If you live in Portland, you know what Nikki McClure's papercuts look like: the heavy outlines, the limited color palette, the content that reads like propaganda for communal living, slow food, and the back-to-the-land movement (I mean this in a good way). So what might I be able to say to entice you to shuffle on over to Land Gallery to see her work up close?

Well, if you're used to seeing McClure's papercuts in smooth reproductions, the originals are something different. They're marked by McClure's process—cutting paper and gluing it down—and there's something weirdly satisfying about seeing the infinitesimal shadow between cut paper against whole. These images—of fireside knitting projects; McClure's bedtime story illustrations for May the Stars Drip Down; a solitary, flannel-clad rower on gray water; and majestic herons—have a tactile quality that McClure's calendars, however beautiful they may be, cannot recreate.

Meanwhile, across town, Arielle Adkin's Blue Print series of drawings and paintings could single-handedly disprove the popular theory that we shouldn't look for great art in coffee shops. They're up now at Stumptown at Third and Pine. I stumbled across her paintings while getting coffee, and I'm glad I did. If blue is your favorite color, you will love them instantly:

What's especially striking about Adkin's paintings is how strongly they recall a different medium altogether: the cyanotype. For those of you who AREN'T secretly 75 years old and obsessed with analog technology*, cyanotypes are an especially low-tech approach to photography, in which a blue-shaded image is produced by coating paper with photosensitive chemicals, then exposing it to ultraviolet light. Adkin's website identifies a damask print as the inspiration for her work, but you and I know the truth: they're secret cyanotypes! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to Instagramming I mean, building this pinhole camera out of an old oatmeal box.

Arielle Adkin's The Blue Print Series and Nikki McClure's Love: 15,000 Years Later are both up through Dec. 2. You should go see them.

*I mean, good for you!