Portland, Oregon: Portlandia - 2nd Largest Hammered Copper Statue

Breathtaking! Found on a plaque in front of the statue: "We take that stillness into ourselves and somewhere deep in the earth our breath becomes her city..." - excerpt from Portlandia poem by Robert Talney.

Portlandia is currently wrapped and not visible during construction on the building below it.

Portland nearly shuts down on Christmas, not to mention the dusting of snow they received, so we took a walk to visit the beauty near our hotel downtown. You could see her from blocks away. She was very impressive, and the melting snow gave the appearance of tears dripping from her cheeks.

I had no idea how big and magnificent this was until I saw it in person. You might be able to get a better view from the second floor of the building across the street, but its escalators were closed, probably because we were there Saturday evening.

Sedate, statistic-based descriptions of Portlandia did not prepare me for the fact that she was frozen in the act of leaning down from her building to grab me right off the sidewalk! No kidding, I felt as if I was taking part in some re-enactment of "Attack of the 50-foot Woman."

Oh, and they don't tell you that she is armed. With a gigantoid trident. True, it was pointed at the sky at the moment, but I was definitely inspired to stay on her good side. Perhaps she is just trying to get the attention of passersby in the hope they can arrange to get her a less tacky building to crouch upon. That monstrosity would make anyone desperate, even if they are 50 feet tall, armed and made of metal.