pietro's) which he then hand-paints. 

"Ripper the Friendly Shark", a 1982 Nissan Sentra turned rolling polyurethane shark, isn't at this particular car show, but every car here has a bumper sticker commemorating Tom Kennedy, the Portland native who drove the "Shark" around town until his death in 2009.

 Automorphosis - directed by Harrod Blank - US - 2008

Playing Friday, June 25, 9:15 p.m. at the Clinton Street Theater 2522 SE Clinton St. Director in attendance.

Additional Screening Sunday June 27, 7:00 p.m. (followed by the doc "OMG it's Harrod Blank" at 9:00 p.m.)

Monday June 28 - Thursday July 1 - nightly 7:00 and 9:00 p.m.

One man has seven cars, all decorated with paintings of his face and sentences that implore onlookers to cast him in a film. He lives in Hollywood. A woman in Forest Grove, OR, suffers from severe depression and has glued mutilated toy babies, skulls and death-metal slogans every which way onto her car. A  Jesus freak in Arizona drives a loud van adorned with religious slogans and proclaims Christ's love through a mounted megaphone. A German novelty-store owner has turned his motorcycle into a plastic hamburger. There seems to be a cult of tricked-out bicycles going on in Brooklyn. And the director himself, Harrod Blank, has a VW bug outfitted with a television, a spinning globe, countless knick-knacks and the phrase "Oh my God!" scrawled in 25 languages. His obsession with turning his car into an art piece wasn't understood by his father, the filmmaker Les Blank, until Harrod made a successful film about it. 

Dozens of other wacky Americans, and their creations-on-wheels, are briefly summarized in Automorphosis, possibly the most loveable -- which is not to say cutesy -- documentary I have ever seen. Harrod Blank shares a kinship and understanding with his subjects that leads to a very warm rundown of the reasons they glue and paint things onto their vehicles. His doe-eyed method doesn't stay with any one subject long enough for much depth, but that's fine, because in a 76 minute film where more than two dozen creators of auto-masterworks are given their due, not a one of them is less than fascinating.