lumber room

An evening with artist Isabelle Albuquerque and writer Ariana Reines in dialogue. Full video up on YouTube now- Link in bio! Facilitated by the lumber room’s director and chief curator Libby Werbel, this free-flowing conversation explores topics such as death, the womb, rebirth, reincarnation, vegetable love, infinity, the cosmic Yes, and Louise Bourgeois. Ariana reads her poem written for the show and shares a few other works by other writers she sees correlate to the themes explored. Thanks to all who made it out to our final event in February for this incredible exhibition. You can see other programs we have hosted over the years on our YouTube page- visit us there when you miss us! ___________________________________________________________________________ Isabelle Albuquerque & Louise Bourgeois The Wandering Womb Curated by Libby Werbel October 11th, 2025 - January 31st, 2026 #isabellealbuquerque #arianareines #libbywerbel #lumberroompdx #louisebourgeois

Our deepest gratitude to @libbywerbel for her remarkable work at the lumber room. Libby was essential in shaping it into a place grounded in care and possibility — a place that held artists, honored art, and welcomed a broad and vibrant community. As she begins her next chapter in Los Angeles, she carries our immense respect and admiration, and our certainty that she will continue to shape the arts with the same depth, rigor, and generosity that transformed the lumber room. 🌟

Dear lumber room friends, Twenty years ago, I sat in what would become the lumber room and, with the insight and expertise of many voices, imagined a place where community could gather around art, ideas, and conversation. Since our first exhibition in 2010, the lumber room has hosted countless exhibitions, events, publications, and partnerships. I am deeply aware of the place it holds in people’s hearts and of our shared desire to be in community centered around art. We are living through a challenging moment for arts funding. With thoughtfulness and responsibility to Portland and its artists, I have decided to pause hosting exhibitions at the lumber room for the foreseeable future, in order to direct resources outward and support the wider arts ecosystem in more sustaining ways. This does not mean the lumber room is ending. It means the work is changing. The lumber room will remain home to the Miller Meigs Collection, my family, and a place of hospitality and generosity, with occasional performances, readings, and gatherings. My commitment to artists and models of long-term support continues. Thank you to all the artists and collaborators who gave their time, talent, and care to make the lumber room what it has been. This has been an extraordinary chapter, and I look forward to carrying that spirit forward. With gratitude, Sarah Miller Meigs

LAST DAY! EXTENDED HOURS- 11 - 7pm this Saturday 1/31 Isabelle Albuquerque & Louise Bourgeois, The Wandering Womb. Curated by Libby Werbel What an incredible exhibition! We have had the highest attendance on record for this show, with the most lovely visitors and so much joy and hope in the room each day we are open. Come bask in this conversation between time in these two women’s work, while you still can! Thanks to Isabelle Albuquerque and Ariana Reines for giving language to this exhibition at last evening’s event. And thanks to all of you who made it out to celebrate this show. “We give birth to each other” 🕯️ #isabellealbuquerque #louisebourgeois #libbywerbel #lumberroompdx

Ariana Reines & Isabelle Albuquerque Reading, Conversation and Closing Reception🕯️ Thursday January, 29th✨ 6:30pm 🎷 Please join us for an evening with artist Isabelle Albuquerque and writer Ariana Reines in dialogue. Facilitated by the exhibition curator Libby Werbel, this free-flowing conversation will explore topics such as death, the womb, rebirth, reincarnation, vegetable love, infinity, the cosmic Yes, and Louise Bourgeois. This event marks the final week to catch the exhibition Isabelle Albuquerque and Louise Bourgeois, The Wandering Womb, with gallery hours on Friday the 30th and Saturday the 31st from 12 - 6pm.

Last few weekends to catch our current exhibit: The Wandering Womb with work by Isabelle Albuquerque and Louise Bourgeois. Up through January 31st! We are open Fridays and Saturdays from 12-6pm . Installation images also available online now. #lumberroompdx #isabellealbuquerque #louisebourgeois #libbywerbel

Open this weekend- Friday 11/28 + Saturday 11/29 12-6 pm Isabelle Albuquerque Mother and Child, 2025 stainless steel 58 1/4 x 18 x 42 1/2 inches #isabellealbuquerque #lumberroompdx

Isabelle Albuquerque, Venus Rising, 2024, walnut. On view now as a part of Isabelle Albuquerque and Louise Bourgeois: The Wandering Womb. Photos by @mariogalluccistudio Up through January 31st, open Fridays and Saturdays 12-6pm and by appointment @isabellealbuquerque #lumberroompdx

Louise Bourgeois, Torso, Self-Portrait, 1963-64, painted bronze. Photo by @mariogalluccistudio On view now as a part of Isabelle Albuquerque & Louise Bourgeois: The Wandering Womb. Open Fridays and Saturdays 12 - 6 and by appointment.

Isabelle Albuquerque, Lovers I, 2025, patinated bronze; Louise Bourgeois, Pregnant Woman, 2002, fabric on aluminum base with glass vitrine. On view now as a part of The Wandering Womb. Photo by @mariogalluccistudio Open Friday and Saturday 12 - 6pm #isabellealbuquerque #louisebourgeois #lumberroompdx

Opening Saturday, October 11th from 4 - 7pm The lumber room is pleased to announce The Wandering Womb, a two-person exhibition featuring works by Isabelle Albuquerque and Louise Bourgeois, on view from October 11, 2025 through January 31, 2026. Bringing together two visionary artists across generations, The Wandering Womb explores the body as a site of memory, transformation, and original invention. The exhibition presents sculptures and drawings from three bodies of work by Los Angeles–based artist Isabelle Albuquerque. Known for casting her own body in materials such as bronze, resin, wood, and wax, Albuquerque’s sculptural work draws upon mythological, feminist, and post‑humanist vocabularies to claim the body as a site of collective liberation and evolutionary possibility. Her life-sized, headless figures offer a contemporary meditation on embodiment and ascension. In her work, Albuquerque negotiates intimacy and scale, history and futurity, personal lineage and female agency—deploying the body not as spectacle but as a site of radical multiplicity. These works appear in conversation with key sculptures by Louise Bourgeois from the Miller Meigs Collection. Through these distinctive and formally powerful works, Bourgeois (b. 1911 – d. 2010) examines emotional memory, maternal presence, and the architecture of the subconscious. A beloved artist and ardent believer in psychoanalysis, her sculptures are known for balancing soft, organic forms — which suggest eroticism and vulnerability — with rigid structures that evoke repression, absence, and control. This duality, between the corporeal and the constructed, allowed Bourgeois to expertly explore notions of containment and rupture, often within a single sculptural gesture. Together, these two artists engage shared themes of interiority, transformation, and the body’s capacity to hold complex and collective histories. The Wandering Womb invites viewers into a generative, cross-temporal exchange on feminine subjectivity, material intelligence, and the psychic terrain of questioning: what wanders through a body? Photo of I. A. by Olivia Malone. Photo of L. B. by Robert Mapplethorpe.

SAVE THE DATE - Opening Saturday, October 11th 4-7pm 𝐈𝐬𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐞 𝐀𝐥𝐛𝐮𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐫𝐪𝐮𝐞 & 𝐋𝐨𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐁𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐨𝐢𝐬 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐖𝐨𝐦𝐛 Happy Fall Equinox 🌑🕯️ #isabellealbuquerque #louisebourgeois #lumberroompdx