Annual CVB Meeting Includes a Love Letter to Athens

The winners of this year's Athens Hospitality Awards

The annual Athens Convention and Visitors Bureau meeting featured a lot of numbers, facts and figures, but what really stood out to the audience was guest speaker Lisa Love’s less quantifiable assessment of the city. Evoking the sentiments of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Love began to “count the ways” that Athens held a special place in her heart.

She began by listing the various businesses, attractions and destinations in Athens that had added to her enjoyment of the city, with Avid Bookshop, the State Botanical Garden of Georgia, Jittery Joe’s, Nuçi’s Space and the Georgia Museum of Art being but a few of the highlighted spots.

She said she loved “how you drive into downtown and you just feel different . . . that you don’t forget those who aren’t with you anymore . . . that when [Ciné] needed your help as a community, you were there for them . . . and that Athens is a place that appreciates, loves and nurtures art.”

Love, the director of the Tourism Division of the Georgia Department of Economic Development, ensured that the audience knew that she had experienced Athens as a loyal, repeat visitor, and she highlighted how the hospitality of the Athens tourism community made her time in Athens stand out. “I’ll be back,” she emphasized, “and you all did that.”

Following this love letter to the Classic City, six individuals were recognized with Athens Hospitality Awards. The winners included Richard Mikulka, Joni Robinson, Paul Martin, Mike Waldrip and Mayor Nancy Denson. One award was extra notable for the Georgia Museum of Art, as our very own Michael Lachowski was honored as the Partner of the Year. Lachowski was praised as a Renaissance man of the community, who is present for meetings across the state without fail and has been a pillar of the Athens area for many years even before working at the museum.

The numbers presented in the meeting were impressive — over $300 million in tourist spending, nearly 3,000 tourism jobs in the county and an average of $850,000 spent by visitors each day in Athens. When recognizing the work of the CVB staff and tourism industry in the city, it is hard to summarize appropriately the hard work and achievements that attraction and hospitality workers have accomplished. But one thing that the room could agree on was Lisa Love’s parting sentiment: “Athens, I really do love you.”

--
Taylor Lear
Department of Communications

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."

Art Around Athens

It's a good thing we were checking our Twitter feed or we might have forgotten about tonight's 6x6 event at Ciné from 7 to 8 p.m. The theme this time out is play, and Didi Dunphy has selected the performances etc.

Art Around Athens

At 6 p.m. today, Dr. Scott Richardson, associate dean of curriculum at the MCG/UGA Initiative Medical School, will speak on the benefits and relationship of art and medicine, as well as advances in medical school education, in Gallery 307 of the Lamar Dodd School of Art, in conjunction with the exhibition of work by scientific and medical illustration students on display there (through March 8).



Then, from 7 to 8 p.m. at Ciné, Michael Lachowski presents the first 6x6 event, focusing on fashion. Lachowski selected six new media-arts productions, each no longer than six minutes, to be screened, the format that all six of these events (there are five more upcoming, for which entries are still being accepted; next up is "Play" on April 7, with Didi Dunphy as curator) will follow.

Call for Artists

We've got a few of these for you.

First off, Michael Lachowski, member of Pylon, graphic designer and artist about town, theoretical candidate for mayor and much more, is seeking artists to contribute to his 6X6 Media Events, as chronicled on this blog. Here are some of the details:

Athens artists working in experimental, digital media, film, performance, sound, or combination arts: 6X6 wants your work

The 6X6 Media Arts Events will be held monthly from February 2010 to July 2010 in order to provide a forum for submission and curation of media artworks and build a community of participation, review, and response for both audience and practitioner.

The program title “6X6” refers to the structure of the program:

* Six events
* Sixty minutes long each
* Six pieces per event
* Six minutes or less per piece
* Six curators
* Six themes

Pieces are limited in length to six minutes, and no more than six will be selected for any one event. No limitations are placed on what type of work can be submitted except: it must be able to be projected digitally, performed, played via sound system, or some combination. Electronic files and support materials can be submitted via email (up to 5 MB's), CD, DVD, or internet download. Entries with technical problems need to be resolved by the artist or will be withdrawn or rejected. Terms of submission include permission to exhibit both live and online (whether or not selected for a particular event), permission to video tape performances, and permission to include selected work in a compilation DVD. No materials will be returned. Other than these uses, the artists will retain all rights.

A submission form can be found here. In its restrictions, the project kind of reminds us of the Pecha Kucha, which hasn't made it as far as Athens but is thriving in Atlanta.

A bit less hip is the "Give Wildlife a Chance" poster contest, which is geared toward students and sponsored by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the State Botanical Garden of Georgia and The Environmental Resources Network, Inc. (T.E.R.N.), with a deadline of March 22. This year's theme is "The Future of Georgia’s Wildlife is in YOUR Hands." To download a pdf of the brochure, click here.

The Gwinnett Citizen just ran an article about the Hudgens Prize, which consists of $50,000 in cash and a solo exhibition for an artist in any medium as long as he or she lives in Georgia full-time and is 18 or older. Jurors are David Kiehl, curator of prints at the Whitney Museum of American Art; Sylvie Fortin, editor-in-chief of ART PAPERS Magazine; and Eungie Joo, Keith Haring Director and Curator of Exhibitions and Public Programs at the New Museum in New York. The deadline for entry is June 4, and more information can be obtained from the Jacqueline Casey Hudgens Center for the Arts Web site.

Athens Academy is looking for mail art and accepting entries of postcard-sized artwork for inclusion in an exhibition there that will be up through March. Both sides of the card will be on display as part of a permanent exhibit at the school. Mail your entries to Lawrence Stueck, Athens Academy, P.O. Box 6548, Athens, GA 30604 or email him at lstueck at athensacademy.org for more details.