Monday, August 31, 2009

Park(ing) Day Planning Meeting: Turning Metered Spots into Green Spots

Park(ing) Day, a global movement to promote the use of green space in urban centers, hits Chattanooga streets once again on September 18.

Park(ing) Day started in San Francisco as an opportunity for citizens, artists, and activists to collaborate and create temporary public parks out of curbside parking spaces. According to organizers, more than 70% of most cities’ outdoor space is dedicated to private vehicles. It is from this fact that the movement, now in its fourth year, draws its momentum.

How it works: Participants in Chattanooga can pick a parking spot in town, accepting the lawful terms of using it—ie, feed the meter—and create a mini-park for the day. If inexpensive curbside parking promotes increased traffic and wasteful fuel use in the downtown area, curbside parks promote revitalized, green street-scapes. Fountains, pools, public beds, and hanging gardens have found ways into Park(ing) spots in the past, as well as park-benches and full-sized trees.

CreateHere will host a planning meeting to prepare for Park(ing) Day this Wednesday, September 2 at 6 pm. Want to get your company, school, friends involved? Looking for a way to use that kiddie pool? Join us for refreshments and idea generation.

Flick’s Cafe: 1930s Films at the Central Library

Join the Central Library tomorrow, September 1, for a screening of the 1937 Astair & Rogers comedy Shall We Dance. The screening starts 6:30, with a suggested donation of $1.

Shall We Dance follows ballet star Pete “Petrov” Peters as he arranges to cross the Atlantic aboard the same ship as the dancer he’s fallen for but barely knows, musical star Linda Keene. By the time the ocean liner reaches New York, a little white lie has churned through the rumor mill and turned into a hot gossip item: that the two celebrities are secretly married. Significantly, Shall We Dance marks the one and only time the brothers Gershwin wrote a score for an Astaire/Rogers musical.

Friday, August 28, 2009

HelloWorld.show(); | A Curator’s Take (part 2)

In honor of our extended gallery hours tonight for August’s Last Fridays on Main, we’re proud to present a curator’s perspective on our current exhibition, HelloWorld.show();. Below is part two in the series, written by Senior Arts Fellow Jessica Martin.

Dave Shea, the creator and cultivator of the highly influential website csszengarden.com, has taken a more literal approach to displaying source code. By pairing a browser view and source code, via video projection, “Process Zen”, explores the relationship between HTML and CSS using the initial design of the CSS Zen Garden project. The web browser starts with an unformatted view of HTML, and over time progressively adds more CSS formatting rules until the final design is achieved.

Aaron Walter, representing the work submitted by MailChimp, offers an interactive piece for viewers. “Pictaculous” speaks to the notion that input begets output. “Just as the actions of our computers are shaped by inputs recieved, so too are we influenced by outside stimuli”. Pictaculous.com allows users to submit a photo and in return, generates the predominant color palette, including the Hex values for each color, related color palettes, and a downloadable color palette file for Adobe software.

Leslie Jensen-Inman’s work, “Teach the Web” is primarily concerned with the relationship between the web, as an industry, and academia. Through her work in the exhibition, Jensen-Inman presents a single concept in three distinctly different formats: code, in chalk on a chalkboard; book-form; and browser view. All depict the same content, and their presentation speaks to the notion that both physical and virtual methods for teaching must progress in tandem with the industry.

The work of C.E.B. Reas also addresses relationships, specifically between evolved natural systems and the synthetic systems we engineer. Reas, Associate Professor at UCLA, is represented by Bitforms Gallery NYC. His work in HelloWorld.show();, “Pre-Process Execution” and “Pre-process Hex” is evocative of transformative systems in motion and at rest. The work itself is derivative of the software he creates using short text instructions that explain process that define networks. From his hand-made book filled with code to the unique framed print, Reas’ work can ultimately be understood in terms of traditional image-making techniques paired with finely crafted programs that define processes.

All in all, HelloWorld.show(); is mimetic in nature; in that it creates an atmosphere that is similar to that which we interact with on a daily basis. The particular pairing of artist and practitioners in this exhibition aims to bring audiences one step closer to understanding the constant and inevitable interaction that takes place between natural and man-made, mechanical realms, while highlighting a trend—the web—that is forever changing our society and culture. 

Join us tonight from 5 to 7 pm for Last Fridays on Main, or check out HelloWorld.show(); during our regular gallery hours, Monday through Friday, 9 to 5; or Saturdays 9 to 1. HelloWorld.show(); closes September 12.

HelloWorld.show(); | A Curator’s Take (part 1)

In honor of our extended gallery hours tonight for August’s Last Fridays on Main, we’re proud to present a curator’s perspective on our current exhibition, HelloWorld.show();. Below is part one in a two part series, written by Senior Arts Fellow Jessica Martin.

Let’s face it, we live in a digital world. Even those of us that don’t consider ourselves technically savvy interact with virtual spaces every day, and likely, we do little to acknowledge the wizard and work behind the curtain. That very notion inspired the concept for HelloWorld.show();—55here’s latest exhibition.

The exhibit features local and national participation from traditional artists and programmers. Yes, programmers, the people who write computer code, professionals using geek-speak. The show’s focus is to highlight code and all of its glory. Front- and back-end programming in various formats activate the space and transform it into a virtual realm.

HelloWorld.show(); showcases 10 artists’ work, including two collaborations.

Weston McWhorter, a designer and web developer in New Orleans, challenges viewers and turns the notion of “high art” on it’s head. To the untrained eye, McWhorter’s work may be perceived as painting. But in actuality, the artist generated the random color chunks in “Untitled 1” thru “4”, using PHP (a scripting language). The result: four High-res UV prints on canvas that fill the space and introduce concentrated, regimented modules of color throughout. 

Matt Turnure, a Chattanooga native and local web developer, is sensitive to visual aesthetic while having a mind geared toward technical analysis. His piece, “#slideshow”, illuminates the script and imagery that breathe life into his website. The clean, white lines of his lightbox accentuate 4 transparent layers on which Matt has printed imagery, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. “#slideshow” illustrates the three main layers of a web page’s engine and its respective code.

In concert with the geometric lines that are traditionally formed from technical and electronic installation, show participants Matt Sears, Isaac Duncan, and Rudd Montgomery have contributed functional and traditional sculptural works that were manufactured from natural elements such as wood and metal.

The long, soft lines of Matt Sear’s sculpture, which houses an iPod Touch, accentuate the bold, mathematical presence created by Aaron Gustafson’s “Tipr” application, shown on the iPod. Together Sears, a local woodworker, and Gustafson, a local programmer, explore a dialogue where two very similar but different languages interact, each has a different dialect, one organic and the other technical. 

This concept is also explored through the collaboration and work of Dan Rubin and Isaac Duncan III. Rubin, of Ft. Lauderdale, FL, is a designer who has a strong interest and experience with (X)HTML and CSS. Duncan is a local sculptor. Together, they tackle the issue of the common perception that the virtual world is flat.  “The Space Between the Lines”, explores the multi-faceted nature of web design by revealing multiple viewpoints of the process of web design and displays them on a 3-dimensional surface.

Look for part two in this series later this afternoon!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

“Meshes of the Afternoon”: A Surreal Touchstone

School’s back, and in this blog post, UTC graphic design student and CreateHere fellow TJ Bowman remembers, fondly, a moment of learning abroad.

Last winter while I was visiting London, I made the usual stops; Big Ben, the Eye, the Globe Theater, St. Paul’s, Tower Bridge, Stonehenge, et cetra. The gem of the trip, however, was none of the above. It was the Tate Modern. I could go on for days and days about how and why this museum is the place I want my ashes spread but I’m not going to. Instead I’m going to give you the first Surrealist film I’ve ever watched, and I’m assuming, for most of you, that it will be your first as well. Lucky for us, it’s a great one by husband and wife duo, Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, titled Meshes of the Afternoon (1943).

On the DVD release, Maya Deren; Experimental Films 1943-58, she comments about the film, saying, “This film is concerned with the interior experiences of an individual. It does not record an event, which could be witnessed by other persons. Rather, it reproduces the way in which the subconscious of an individual will develop, interpret and elaborate an apparently simple and casual incident into a critical emotional experience.”

After further research, I later came to find that the idea was in large part influenced by Hammid and after Deren began to receive all the glory for the work, as she typically did, their marriage began to suffer. After their divorce, Deren added classical Japanese music from her third husband, Teiji Ito to the film (talk about surreal!).

This film was part of an extensive Surrealism exhibit on the second floor of the Tate Modern of January 2009. Out of all the works from every media type, which there was a plethora of, this one was and still is my favorite piece. I also saw several Paul McCarthy films, which… I won’t go into.

Enjoy!

Watch Meshes of the Afternoon, in two parts, here and here.

By TJ Bowman, Platform Fellow

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Died Young, Stayed Pretty: A Chattanooga Rock N’ Roll Movie Premier

On Friday, September 4, Eileen Yaghoobian’s highly anticipated film about rock posters and the people who make them, entitled Died Young, Stayed Pretty, will be stopping through town on its debut tour. Local design and screen-print collective Young Monster teams up with The Association for the Visual Arts (AVA) and the local chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) to present this event that bridges the gap between fine arts, graphic design and rock n’ roll.

The film chronicles Yaghoobian’s travels across the United States and Canada, offering a look into to the world of such gig poster giants as Art Chantry, Brian Chippendale, the Ames Brothers, Print Mafia and Rob Jones, who have worked on posters for bands like Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, Radiohead, White Stripes, The Melvins, Ween, Sonic Youth, Pearl Jam, Bob Dylan, Marianne Faithfull, and the list goes on.

In keeping with the film’s subject matter, Young Monster has created two posters for the event, one by GigPosters.com heavy-hitter Zach Hobbs, and the other by MakeWork 2008 recipient Nick DuPey in collaboration with Print Mafia, a Kentucky-based studio featured in the film.  While both posters will be distributed in preparation of the event, the DuPey/Print Mafia print will be have a separate run on colored paper for those 20 participants in the pre-movie screen-printing workshop at Young Monster studio.

“Print Mafia sent me an image and some of their signature type, then we added our own composition in keeping with the Young Monster aesthetic,” said DuPey. “On the day of the workshop, the other Young Monsters and the participants will help with printing, and each print will be finished by someone in the workshop who’ll get to take it home and call it their own.”

Young Monster, AVA and AIGA present a night in three parts:

6:00 – 7:30 PM @ Young Monster studio space: “Create Your Own Collector’s Item” workshop. For $20, attendees can get a lesson in screen-printing and help produce their own special edition prints by pulling the final color of their custom poster. Space is very limited — to reserve a spot, contact AVA as soon as possible, via email, (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address); over the phone 423.265.4282/106; or online.

8:00 – 10:00 PM @ green|spaces: A free screening of Died Young, Stayed Pretty will be followed by a Q&A session with director Eileen Yaghoobian, as well as a poster exhibit and sale.

10:30 PM – 2 AM @ JJ’s Bohemia: For a $6 cover, everyone over 21is invited to a rock show and after-party with a cheap beer, more posters, and music from Mocknbird, ADD/C and Pine Hill Haints.

For more information about the event, contact Young Monster at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

Mid-South Sculpture Alliance presents Sculpture Conference 2009

The Mid-South Sculpture Alliance (MSA) is proud to present Sculpture Conference 2009, a three-day conference to be held September 17-19, 2009 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The conference will bring together sculptors and other artists, art educators and students, gallery owners and sculpture lovers for three days of learning, inspiration and networking.

MSA’s Sculpture Conference 2009 will feature two keynote addresses, one by Valerie Fletcher, Senior Curator of Modern Art, Smithsonian Institution Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; and one by collaborators Carol Mickett and Robert Stackhouse, sculptors from St. Petersburg, FL. Another featured presentation will be a discussion with Jack Murrah, Senior Associate of the Lyndhurst Foundation and Ann Coulter, Principal, Kennedy Coulter Rushing & Watson, LLC, both of Chattanooga, TN.

Other Conference activities include demonstrations and seminars; gallery and studio tours, a bus trip and lunch in the New Salem Arts Community atop Lookout Mountain, and three juried sculpture exhibitions.

MSA is also pleased to be working with the Chattanooga Public Art Committee, the City of Chattanooga and Hamilton County to install the 20 pieces at the Tennessee Riverpark in a section of the Riverwalk near Chattanooga State, to be exhibited for one year.

For more information, please check MSA’s website and click on “Conference.”

SmartFurniture presents smART.show: Works by Local Modern & Contemporary Artists

We’ve always said that Chattanooga was fun any day of the week and SmartFurniture has put together an event to help prove the point. This Thursday, August 27 from 6 to 8 pm, SmartFurniture Studio hosts its inaugural smART.show, exhibiting the best in modern and contemporary art by local artists. 

This month’s Studio Spotlight features local artist Sandra Paynter Washburn, widely known as an expert on water media and mixed media techniques. Sandra’s award-winning work is represented nationally and internationally, in private and public collections.  August 27 will not only be a chance to view the art but also meet the artist herself. 

Other artists on display at Smart Furniture are Brent Sanders, Denice Bizot, and Linda Kerlin.

Smart Furniture Studio is pleased to regularly host events that showcase Chattanooga’s vibrant and creative community. Join them for a taste of our thriving cultural community: speaking series, local art displays, and this new monthly art show. Stop by 2 North Shore every fourth Thursday and enjoy wine, hors d’oeurves, good friends, and great art. Other 2 North Shore galleries will participated, as well.

What: smART.show at Smart Furniture Studio
When: Thursday, August 27 from 6 to 8 pm
Contact: Dustin Mason, (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

By Elana Gulas, Culture Senior Fellow

Monday, August 24, 2009

Last Fridays on Main: August 28, 5-7 pm

As August comes to a close, the kids are going back to school and the temperature is dropping. It’s almost time again for Last Fridays on Main, and this month’s event is sure to be eye catching. Local potter and sculptor Shadow May will be outside of Area 61, doing a live pottery demonstration, and Peggy Petrey will be back with her Art-x-tractor at Ignis Glass. What’s more, there will be live glass blowing at Christopher Mosey Glass.

Other galleries and merchants that will be involved with this month’s event are:

The Victorian Lounge at the Choo-Choo on Market
Jukebox Junction at the Choo-Choo on Market
Ciao Bella Boutique on Market
CreateHere Gallery on Main
Area 61 Gallery on Main
Set in Stone Concrete Countertops on Main
Studio 2 & Gallery 2 on Main
Madia’s Healing Arts Studio on Main
Tienda Jalisco on Main
Miki Boni’s Gallery & Studio on Mitchell
Ignis Glass Gallery & Christopher Mosey Glass Studio on Rossville Avenue

Visit Last Fridays on Main online for more information about this event and for a map of participating galleries.

Last Fridays on Main: August Edition
August 28, 2009
5 to 7 pm at participating Southside galleries & businesses

By Elana Gulas, Senior Culture Fellow

Friday, August 21, 2009

World Town: Bringing the Global Music Movement to Chattanooga

On September 11-12, borders will be erased, nationalities forgotten, and communities connected through music.  The first installment of World Town, a monthly event series based on the slogan “Local based, global minded,” will feature DJs redefining the category of world music and the meaning of what it is to DJ.

The two-day christening of World Town, a year-long project put together by local DJ and MakeWork grant recipient Phillip Allen, a.k.a. K7, will feature globe-trotting DJ, journalist, label owner, blogger, and “bass pioneer” Jace Clayton, a.k.a. DJ /rupture, of Brooklyn. Clayton, who has been described by the The New York Times as “a thoughtful pipeline for music from countless distant and obscure outposts,” will be stopping through Chattanooga following several European and Latin American dates.

“With World Town I am seeking to redefine the community’s perception of the music and culture from various Global Diasporas,” says Allen. “People usually think of a culture and say to themselves, ‘Brazilian music sounds like this, or African music sounds like that,’ but there is so much more bubbling right below the surface.  I’m seeking to create diversity through sound, by showing the local community how genres such as Jazz, Hip-Hop, Reggae, and even the Blues have been reinterpreted in other cultures.”

The event will begin at 7 P.M. on Friday, September 11 at CreateHere with a lecture by Clayton, discussing how his experiences performing in over 30 countries have influenced and helped to shape his original productions and mixes. Following the talk will be a short turntablism and sound composition demo. The night will conclude with a Q&A session and DJ set by local duo K789. The lecture is free, open to the public and will be broadcast live via Allen’s blog, pastichemusic.net/blog.

From 9 am - 2am on September 12, following AVA’s GalleryHop studio tour, DJs /rupture and K789 will take Chattanooga on a tour of the world through music at Contrapasso. The event space will come alive with hot tunes straight from the barrios to boroughs, favelas to townships, and everywhere in-between. Admission for the event is $10 with proceeds benefiting International Justice Mission.

“A good DJ constructs cultural narratives in their sets similar to a storyteller,” says Allen. “For me DJ’ing is like a conversation. Instead of telling someone about an artist I like, I can present it to them and get instant feedback. If they like it, I can go a little further and play more music that’s similar. It’s that exchange that I love the most about being a DJ.”


For more information about this series of MakeWork sponsored events, visit pastichemusic.net/blog.

Benwood Lecture Series presents Majora Carter: Fearless Environmental Activist

The Benwood Foundation, in conjunction with the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies and CreateHere, is pleased to host national environmental justice leader Majora Carter as the next speaker in the 2009 George T. Hunter Lecture Series. Carter will speak at UTC’s Roland Hayes Concert Hall at 7 pm on September 15.

Born, raised, and continuing to live in the South Bronx, Carter’s work takes her around the world in pursuit of resources and ideas to improve the quality of life in environmentally challenged communities. She founded Sustainable South Bronx in 2001 and since then, she has been instrumental in creating riverfront parks, building green roofs, working to remove poorly planned highways in favor of positive economic development, and successfully implementing the Bronx Environmental Stewardship Training (BEST) program—a pioneering green-collar job training and placement system—seeding a community with a skilled workforce that has both a personal & economic stake in their urban environment.

Carter also worked with Van Jones to co-found Green For All, a national initiative dedicated to creating quality jobs in green industries by collaborating with government, business, labor, and grassroots communities.

Carter’s visit to Chattanooga couldn’t come at a better time. As a community, we stand at a crossroads, and how we move forward with community-based environmental initiatives could change the way our city works. Still not convinced? Check out Carter’s TED talk on Urban Renewal, and come ready to start some community conversations.

For more information on the George T. Hunter Lecture Series, visit the Benwood Foundation online.

By Elana Gulas, Culture Senior Fellow

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Next Steps: A Stand Photo Essay

For more information on Chattanooga Stand, visit the visioning effort online.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Public Meeting, August 17: Urban Planning through GIS

CreateHere is pleased to host the first in a series of public meetings entitled “Preserving Chattanooga’s Civil War Battlefields: Urban Planning Through GIS.” The event is next Monday, August 17 from 3-3:45, and again from 6-6:45 that same day.

As Chattanooga continues to grow, incompatible development poses a major threat to significant and irreplaceable Civil War resources throughout the city. The Trust for Public Land received a grant from the American Battlefield Protection Program to place information from six historic battle maps in the Hamilton County Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database so that citizens and interested groups have the opportunity to examine and identify for themselves locations throughout the battlefield area that retain the potential for intact historic resources. The public is invited to a series of meetings throughout Chattanooga to learn about and how to use this new and valuable battlefield preservation tool.

Can’t make it Monday? Participate in a public meeting Tuesday, August 18 from 6-6:45 at the McCallie Chapel; or Thursday, August 20, from 6-6:45 at the Chattanooga Nature Center.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

What do you Stand for?

Check out a new public service announcement from Chattanooga Stand. And when you’re done, let us know, what do you Stand for?

Fill out the Stand survey by visiting the visioning effort online.

Thursday, August 06, 2009

The Nitty Gritty of Public Art Collaborations: A Workshop

Mark Making is a program that empowers non-professional artists by teaching them 21st century problem solving skills with the goal of a more fulfilling life. Organizers create an environment conducive to art making and coach emerging artists—many of whom are experiencing major life shifts—on the basics of line, shape, color, and texture. The end result is a public art project that benefits the participants and beautifies the local community.

Mark Making is offering a workshop to artists and teachers Saturday, August 29, from 9 am to 5 pm. The goal of the workshop is to train facilitators on the ins and outs of creating public art, from finding sites, funding, and partners to creating budgets and working outdoors.

The workshop will be led by Frances McDonald and Dennis Palmer. McDonald recently collaborated with Julie Clark and 300 homeless individuals in Chattanooga to produced the 9-foot ceramic obelisk that stands on Main Street as part of Public Art Chattanooga’s rotating sculpture exhibit. The obelisk is covered in tiles with words or images evoking the idea of home, drawn by clients at various agencies and ministries that serve the homeless.

The workshop fee is $75 and includes lunch. Email (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) to register.