Abuela's Kitchen helps communities to develop and maintain creative placemaking projects that are expressed artistically or ecologically. Placemaking is the embodiment of community story in spaces that people live, work and play. We are an LLC owned and operated by Kirk Rea.

Projects may be physical, like murals or community gardens, or may be social like pop-up markets, festivals and community dialogue. This process is often a collaborative initiative. We work with communities in the Portland Metro Region and work on scales that include neighborhood based initiatives, faith based communities, schools, businesses, non-profits, villages for the unhoused, and government agencies. Abuela’s Kitchen has an extensive background in street painting, working on ~15 street murals per summer since 2015.

The name, Abuela’s Kitchen, is in honor Kirk’s Grandma Josie, for her spirit of bringing together people in her kitchen whether it was eating pozole for a birthday or playing Michigan rummy.

Abuela’s Kitchen name is also to honor a close partnership with Master Artist Michael Bernard Stevenson Jr. who hosts art projects called Grandmother’s Kitchen which brings people together using recipes from grandmothers.