[video post: click title to view]

CONSIDERING THE PROBLEMS AND/OR POSSIBILITIES OF CONTEMPORARY ART

Taylor Worley of Union University (TN) offers some reflections and thoughts about the state of contemporary art to frame a discussion of the problems and possibilities that accompany the contemporary art of today. Providing some context to the historical, social and religious issues surrounding art in the 20th and 21st century, he wants to encourage realistic but hopeful thinking about future trajectories in culture-shaping/making that involves the visual arts. (more...)

Well, if I wasn't already planning on going to the Guilt/Split Lip reunion concert at Headliners on Friday May 1st, I'd be going to the Garden Party Opening Reception and Open Studio Night at the Harrison Center in Indianapolis.  The Harrison Center is a great venue with great leadership.  They house over 20 studios and 4 gallery spaces.  Joanna Taft, who is the director there, came down to Louisville a few months ago and gave us some direction with the 930 and Sojourn Visual Arts.  If you want to get out of town on crazy Derby Weekend then go to Indianapolis and check out the Harrison Center.

Newborn Lifeline is looking for artists who would like to participate in an upcoming fundraiser.  They are casting the torsos of pregnant women and supplying those casts to artist for embellishment.  The finished pieces will be auctioned off in June.

The medium is the artist’s choice (Paint, Clay, Plaster, Glass, Mosaic, Metal…the sky is the limit).  The casts will be available to artists on or after April 20, 2009 and they will need the completed works returned to them no later than June 1, 2009.

If you would like to participate or you know an artist who would please contact Kathy at 502-648-9901 or by e-mail at Kathy@newbornlifeline.org.

For more information on the program visit www.yournewbornlifeline.com .

To see what others have done with casts like these visit http://www.proudbody.com/articles.asp?id=162

The Butchertown Art Fair Folks are making 2009 better than ever. They're now looking for artists and crafters to fill booth spaces. Here's the info:

Sunday, May 17, 2009, 11a-5pm
We are now accepting booth reservations for artists & crafters at our lowest rates ever—only $25 if you live in Butchertown!

CALL FOR ARTISTS!

Reserve Your Space
10 ft x 10 ft
$25 /Butchertown residents
$50 /non-Butchertown residents & all businesses
Multiple booth spaces available, if you'd like more information, be sure to get in touch with us. If you are interested in renting a tent or table for the day of the event, send a note to Natasha Maze, nmaze1@yahoo.com

Location
On Washington St between Webster St & Adams St in the heart of Butchertown.
Parking will be available for vendors day of event.

Download Application Form Here!

I'm very much looking forward to the Anathallo concert Thursday at the 930.  Last week I finally took the time to sit in my car with their new CD, Canopy Glow, turned up full blast.  I read through the lyric sheets as it played and was amazed at the depth of the music.  The vocals are so acrobatic, I hadn't really heard most of what they were actually saying until I read along.  "Northern Lights" was the climax for me.

"You paper cut the air above the tundra when you came back in silence, in sheets, and the neighbors called me out of my sleep to watch you unfold the blanket.  Wrap me back into the womb.  The first thought is fear, and brother, it emits a crippling bend.  A shame you can't know that you carry until you've seen it offered down.  Watching shielded in the silence, shielded in the knowledge that has no use for language.  Standing on the lawn at a distance.  Watching shielded in the silence.  Shielded in the knowledge that has no use for language.  Standing on the lawn until you wish to be crushed in its collisions.  You paper cut the air above the tundra when you came back in silence, in sheets, and the neighbors called me up."

The cover art for Canopy Glow is a haunting painting by Chicago artist Tim Lowly.  We put up an exhibit of Tim's wonderful paintings last fall at the 930 and he stayed at our house for a weekend with some musician friends who play music with the Tim Lowly ensemble (Tim has not only mastered painting, but songwriting and performing also).  The painting on the album cover is of the artist's daughter, Temma, who is severely disabled.  What's disturbing about the image is that she is laying helplessly in a desert landscape.  Initially disturbing, the cover art works well with the album upon a deeper listen.  The image particularly resonates with "The River" and with "Noni's Field" both of which have a death theme.

Tim Lowly's wife is a minister at Berry United Methodist Church in Chicago, and when they met Anathallo, they were able to offer practice space to the band inside the church building.  Talking with Tim, I was really impressed with the easy and natural way he and his church were able to use their resources to help out a band.

Also, my friend Greg Leppert, who played trumpet in Anathallo for a short season, did the album design.  Good job, Greg.  Good job, Tim Lowly.  Good job, Anathallo.

Anathallo plays the 930 with Chemic Thursday April 16, 2009 @ 7:30 p.m.  6:30 doors. $10.

The mailman kindly brought me a very nice postcard a couple days ago, sent from my photographer friend and hero Michael Wilson.  You might be most familiar with Michael Wilson's photographs of musicians.  He's done most of the album art for Over The Rhine and has photographed all kinds of famous musicians like Wilco and B.B. King.  He made my favorite little art photography book (I See That Hand).  Also, he was one of the first artists we showed at the 930 and he'll have another exhibit at the 930 this fall.

But the big news with his work right now is that he's got a mid-career retrospective called 'the day of small things' showing at the Weston Gallery in Cincinnatti's Aranoff Center.  It opens April 10th and there's a gallery talk May 6th.

I'll be checking it out soon and will write up a response - glowing with appreciation I'm sure.

picture: me with Aaron Weiss - Thanks to Drew Layman for the awesome poloroid.

I spent a good chunk of last Friday and Saturday hanging around Aaron Weiss, frontman for the post-punk band mewithoutYou.  Artistically, he's a hero of mine, and I was curious to see what he was like in person.  I'm still trying to make sense of it all.  He performed a very entertaining solo concert and lead an interesting writing class, but there were a lot of other moments that gave cause for pause as well.  He stopped and said a prayer before he entered my house.  He, though being a rock star, washed the dishes (using very little water), and without making it a big deal.  And he refused most of the money we tried to pay him for coming from Philadelphia to participate in Cultivate Beauty, insisting that we could probably do better things with the money than he could.  He truly marches to the tune of a different drummer.

He talked to throngs of needy teenagers for hours on end.  One at a time they'd come up and tell him all their problems - some crying their eyes out, and some trying to resolve all their mental issues right then and there.  He just patiently listened to each person, giving each person a hug and remembering their name.  He called everyone brother or sister.

I'm still wondering what makes him so approachable.  He's ruthlessly honest and bold, though also with a tinge of insecurity and oddity.  His mannerisms and scattered way of communicating can come across as weird, and I think that's why he's so admired by young, insecure people of artistic temperment like me.  The church is so full of people who only do their best to speak in three point sermons everywhere they go.  Those of us who know we can never speak in three-point sermons just don't have many living examples of Christians letting all their eccentricities out and speaking in simple blessings, strange parables and true paradoxes, but Aaron does just that, and it makes him attractive to those of us who just can't help but let our eccentricities out.  Brother, sister, it's okay.  It's alright.  We inside ourselves are many but God, our God, is one.