a life to remember

How do you remember the times that you laugh and cry, the times that you argue, complain, fear, believe, hope, dream, love, and all of those
other aspects of life?  It is a moment, a simple memory, a fleeting thought, or a long pause?

We have been forced into the reality of life…a life to remember.  our son who has been battling neuroblastoma cancer, was freed from the 
battle on January 9th, 2009.  

Through this struggle we have appreciated having art as a language to express our feelings, thoughts, prayers; understood or not.
Below are poems in response to his life.
____________________________

why did you go?

i know you were strong and brave

our missing you is beyond pain and yet

you are so full of joy —

more than you even left with us,

which is hard to fathom,

excruciating to believe.

faith is unseen but true;

in weakness there is strength.

most don’t understand what you gave,

like the ONE…

your life LIVED not in vain,

but in such love, gifted gain,

welcomed pleasure

building life, home and eternity

with lions, a melting smile and more talent than

can be imagined.

Darin M. White

Copyright 1.22.09

  

Sculptures by Darin White and Drawing by Shannon White, copyright 2009
____________

 

We love you, Caden, One of Joy, our Little Warrior.

Capture the heart of the King.

“Drink the wind”,

Ride the baby lion!

Shine your light;

Twinkle bright so we can See you at night.

Fish, Build, Play, Run fast. 

Fly into the sunrise. 

Live your Dreams now and Forever.

We won’t forget the Treasure you are

Precious little guy who brought us such joy,

A gift we can never replace.

Go with God!

Be at peace with no more pain.

Be Free! 

Be one with the Savior.

Love forever in His open arms.

Eat from the Tree of Life

Fruit of Forgiveness.

Days without end…

 

Shannon N. White  
Copyright 2009

b.a.l.m ANNOUNCES ~ A RESONATE PICTURES PRODUCTION on NOVEMBER 12th, 2007

b.a.l.m

ANNOUNCES ~

A   PRODUCTION

NOVEMBER 12^th, 2007

THE ELDRIDGE EXTENDED

8^th & VERMONT ~ LAWRENCE, KANSAS

TWO INDEPENDENT FILM SCREENINGS 7PM~8PM
____________________________________
“I have a slight update for the screening this coming Monday.  
There is not going to be food served before hand
(which is a good thing because it didn’t sound like it was
going to be very delicious) and the cost is now $5 which
includes popcorn and soda with a cash bar (but don’t go
crazy, cause we’ll head over to Free State afterwards for
buck seventy-five pints). The doors will open at 6:30 so
get ready to scope out your seat (there will only be so
many of those big brown leather comfy chairs).  
Screening starts at 7 with my short playing first and its
only 8 minutes long – so don’t miss.  
The other ‘”film” is the mockumentary and it runs about
40 minutes.  Its pretty funny.  I think you’ll like it.  
But if you’re the type that likes a good plot in your shows,
then feel free to slip over to Free State a bit early. Again,
the event is open to the public so feel free to
pass this along to anyone who likes to say they like
independent film.  See you there.  The Eldridge Extended.  
Corner of 8th and Vermont.  Not the main hotel, but
the new addition a block away.  5 bucks.  Popcorn with
refills.  A filmmaker happy to see all your faces.  
1.75 pints afterwards.”

Marc Havener
Principal
Resonate Pictures
www.resonatepictures.com 

____________________________________

Please come out to support Marc and RESONATE PICTURES.
If you have any questions let us know.

b.a.l.m

Call For Entries – BALM Destination Postcard Show – Art Affair Gallery

BALM is pleased to announce its call for entries for the Destination Postcard Show, which will be showing in the Art Affair Gallery in Baldwin, KS in mid November.  Entries will be judged and chosen on interest, aesthetics, creativity and quality.  Postcards must represent a Destination theme, however this is interpreted.  Postcards should remain in the realm of 4″ x 6″ and may be two sided.   

Postcards can be mailed or dropped off and must arrive BEFORE Saturday November 9th, 2007. 
We will limit entries as required.  Please enter no more than 3 postcards.  The gallery is requiring all work must be for sale.  If we already have your postcard, please let us know if you want it included for sale and what the price will be.  Please remember that your price must include the 40% amount that the gallery requires. 

We will announce the show opening date and reception at a future time.  Please contact us with questions at email or phone. 

Below is the original postcard for the desitation gathering.

Backstory Biography and All That KC Jazz

                                               by Shannon White                 

                  

                 Shannon revisiting her familial jazz roots at the KC Museum of 
                 Jazz – Sept 2007

                 
                 
                  
                   KC Jazz sculpture outside of museum 18th & Vine

    

     High school year book entry for Ralph C Wentz, 
     Shannon’s Grandfather & Jazz Pianist

Two sides of the room sang bebop rhythms back and forth, repeated, then overlapping each other.  The groups waited while vocal and instrumental solos gave their spontaneous variations, then let the chorus respond.  We sang and listened through several sets, awaiting our turn to scat or hear to another soloist.  I reconnnected with my slightly unfamiliar familial jazz roots last June 2007 in Minneapolis, Minnesota at a an Artists Gathering called Via Affirmativa.  Dr. Kyle Gregory, a family man who works as a professional jazz musician in Italy — an amazing jazz musician, teacher and person — gave the multi-disciplinary group of artists brief history of jazz with improvisational performances,  an education on jazz scale construction, rhythm emphasis, and best of all scatting bebop group improvs with instrumental solos.  We were all involved no matter what our artistic background.  It was interactive and exciting, and made me want to try jazz piano or flute for the first time since I started learning in grade school through high school and beyond — I said “try”.  I was also inspired to sketch the trumpeter with the energetic marks traveling up his arched spine, through the bell of his horn, then activating the space around him as I have seen so many other artists do, not to mimic, but because that was simply what I envisioned.  The creative experience in Minneapolis also made me want to discover more about this personal and local history with jazz than I had for my eighth grade speech class on my grandfather and his jazz career years ago. I began to wonder why he chose jazz, what it was like to have his career during his lifetime and later carry it on with a family, how his piano playing was integrated into the American jazz scene altogether and the regional KC scene as well.  This quest involved online research, interviewing my father and thinking about what made jazz spread from America throughout the world as a truly American art form.

               

           Bix Beiderbecke and his gang, which often changed players

Apparently, jazz began in New Orleans at the turn of the twentieth century, as a culmination of African, Spanish, Italian, South American and French cultures.  The blues and marching band style combination with spontaneous music with syncopated “rag time” rhythms traveled up from the seaport town.  The Mississippi River carried African American and Caucasian musicians looking for better futures in Chicago, Illinois, making it the new center for jazz by 1920.   Jazz had always been in my grandfather’s blood.  My grandfather, Ralph C Wentz was born in Ottawa, Illinois, not too far from Chicago in July 7,1909.  He took piano lessons as a child paid for by his grandmother, and took his first piano job playing for silent movies in his father’s silent movie house in Geneseo, Illinois, which is where he grew up.  He then played ragtime in the band his father, Ralph Sr. and Uncle Harry Wentz formed and played in the area.  He studied piano at the Sheridan Institute of Music in Chicago in the early 1930s and then was hired by a piano company in Chicago.  America was in a great period of prosperity at this time, and the country was celebrating with jazz.  No doubt my grandfather was caught up in this progressive American sound and couldn’t resist the proximity or the excitement.  His Uncle Harry was the a pianist for one of the first caucasian jazz bands, Bix Biederbecke , in the quad cities on bordering Illinois and Iowa.  My grandfather ended up filling in for Uncle Harry occasionally at the stool, and ended up playing for Al Capone and at a nunnery, inadvertantly, at one point.  When he realized Capone was actually hiring him, he politely bowed out of these assignments.  I believe an ailing grandmother was mentioned.

                         

                           Where Wentz performed and met his bride-to-be

Chicago hosted the World Fair 1933-34 to showcase an age of progress and technical achievement, while it drew from the past achievements as well.  One of the exhibits at this fair was a jazz pianist playing his newest spontaneous styles of American jazz on a crystal piano turning on a pedestal.  My grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Alleman, visited the world’s fair and began to fall in love with the man playing the piano at the time.  He was to become my grandfather when they would meet again eleven years later in Junction City, KS, where she taught and he was stationed for the war.  He played with many bands during the “big band” or “swing” era in the USO, country clubs and VFW around World War ll, bands like Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Woody Herman, and Les Brown’s Band of Renown in the 1940s.  These bands made records, named after the famous trumpet, clarinet or vocal soloist they featured.    My grandfather moved close to Kansas City along with the jazz migration with a severe stomach ulcer from dealing with snipers and leading raids in the war.  He was sent to a Colorado hospital and then home to Lansing to die with his wife and children, when his ulcer perforated, speeding up the process.  Fortunately, a young country doctor stopped the bleeding with a new procedure and saved his life.  He already had one child by 1949, when my father came along and made two, and there would be two more. 

         

   Tommy Dorsey’s big band, whom my grandfather played with occasionally

KC it was the next big town to be known for “swing” and then “bebop”.  In 1948, my grandfather had his own band in KC and played with other bands as well.  The war draft caused the “big bands” to form these more intimate bebop groups featuring group improvisations, as band members were sent overseas.  He played in the Charlie “Bird” Parker band a little, although my grandfather preferred the rhythm driven and amplified “big band” or “swing” sound to the bebop style.  The music style would travel to New York, but my grandfather moved his family to Leavenworth and stayed in the Midwest.  This was where he remained for the duration of his life.

                                   

                   He played with Charlie “Bird” Parker a few times

My father, a part-time clarinetist, teacher and musician, remembers hearing his father practicing hours into the night after his latest gig.  My grandmother played piano, cello and coronet, and was musical as well.  I remember hearing my grandfather practice or play at dining establishments long after his career was largely over due to failing health.  Around 1948 he had started a piano tuning business, becoming the Piano Tuners’ Guild President in Kansas City in 1952.  During this year, my grandmother was sick with what was initially thought to be leukemia, and grandfather prayed at the chapel each day for her to recover, which she did.  He also appraised property in his small business and continued learning piano at the KC Conservatory of Music, where he shared some classes with Jay McShann. 

My grandmother would “deedle-dee-dee” around their historic house and dance with her finger to jazz on the radio, smiling at bygone memories and enjoying the moment, as she swept the floor after the hungry relatives, dog, two cats.  I was one of the silent grandkids who looked on amusedly, knowing that my grandmother did not like to clean.  After all those years, she still found joy in reliving those moments she spent with my grandfather while participating in the jazz culture firsthand.  She was always a progressive and people-oriented person herself.  Grandpa managed to live as a stable, loving husband and family man, father of four children, and maintain his jazz career through most of his life.  My grandmother always loved him and adored his music while she continued her teaching.

There was one other time I felt especially close to my grandfather after he was gone. As I sat in KC’s famous Jardine’s during a live jazz set with my husband and some friends, I turned my head towards the piano player almost expecting to see Grandpa Wentz sitting at the bench but seeing Joe Cartwright, instead.  His piano playing sounded just like my grandfather’s as I remembered hearing it.  His “bossa nova” La Luna Negra CD is my closest memento to a recording of my grandfather.  I found from my father that my grandfather tutored and mentored Joe Cartwright, a contemporary KC jazz legend, when he was young in a time when many parents discouraged their children from learning the jazz style over the classical styles.  At least one of my grandfather’s later students worked in lessons with my grandfather against the better judgement of their parents.  Maybe the newness, ethnic diversity, and working class roots of the music instilled fear in some people, as many creative, progressive movements do, that it would somehow make them less respectable or taint their morals merely by association.  Another student of my grandfather’s who is still playing the jazz circuit successfully all over the world is Gary Foster, who my grandfather introduced to his Leavenworth jazz trio, after gaining permission from his Gary’s parents to include him.  Gary Foster played at the Topeka Jazz Workshop Sunday, September 16th, and I would have liked to attend.  People say the Grandpa Wentz also sounds a lot like Oscar Peterson, one of his contemporaries in Canada.  I will have to give him a listen, now that I am on the jazz trail.

That innovation and collaborative combination of backgrounds which formed jazz are what make it so exciting to perform and listen to still, and are possibly the reason the rest of the world still listens to it, today.  Besides, Thomas More might say that a county’s character is defined by its everyday “rustics”, as they perform tasks, and as they celebrate life.  Jazz may have seen infamous moments, but it inspires me to collaborate with other artists, be a part in the fabric of life in my local community,  to let my art be an extension of my life experiences and past and present surroundings,  to be bold in my creativity,  to celebrate life expressively, to teach my children to always be innovative, to encourage others in their artistic pursuits, to spend more time enjoying the still organic KC jazz scene, to sing while I clean and to share this wonderful short classic cartoon called I LOVE TO SINGA produced by WB Merrie Melodies in 1936.  The film captures the tension between jazz and classical music in its emergence, resistance to new underground styles and a little human nature.  I love the happy ending.

Compelling Article by Dana Gioia, Chairman for NEA, a Wall Street Journal Editorial

The Impoverishment of American Culture
And the need for better art education.

BY DANA GIOIA
Thursday, July 19, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDTThere is an experiment I’d love to conduct. I’d like to survey a cross-section of Americans and ask them how many active NBA players, Major League Baseball players, and “American Idol” finalists they can name. Then I’d ask them how many living American poets, playwrights, painters, sculptors, architects, classical musicians, conductors and composers they can name. I’d even like to ask how many living American scientists or social thinkers they can name.Fifty years ago, I suspect that along with Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays and Sandy Koufax, most Americans could have named, at the very least, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Arthur Miller, Thornton Wilder, Georgia O’Keeffe, Leonard Bernstein, Leontyne Price and Frank Lloyd Wright. Not to mention scientists and thinkers like Linus Pauling, Jonas Salk, Rachel Carson, Margaret Mead and especially Dr. Alfred Kinsey.I don’t think that Americans were smarter then, but American culture was. Even the mass media placed a greater emphasis on presenting a broad range of human achievement. I grew up mostly among immigrants, many of whom never learned to speak English. But at night watching TV variety programs like the Ed Sullivan Show, I saw–along with comedians, popular singers and movie stars–classical musicians like Jascha Heifetz and Arthur Rubinstein, opera singers like Robert Merrill and Anna Moffo, and jazz greats like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong captivate an audience of millions with their art.

The same was true of literature. I first encountered Robert Frost, John Steinbeck, Lillian Hellman and James Baldwin on general-interest TV shows. All of these people were famous to the average American–because the culture considered them important. Today no working-class kid would encounter that range of arts and ideas in the popular culture. Almost everything in our national culture, even the news, has been reduced to entertainment, or altogether eliminated.

The loss of recognition for artists, thinkers and scientists has impoverished our culture in innumerable ways, but let me mention one. When virtually all of a culture’s celebrated figures are in sports or entertainment, how few possible role models we offer the young. There are so many other ways to lead a successful and meaningful life that are not denominated by money or fame. Adult life begins in a child’s imagination, and we’ve relinquished that imagination to the marketplace.

I have a reccurring nightmare. I am in Rome visiting the Sistine Chapel. I look up at Michelangelo’s incomparable fresco of the “Creation of Man.” I see God stretching out his arm to touch the reclining Adam’s finger. And then I notice in the other hand Adam is holding a Diet Pepsi.When was the last time you have seen a featured guest on David Letterman or Jay Leno who isn’t trying to sell you something? A new movie, a new TV show, a new book or a new vote? Don’t get me wrong. I have a Stanford MBA and spent 15 years in the food industry. I adore my big-screen TV. The productivity and efficiency of the free market is beyond dispute. It has created a society of unprecedented prosperity.

But we must remember that the marketplace does only one thing–it puts a price on everything. The role of culture, however, must go beyond economics. It is not focused on the price of things, but on their value. And, above all, culture should tell us what is beyond price, including what does not belong in the marketplace. A culture should also provide some cogent view of the good life beyond mass accumulation. In this respect, our culture is failing us.

There is only one social force in America potentially large and strong enough to counterbalance this commercialization of cultural values, our educational system. Traditionally, education has been one thing that our nation has agreed cannot be left entirely to the marketplace–but made mandatory and freely available to everyone.

At 56, I am just old enough to remember a time when every public high school in this country had a music program with choir and band, usually a jazz band, too, sometimes even an orchestra. And every high school offered a drama program, sometimes with dance instruction. And there were writing opportunities in the school paper and literary magazine, as well as studio art training.

I am sorry to say that these programs are no longer widely available. This once visionary and democratic system has been almost entirely dismantled by well-meaning but myopic school boards, county commissioners and state officials, with the federal government largely indifferent to the issue. Art became an expendable luxury, and 50 million students have paid the price. Today a child’s access to arts education is largely a function of his or her parents’ income.

In a time of social progress and economic prosperity, why have we experienced this colossal cultural decline? There are several reasons, but I must risk offending many friends and colleagues by saying that surely artists and intellectuals are partly to blame. Most American artists, intellectuals and academics have lost their ability to converse with the rest of society. We have become wonderfully expert in talking to one another, but we have become almost invisible and inaudible in the general culture.

This mutual estrangement has had enormous cultural, social and political consequences. America needs its artists and intellectuals, and they need to re-establish their rightful place in the general culture. If we could reopen the conversation between our best minds and the broader public, the results would not only transform society but also artistic and intellectual life.

There is no better place to start this rapprochement than in arts education. How do we explain to the larger society the benefits of this civic investment when they have been convinced that the purpose of arts education is to produce more artists, which is hardly a compelling argument to the average taxpayer?We need to create a new national consensus. The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society.

This is not happening now in American schools. What are we to make of a public education system whose highest goal seems to be producing minimally competent entry-level workers? The situation is a cultural and educational disaster, but it also has huge and alarming economic consequences. If the U.S. is to compete effectively with the rest of the world in the new global marketplace, it is not going to succeed through cheap labor or cheap raw materials, nor even the free flow of capital or a streamlined industrial base. To compete successfully, this country needs creativity, ingenuity and innovation.

It is hard to see those qualities thriving in a nation whose educational system ranks at the bottom of the developed world and has mostly eliminated the arts from the curriculum. Marcus Aurelius believed that the course of wisdom consisted of learning to trade easy pleasures for more complex and challenging ones. I worry about a culture that trades off the challenging pleasures of art for the easy comforts of entertainment. And that is exactly what is happening–not just in the media, but in our schools and civic life.

Entertainment promises us a predictable pleasure–humor, thrills, emotional titillation or even the odd delight of being vicariously terrified. It exploits and manipulates who we are rather than challenging us with a vision of who we might become. A child who spends a month mastering Halo or NBA Live on Xbox has not been awakened and transformed the way that child would be spending the time rehearsing a play or learning to draw.

If you don’t believe me, you should read the studies that are now coming out about American civic participation. Our country is dividing into two distinct behavioral groups. One group spends most of its free time sitting at home as passive consumers of electronic entertainment. Even family communication is breaking down as members increasingly spend their time alone, staring at their individual screens.

The other group also uses and enjoys the new technology, but these individuals balance it with a broader range of activities. They go out–to exercise, play sports, volunteer and do charity work at about three times the level of the first group. By every measure they are vastly more active and socially engaged than the first group.

What is the defining difference between passive and active citizens? Curiously, it isn’t income, geography or even education. It depends on whether or not they read for pleasure and participate in the arts. These cultural activities seem to awaken a heightened sense of individual awareness and social responsibility.

Art is an irreplaceable way of understanding and expressing the world–equal to but distinct from scientific and conceptual methods. Art addresses us in the fullness of our being–simultaneously speaking to our intellect, emotions, intuition, imagination, memory and physical senses. There are some truths about life that can be expressed only as stories or songs or images.

Art delights, instructs, consoles. It educates our emotions. And it remembers. As Robert Frost once said about poetry, “It is a way of remembering that which it would impoverish us to forget.” Art awakens, enlarges, refines and restores our humanity.

Mr. Gioia is the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. This article is a condensed version of his June 17 commencement address at Stanford University.

See original article here

Designs From Life

So, as noted in our last post the reason we bailed out on the last gathering was that our amazing son Caden came down with childhood cancer.  Events like this tend to make one rethink everything about life.  I always prefer to play to my strengths rather than weaknesses (maybe this is a weakness?).  After trying to absorb the effects that this was going to have on our family’s life, I thought about if there was anything that I could do about this situation.  Realizing that I was completely and not just completely, but COMPLETELY unable to do anything about neuroblastoma in myself.  It was a not-so-nice-I-think-I-would-like-to-stop-the-world-and-get-off-for-a-while feeling.  So besides praying (which is very worthwhile, and highly recommended) I wanted to do something.  I decided that I would collect the paraphernalia from the events surrounding the cancer that Caden is fighting and produce a sculpture.  Shannon mentioned in the last post that I was working on a sculpture, but I forgot to post a sketch.  This is a rough sketch, but I think it embodies some of the ideas I am trying to address.  I am using the actual items that Caden sees daily, or when in the hospital.  I am basically making a history of the event in this way.  I am going to insert them (aesthetically of course) into clear resin and have them surround the object in the middle, which I am hoping will be the glass encapsulated preserved tumor.  I know, I know this may sound a little bizarre to some.  I think it is more about facing fear, and knowing that whatever we go through, no matter how painful, we can do it.  So ‘what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’?  Maybe that is how life is.  The truth is in how we respond to what we are given, rather than what we are given.  I would love to say I haven’t had any fear in this whole ordeal, but that wouldn’t be true.  I appreciate the prayers of those who are praying, as we can feel them in a real way.  Caden has been wonderful throughout this whole situation.  His attitude is excellent and his smile is infectous.  We are so blessed to have him.  We are taking steps, small ones maybe, but steps to learning how to face our fears, to overcome them and realize that even though we don’t like it, we can learn from them and be better off even than before.

   

darin m. white 2007 Copyright

All Rights Reserved

Art & Life Update

Lately, we have been challenged with the juncture of our art and our life.  Our four year old son mr. c was recently diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, which has caused us to rearrange our artistic schedule and look at life with wonder.  This is the cause of our delay in the parabolic b.a.l.m gathering.  If you would like to find out more about his situation, we welcome you to visit his site.  We process each day in the hospital and at home and these unfamiliar and uninvited happenings in expressions of all sorts — words, emotions, prayers, sketches, questions of existence and connectedness.  D is collecting medical paraphenalia to make a sculpture about this ordeal.  He is also involved in helping others produce their work and running our business.  S is encouraged in her pursuit of affirming people even in or especially in seemingly hopeless situations through painting and otherwise.  For her, sometimes the art is a life of caring for our son and the family, enjoying the beauty of time together, seeing beauty in others, and other times it is creating a painting.  She is gathering the radiology scans right now, and doing artwork with little C as part of his therapy.  She appreciates clients’ understanding about time frames on portraits she is finishing. 

 

We have been affirmed in so many ways from so many people during this passage.  There is beauty to be found in and on the other side of the suffering because of the discoveries it brings.  About life, love and goodness.  While there is not as much time for us to sculpt and paint right now, we are seeing and creating artistically.   We are being formed by these experiences.

 

There is so much artwork around the CMH and RMH that has enriched our lives and given us comfort, that we wanted to document and share a few pieces.  Without it our days would seem a little bleaker, like a world without color or variety or hope.  We love the personalities which are expressed and the benefits we have received from them sharing their creativity with us.  We thank Children’s Mercy Hospital for investing and presenting this artwork, as well as the Ronald McDonald house and all of the respective donors.   We are constantly learning about the connections there are between creativity and healing.  Mr. C benefits from music therapy times in CMH and times making crafts of all sorts.  Engaging in creativity seems to comfort, soothe, mirror, occupy, divert, give expression to emotions and draw out hope and life.  It is a productive way of bringing a tangible beauty to raw pain and emotions and engage with others.  We are exploring these parts of artistic expression as well, personally, and with others.  We have also found a couple outlets for artists or people who want to use art for healing.

   

We want to connect with all of you and update those of you we have not spoken with personally about this situation.  We plan to have gatherings for artists, still, and want to hear from you about what you are working on, going through, excited about and how that influences your work as well.   Please contact us with ideas or about hosting the next gathering.   We appreciate those of you who linked Mr. C’s website on yours, so that more people will know the situation that he is in. 

  

PARABOLIC P ART Y invitation – An evening of artistic discovery

Please pass the parabolic art and conversation.  Come explore with us through childlike creativity this graceful, physical and abstract form found all around us.  We plan to play with the themes of art inspired by sound, sight, movement and light.   Bring yourselves, possibly a pertinent work, your creativity, and a bowl of food.  Art lovers are welcome.  We will provide noodles of all sorts to eat and to sculpt.  Contact us for details. 

click image for invite

Reflections on Works in Progress Gathering

 

A group of artists, all works in progress, enjoyed sharing our workmanship with one another over the Cinco de Mayo festivities.  We celebrated our freedom to create and gather together at Jane’s wonderful Lawrence studio over margeritas and delicious Mexican food. 

Then we settled into a critique of works in progress.  The large colorful Japanese inspired paintings belong to Jane.  The artwork inspired deep conversation, as Brad shared of his  recent trip to Hawaii playing music with Jack Johns and worshiping here.  He mentioned how landscape and region inspire style.  Ingrid showed us her spontaneous painting of a local prairie fire at night,  and Jay talked about his stone work and guild, as well as issues of figuration in art. Congratulations to Jay on becoming a fire chief, by the way.  Marc invited us to discuss his revised film script narration on a father and son relationship before his last editing session – what a privilege.  Shannon shared new figurative works in a series of assemblages for dialogue, and a two life portrait panels with text.  There was so much to see and discuss, food for thought.  Darin and Janea declined to share their pieces to make way for others, as we could have talked all night.  We thank all the people who came and contributed to the conversations.  Artists love to talk about their’s and others’ work!  Several artists expressed interest in visiting each others’ studios to talk about life and work one on one on a regular basis.  Let’s keep encouraging each other to create.

We enjoy seeing you all around town and at these gatherings.  A few places we have seen artist friends around town are shown below (Farmer’s Market, Art Togeau Parade, downtown, SEED lectures):

     

 

The Scope of Our Creativity

What an honor it was to read in The University Daily Kansan, the other day, that the annual museum student night at the Spencer Art Museum  continued our idea of Destination Postcards and Art themed gatherings with food, music and discussion.   This encourages us to think that the scope of our creativity as individuals travels beyond the borders of our small living room and studio gatherings to the hallowed halls of learning establishments, to museums, to individual lives, to the community and beyond.   The hallowed halls then echo back to us, and we continue the dialogue in our creativity.  This is an inclusive “we”, since many are creative who may not consider themselves artists.  We embrace being part of a dialogue that is bigger than ourselves.

Seeing documentaries of Picasso mingling with Paul Cezanne, Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Henri Leger, Frida Kahlo, Henri Mattise, Dora Maar, and others on the beach, in their art studios, in academic settings, eating and living tandem with each other at times reminds us that small circles create bigger ones in art and life.  Jay Alexander, a local sculptor, commented that Thomas Hart Benton, our reknowned and beloved Kansas artist, studied with Picasso at one point in his life, and was influenced by him and his work.  A friend described our first gathering affectionately as a “circle of art and friends”.  That is what we hope to be, simply, and it sounds rather insignificant at times.  In doing so we wish to carry on the tradition of many artist groups, official or unofficial,  to echo and create new echoes in our world, to be shaped by and shape community and culture, to be personal and yet somehow globally connected and significant in our endeavors.  In our grandest hopes, we want to join the ranks of the best of Stieglitz and his bunch, the Ashcan Painters, the Beatniks, the Hippies, and let our small relational gatherings  be a part of the larger creative process of the community and the history of life.    

The Univ Daily Kansan article you may read below was published Friday, May 4, 2007 (just over one month after our Destination Postcard Gathering occured) and can be found at http://www.kansan.com/stories/2007/may/04/spencer/:

“The sound of international music, the smell of catered snacks and the promise of a free T-shirt lured a soulful crowd to the Spencer Art Museum on Thursday night. The party was the museum’s student night, an event held every year.

Photo by Sarah Leonard

Jon Simon, Lenexa sophomore, and Cassie Sines, Linwood senior, sit in a room adorned by african art. The exhibit was titled “A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal.

KJHK kept the turntables spinning with “cross cultural jazz and soul” played loudly over speakers while students mingled, explored the exhibits, ate nachos and sipped on iced tea.

“Travel the art world,” the theme of the party, showcased exhibits in Asia, Europe and Africa. The newest addition to the museum, the 20/21 Gallery is still under construction. The curators of the night previewed the new exhibit by showing videos of international artists.

“We chose about 10,000 of 20,000 pieces of art to be in the 20/21 Gallery,” Graf said. “We even had an impartial artist come from New York to help with the exhibit.”

Sally Birmingham, Spring Hill junior, said she’s not a stranger to the museum.

“I’ve been here for lots of things, like openings and lectures,” Birmingham said. “I think if events like this bring in more students than would normally come, then it’s a success.”

That was the goal for the Spencer Student Advisory Board. Megan Graf, St. Louis senior and volunteer for the Board, said the point of holding events like student night was to attract students who normally wouldn’t visit the museum.

Kim Brook, president of the Student Advisory Board, said the museum strived to reach the University campus to attract them to things like lectures and gallery openings. The student night and party was one effective way to do this.

“We’d like to make the Spencer a second home to students,” Graf said. “We want students to know we are accessible.”

That was the goal for the Spencer Student Advisory Board. Megan Graf, St. Louis senior and volunteer for the Board, said the point of holding events like student night was to attract students who normally wouldn’t visit the museum.

Graf said the low number of classes offered in the museum and its out-of-the-way location were reasons why few students visited. She said she didn’t think people realized how many pieces of art the museum has, estimating there to be “tens of thousands” of pieces.

“The only classes here are art history classes,” Graf said. “Students who come are art history students.”

The 20/21 Gallery is slated to open in July.

Kansan staff writer Bethany Bunch can be contacted at bbunch@kansan.com.

— Edited by Will McCullough”

BALM ANNOUNCEMENT: We are showing our DESTINATION POSTCARDS in a gallery in October or November and interested in other interactive public venues to continue this dialogue.