Article: Portland's 'young creatives' tough out tough times

Ceramics artist Heidi Sowa had her eyes set on Portland for years. The city was not too big, had a cohesive arts community and plenty of easygoing and helpful people.

Within weeks of arriving, she landed a gig making costumes for 8-inch puppets in "Coraline," a 3-D stop-motion animated movie. Her job ended last year, and the movie opened in theaters earlier this year.

Now, at 26, Sowa is living on unemployment, sleeping in a single room apartment and eating from a refrigerator in a studio she shares with other artists under a bridge ramp in Portland's industrial east riverbank.

And she's not planning to go anywhere.

Like thousands of well-educated young adults who have flocked to Portland, she ...

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