Mark your calendars for the 14th annual AthFest, June 23–27 in downtown Athens. The festival showcases Athens-based music and art.
Friday, April 30, 2010
AthFest 2010
The Great Picture
The nonprofit Legacy Project in Orange County produces documentation of the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station. The project began in April 2002 and will continue to document the conversion of the air station into the Orange County Great Park, which will include housing and a large urban park. The Legacy Project uses photographs, video and oral histories to “provide a unique record of an extraordinary development in the history of southern California.”
Art Around Athens (and Beyond)
The Madison-Morgan Cultural Center is putting on its annual "Madison in May Spring Tour of Homes & Gardens," a self-guided tour of homes and churches that are mostly within walking distance of the center, Friday (April 30) and Saturday (May 1), from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets are $25 per day, unless you bought yours in advance. There's also a Plein Air Paint Out Saturday that features Georgia artists painting the tour venues, then offering their work in a silent auction on the Cultural Center lawn at 5 p.m., and you can see a list of the venues on the MMCC's site.
Tonight, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Healing Arts Centre, author and psychologist Baraka Elihu signs copies of her book, "Birthing Ourselves into Being: A Year Long Women's Empowerment Program," while local quilter Sarah Hubbard, whose work is featured in the book, displays her unique art quilts.
Friday evening, Flicker Theatre and Bar will have a closing reception for "Zigzagland," an exhibition featuring paintings by John Stidham.
Saturday and Sunday (May 1-2), from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation will hold its Southworks Artist Market and Arts Festival, featuring 65 of the region's top arts and craft persons selling original works in a juried market that includes pottery, paintings, fiber art, stained and fused glass, jewelry, sculpture, photography and woodwork. There's also live music, a children's activity area and food vendors.
If you want to venture as far as Buford, Slotin Folk Art is having its Spring Masterpieces Sale. The auction starts at 10 a.m. Saturday and noon Sunday, and the full catalogue is linked from the Slotin website.
In Athens, the spring version of the Indie Craftstravaganzaa takes place Saturday from noon to 7 p.m. in the parking lot at Clayton and Pulaski streets downtown, with nearly 100 vendors and DJ Kurt Wood spinning awesome records while you browse.
Saturday night at 7 p.m. at the Lamar Dodd School of Art is the premiere of "Specters of the Outer Spaces," Athens artist Marie Porterfield's collaborative film project about the importance of the human belief in the unseen, followed by a reception.
Sunday, from noon to 5 p.m. at the downtown location of Transmetropolitan, is "She's Crafty!" an artists' market hosted by the ladies of Transmet. Check out jewelry, cards, gifts and more, then come home and relax for the last few hours of the weekend.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Art Around Athens (and Beyond)
A few art events are taking place today (Thursday, April 29).
The Commercial Bank (at 1000 Moore's Grove Rd., in Winterville) is having a free reception and auction of art by local middle and high school students at 6 p.m. We believe this is the bank's annual Art Makes Cents program but haven't been able to confirm.
Phi Beata Heata, the jewelry and metals student organization at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, is having one of its semiannual jewelry sales, which began yesterday and will continue today on the second floor of the Miller Learning Center from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Over at ATHICA, from 7 to 8 p.m., curator/director Lizzie Zucker Saltz is leading a free informal talk about the gallery's spring exhibition, "Deluge," which explores climate change and the politics of land management.
And at Ciné Barcafé, there's an opening reception from 7 to 9 p.m. for "Frisky Box," Michael Lachowski's new project, which features, according to Flagpole, "large, standing images on display and a screening of a short film starring a box, a boy and five gold balloons."
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Athens Sculpture Festival
The Classic Center Cultural Foundation has announced the names of the artists that will participate in the first annual Athens Sculpture Festival. The festival will take place June 24–26 at the Classic Center in downtown Athens.
Participating sculptors will be: Beverly Babb, Matt Boland, Travis Christopher, Jaclyn Enck, Will Eskridge, Ted Gloeckler, Donald Goldstein, Ann Hamlin, Sarah Heath, Joshua Jordan, Mike Jones, Steve Lobar, Doug Makemson, Benjamin McKee, Stan Mullins, Karol Patterson, Tony Ransom, Andrew Rosen, Daniel Sizemore and Abraham Tesser.
Each artist will display a maximum of four pieces at the juried exhibition. Prizes include $1,000 for “Best in Show,” $500 for second place, $250 for third place, $250 for honorable mention and $1,000 for the People’s Choice Award.
All sculptures presented at the festival will be available for sale. The Classic Center Cultural Foundation will purchase at least one piece for its permanent collection. Future plans for the Classic Center include a sculpture park featuring permanent and touring works of art.
“Art is so important. It provides an intangible but extra dimension to daily life,” said Julie Walters, director of the Classic Center Cultural Foundation.
The Classic Center Cultural Foundation works to provide resources to entertain and educate the community by supporting shows that expand the cultural offering of the Classic Center, supporting programs that broaden the exposure of the arts to people of the community, providing funds to purchase art from local artists to hang in the Classic Center, awarding grants to performing arts groups and scholarships to local art students and maintaining the Classic Center in pristine condition.
Call 706.208.0900 or visit www.AthensSculptureFestival.com for more information.
High Museum’s new curator of modern and contemporary art, Michael Rooks
Earlier this year, Michael Rooks became the High Museum in Atlanta’s new curator of modern and contemporary art. The Illinois native previously worked as the chief curator and director of exhibitions and artist relations at Haunch of Venison (the Christie’s gallery in New York), as curator at the Contemporary Museum Honolulu and as curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.
Rooks’ responsibilities at the High will include working on the museum’s multi-year collaboration with New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and co-organizing a contemporary art exhibition to be drawn from MOMA’s collection. More important, Rooks will work to mend the museum’s frayed relationship with the contemporary art community. Rooks says he plans to work with local artists, teachers and collectors to build excitement in the community.
His first day on the job, Rooks met with art consultant Mary Stanley and then spoke at a meeting of her Young Collectors’ club attended by local collectors, artists and art advocates. Rooks spent hours talking and listening to artists at the meeting.
Rooks is known for putting on exhibitions the public can relate to. While working in Chicago, he organized the exhibition “Like War, What is it Good For” about the Iraq war, which mixed works by local artists and national figures.
Rooks plans to spend his first six months at the High Museum getting to know his way around before starting on larger projects, although he has already begun making acquisitions.
Those working with Rooks are impressed. “I think he will be able to ignite excitement and get more people involved,” says collector Sara Schlesinger.
GMOA in the News
The Albany Herald has a nice article about collaboration among museums that mentions GMOA's collaboration with the Albany Museum of Art on numerous things, including the AMA's exhibition of works by Lamar Dodd, plus GMOA director William U. Eiland's lecture there tomorrow on Dodd at 6:30 p.m.
Art Around Athens
Looking for some new accessories that show how arty you are? Phi Beata Heata, the student jewelry and metals organization at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, is having one of its semiannual sales starting today on the first floor of the Dodd on East Campus, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The sale will continue tomorrow, moving to the Miller Learning Center, so it's not your only chance, but if you want first dibs, you should get there early.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Edible art
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brooklyn_museum/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
Last Thursday, April 22, the Brooklyn Ball celebrated the Brooklyn Museum’s exhibition “American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection,” which introduces the long-awaited debut of a costume collection that is the result of a partnership between the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Winterville Marigold Festival Parade
The Winterville Marigold Festival is seeking participants for its parade to be held at 10 a.m. on May 15. This family-friendly event welcomes anything from floats to horses, antique vehicles, tractors and walking groups. Businesses, civic and church organizations, schools, families, individuals and music/talent groups are encouraged to participate. The parade’s theme for this year is, “Marigolds, Music & Memories,” and the use of marigolds by those planning to participate in the parade is encouraged. Entry is free and prizes will be awarded to those with the most creative floats in relation to the parade’s theme. Entries must be submitted by May 11 to participate. For an entry form, please visit www.MarigoldFestival.com. Winterville is about 15 minutes east of Athens. Last year’s festival featured an exhibition of sculptures by Doug Makemson cosponsored by GMOA.
Google Goggles' New Acquisition
Plink has joined Google Goggles! For those who don’t know what in the world Google Goggles is let alone Plink, have no fear: this new program might intrigue and fascinate even the most ardent traditionalists or at least spark debate about the role of docents and the gradual phasing out of basic human communication. In essence, Plink Art is a smartphone application created by Mark Cummins and James Philbin that lets its user take a picture of any well-known work of art and immediately discern its title, artist, which museum or collector houses it, etc. After the work is identified, the application provides a link to allposters.com, in case of adoration and absolute urge to acquire a likeness of the work.
Philbin explains how Plink's technology works: “‘It picks out repeatable elements from the image you take and comes out with a statistical representation of them.’ That process works even at different angles and different lighting conditions" Cummins adds "You can start doing some really interesting things when you have recommendation data, like personalized tours based on your favourite paintings. Museums are very interested in social sharing and Facebook."
Google Goggles, Plinkart’s buyer, is a subsidiary group of Google that works to develop instant recognition programs. That is, you take a picture with your phone of whatever object you want to find out more information on—the application currently recognizes wine, logos, places, artwork, business cards, books, and landmarks—and the application will give you a compiled list of stats, prices, and general information regarding the object or place.
Although you need a smartphone for the Plinkart application (the Google Goggles program is limited to Android phones), the concept is still pretty incredible and is most certainly an idea to watch. Both teams will be working together to develop a search engine that identifies and researches more and more of the objects, scenes, and people that make up our surroundings.
Construction Updates from Holder
Current week - Activities/Issues:
New Gallery / Connector
• Installed all electric floor boxes in the gallery.
• Finished ceilings and painted walls in the connector.
Existing Building Renovations
• Finishing ceilings and painting walls.
• Completed the waterproofing repairs to the existing North wall on 3rd floor.
Storage Bar
• Completed the vapor barrier / spray insulation on the 2nd floor.
• Started interior framing / hanging drywall on second floor.
Site / Sculpture Garden
• Continuing to excavate and remove rock for the cistern tanks.
• Installed the irrigation mains and built up soils in the sculpture garden.
Next week - Activities/Issues:
New Gallery / Connector
• Install wood flooring sleeper system and complete finish mock-up.
Existing Building Renovations
• Start below SOG vapor barrier at the east alternate entry.
• Start roofing / gutters for the east alternate entry.
• Continue to finish walls and prime paint.
Storage Bar
• Finish roof installation on the 2nd floor.
• Hang drywall in the 2nd floor.
Site / Sculpture Garden
• Continue to excavate cistern tank and water pump tank.
• Install the water vault for the fountain in the sculpture garden.
• Complete concrete hardscape mock-up.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Update: Georgia Council for the Arts
The full Georgia Senate voted to approve the Appropriation Committee’s recommendation, which includes restoring $890,735 to the Georgia Council for the Arts. This will save the GCA and allow the agency to match its federal grant and retain its regional funding. Differences between the House and the Senate’s budgets must be reconciled by a Conference Committee made up of equal members of both bodies before the final budget can be sent to the Governor for approval.
Image: ArtsCriticATL.com
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Visiting Artist Lecture Tonight!
Kelly John Clark will be giving a lecture tonight on his drawings, prints and installations. The lecture will be at 5:00 p.m. at the Lamar Dodd School of Art, Room N100. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend!
Sculpting Workshop offered in Athens this May
Sculpt Across America, a sculpting tour traveling the country, will be in the Athens area this May to bring attention to sculpture and the art of sculpting and to get people working in clay!
The tour includes a sculpting workshop for local artists. The two-day workshop focuses on intensive figure/torso sculpting. Artists can tackle the full figure or just the torso. Either option will teach artists the techniques and approach needed to achieve accuracy and naturalism. The workshop will introduce techniques called “The Speed in Which Form Turns” and “Triangulation” and will explain specific sculpting methods that will increase accuracy, anatomy, process and modeling techniques with a naturalistic approach reminiscent of the Old Masters.
The workshop will be taught by Karen Cope, a figurative sculptor from California. Cope was classically trained at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy. She has taught figurative sculpture at her alma mater, the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art, Disney’s Circle Seven Studios and Cope Studios (her private studio where she develops her work and teaches a variety of classes, workshops and private lessons).
The workshop will be offered at the Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation (OCAF) located at 34 School Street in Watksinville, May 4 and 5 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with a one-hour lunch break each day. Cost is $225 per person, and there are still a few spots open. To secure reservations, contact Gary at 706.225.9082 or e-mail grossman@negia.net.
GMOA Associate Curator of Education, Judge and Jury
On Sunday, April 11, Georgia Museum of Art associate curator of education, Carissa DiCindio, traveled to Valdosta, Ga. to judge the Spring into Art exhibition at the Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts. Nancy Bookhart, an art professor from Paine College who received her M.F.A. at UGA in 2005, and DiCindio took the entire afternoon to decide which 65 works out of 400+ submissions would be chosen for the juried exhibition. In addition to that, the two judges chose the best of show and decided the winners in 6 categories: drawing/painting, printmaking, photography, mixed media, sculpture, ceramics, and jewelry/craft. All entries will be in an exhibition through May 26th, followed by an exhibition of the juried works opening on June 7, where the winners will be announced.
"There were a lot of excellent entries, and we had to make some very difficult choices in our selections," said DiCindio of her experience. "My favorite part about judging is that I feel like I got to know the artists in the region through their works. The staff members of the Turner Center were gracious hosts, and it was a wonderful trip."
Read more about Spring into Art in The Valdosta Daily Times.
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council provides valuable workspace for local artists
This week, 30 visual and performing artists in New York City will have the opportunity to move to Governor’s Island, an area in lower Manhattan, where they will begin a year-round artist studio program hosted by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC). Since 1997, the Artist Residencies department of LMCC has partnered with real estate owners in lower Manhattan to address the critical needs of local artists for studio, rehearsal and presentation space. The LMCC has worked to secure donations of temporarily vacant spaces to transform them into art studios. Artists in this year’s program will live in the newly renovated Building 110, where they will have access to 20 studios, two rehearsal areas and a large exhibition space with views of lower Manhattan and New York Harbor. Artist residencies will run from March to July and from August to December. Space is granted through open applications. The LMCC feels that placing artists into the lower Manhattan landscape serves the art community at large and enhances downtown Manhattan’s cultural environment. The LMCC works to invigorate the arts in the local community by selecting and commissioning works of art, producing and presenting performances, all the while working to maintain a vibrant arts community.
Athens Street Show 2010
Athens Street Show, an exhibition in downtown Athens presented by students in the Lamar Dodd School of Art, started yesterday and is on display through May 2.
The students are in Didi Dunphy’s Professional Practices Seminar, which received an Athens Arts Unleashed grant for the project. The class teamed up with local retailers to show pieces in shop windows downtown. There will also be a curator-led “Art Walk” from 6 to 7 p.m. this Sunday, April 25 (more information below).
The class been preparing for this project for a month. The students were split up into eight curatorial teams and paired artists with downtown spaces (the artists are not in the professional practices course). The Athens Street Show reflects the Arts Unleashed program and “presents art existing in challenging and surprising locations to create an art exhibition for all.”
The windows downtown are designed to tie in with both the art displayed and the retailer. Various disciplines of art are presented, and the students involved come from many different backgrounds. To view a full list of participating student curators, artists and locations, click here.
Athens Street Show’s website describes the seminar and the exhibition:
Professor Didi Dunphy's Professional Practices seminar is a course at the Lamar Dodd School of Art designed to introduce students to the wide possibilities of creative fields available for artists and creative entrepreneurial minds. Athens Street Show 2010 is a project undertaken with this in mind, to celebrate the relationship between the art by the students of Lamar Dodd, and the greater Athens community. Athens Street Show 2010 bridges the gap between art and community spaces.
The curator-led “Art Walk” (Sunday, 4/25) will begin at 6 p.m. at the Arch on Broad Street. The group will walk to each site and listen to student curators and artists as they describe the works and answer questions. The walk will end with a celebration at Farm 255. The event is free and open to the public.
Art Around Athens
In honor of Earth Day, come check out the Georgia Review's Second Annual Earth Day Celebration and Spring Issue Release Party from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Cecil B. Day Chapel, State Botanical Garden of Georgia. Writers Judith Ortiz Cofer, a 2010 inductee into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, and George Singleton, a 2009 Guggenheim fellow, will read; photographs by associate professor Michael J. Marshall, the Review’s Winter 2009 featured artist (above), will be on display; local musical duo Hawk Proof Rooster will perform; and copies of the Review will be available for purchase, both individually and via subscription.
Friends of the Museum Annual Meeting
We're mailing out postcard invitations to this upcoming event, too, but if you're not on our mailing list please know that the annual meeting of the Friends of the Georgia Museum of Art is free and open to the public and scheduled for May 14 at 7 p.m. The meeting will be preceded by hard-hat tours of the new building, which require a reservation (call 706.542.GMOA [4662]) and that you dress appropriately, in pants and closed-toed sturdy shoes. Click on the image above to see it full size and look for the same in your physical and e-mailbox.