5th CT Printmakers Invitational at Real Art Ways

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5th CT Printmakers Invitational

Image courtesy of Mike Angelis

Multiple Impressions

Curated by John O’Donnell

Multiple Impressions is an exhibition of 23 artists who make prints using a variety of printmaking processes, ranging from traditional (intaglio, relief, lithography, and screen printing) to experimental (textile, sculpture, and installation). Their works address a variety of topics concerning design, representation, and abstraction. Some artists in this exhibition are painters who make prints, while others are designers who use printmaking to execute ideas.

The following artists are participating:
Michael Angelis
May Babcock
Sharon Butler
Julia DePinto
Paul DeRuvo
Jenni Freidman
Brad Guarino
James Kimura-Green
Ryan King
Nathan Lewis
AJ Masthay
Guz Mazzocca
Sarah Mikolowsky
Kelsey Miller
Jeff Mueller
Neil Daigle Orians
Hartford Prints!
Thomas Radovich
Nicolas Ransom Kennedy
Thomas Reilly
Jacob Rochester
Sydney Roper
Stephanie Sileo
Tim Wengertsman
Mark Zurolo
Karen Finley: Shock Treatment
At the Mark Twain House

Real Art Ways and the Mark Twain House co-present artist and author KAREN FINLEY at the Mark Twain House.

No other artist captures the drama and fragility of the AIDS era as Karen Finley does in her 1990 classic book Shock Treatment. “The Black Sheep,” “We Keep Our Victims Ready,” “I Was Never Expected to Be Talented,”–these are some of the seminal works which excoriated homophobia and misogyny at a time when artists and writers were under attack for challenging the status quo.

This twenty-fifth anniversary expanded edition features a new introduction in which Finley reflects on publishing her first book as she became internationally known for being denied an NEA grant because of perceived obscenity in her work. She traces her journey from art school to burlesque gigs to the San Francisco North Beach literary scene. A new poem reminds us of Finley’s disarming ability to respond to the era’s most challenging issues with grace and humor.

KAREN FINLEY’s raw and transgressive performances have long provoked controversy and debate. She has appeared and exhibited her visual art, performances, and plays internationally. The author of many books including A Different Kind of Intimacy, George & Martha, and The Reality Shows, she is a professor at the Tisch School of Art and Public Policy at NYU.

Tickets are $20, and $15 for Mark Twain House and Real Art Ways members

Bang on a Can All-Stars

Photo by Peter Serling

The Hartt School and Real Art Ways co-present a performance by the Bang on a Can All-Stars at the Hartt School’s Lincoln Theater as part of their Richard P. Garmany Chamber Music Series.

Bang on a Can are legends of contemporary music. Founded in 1987 by Julia Wolfe, David Lang, and Michael Gordon, Bang on a Can pioneered experimental mixed-instrumentation composition and performance. In 1992, the Bang on a Can All-Stars came together as an internationally renowned category-defining amplified ensemble.

Freely crossing between classical, jazz, rock, world and experimental music, the All-Stars have worked in close collaboration with some of the most important and inspiring musicians of our time, including Steve Reich, Ornette Coleman, Burmese circle drum master Kyaw Kyaw Naing, Tan Dun, DJ Spooky, and many more.

As part of their United States tour, the All-Stars will perform at the Hartt School’s Lincoln Theater. This performance is made possible in part by a grant from the Richard P. Garmany Fund at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.

 

The program will include:

Tan Dun: Concerto for Six

Julia Wolfe: Believing

Kate Moore: The Hermit Thrush and the Astronaut

Michael Gordon: Gene Takes a Drink

Steve Martland: Horses of Instruction

Philip Glass: Closing

The Bang on a Can All-Stars are Ashley Bathgate, cello; Robert Black, bass; Vicky Chow, piano; David Cossin, percussion; Mark Stewart, guitars; and Ken Thomson, clarinets.

 

Preview a piece the All-Stars will be performing on the 20th:

Carla Gannis: Artist Talk

Artist Carla Gannis will discuss the process and concepts behind her recent work The Garden of Emoji Delights, currently on display in the Real Room.

Collaged signs & symbols of everyday virtual speech, commonly known as Emojis, make up Gannis’ contemporary reinterpretation of Hieronymous Bosch’s 16th century masterpiece The Garden of Earthly Delights.

The massive digital c-print matches the scale and proportion of the original piece. Gannis, a resident of Brooklyn and a Professor of Digital Art at Pratt Institute, said she wanted to explore the way “popular customs and communications…can be integrated into art.”

Read more about the piece in the Hartford Courant, here: http://www.courant.com/entertainment/museums-galleries/hc-emoji-art-hartford-1030-20151029-story.html

This event is free and open to the public.
Metanoia and Meditation

An evening of mindful inspiration with Elizabeth Phelps Meyer’s exhibit Metanoia. This event will give participants the opportunity to enhance their understanding of Meyer’s spiritual inspiration and the meaning behind her work.  As part of the evening, a meditation teacher from the Odiyana Kadampa Buddhist Center will guide a meditation and talk on how to apply Buddhist principles into your daily life.

The class is PAY AS YOU WISH and open to the public, but space is limited to 30 participants. Please reserve your space with Zoe Allison at zallison@realartways.org.

Improvisations :: Arcade

Curator musicians Joe Morris and Stephen Haynes join their invited guests for freely improvised music, created in real time. The listening environment encourages intimate and deep contact with the music, the musicians, and other audience members.

On Sunday, April 10 at 3 PM, we continue our fifth Improvisations music series with fresh talent under the title Improvisations::Arcade.

THE LINEUP:
Dana Jessen / Bassoon
Joe Morris / Guitar
Stephen Haynes / Cornet

Improvisations :: Arcade

Curator musicians Joe Morris and Stephen Haynes join their invited guests for freely improvised music, created in real time. The listening environment encourages intimate and deep contact with the music, the musicians, and other audience members.

On Sunday, March 20 at 3 PM, we continue our fifth Improvisations music series with fresh talent under the title Improvisations::Arcade. Sunday’s event features  Lester St. Louis (cello) and Dre Hocevar (drums)

 

Future Events:

SUNDAY APRIL 10 | 3 PM: Dana Jessen (bassoon), Stephen Haynes (cornet), Joe Morris (guitar)

Improvisations :: Arcade

Curator musicians Joe Morris and Stephen Haynes join their invited guests for freely improvised music, created in real time. The listening environment encourages intimate and deep contact with the music, the musicians, and other audience members.

On Sunday, February 21 at 3 PM, we continue our fifth Improvisations music series with fresh talent under the title Improvisations::Arcade. Sunday’s event features  Kirsten Lamb (bass), Zachary Rowden (bass), Matt Rousseau (drums), and Dan O’Brien (saxophone, clarinet, flute).

 

Future Events:

SUNDAY MARCH 20 | 3 PM: Lester St. Louis (cello), Dre Hocevar (drums), Stephen Haynes (cornet), Joe Morris (guitar)

SUNDAY APRIL 10 | 3 PM: Dana Jessen (bassoon), Stephen Haynes (cornet), Joe Morris (guitar)

Improvisations :: Arcade

Curator musicians Joe Morris and Stephen Haynes join their invited guests for freely improvised music, created in real time. The listening environment encourages intimate and deep contact with the music, the musicians, and other audience members.

On Sunday, January 24 at 3 PM, we continue our fifth Improvisations music series with fresh talent under the title Improvisations::Arcade. Sunday’s event features Yasmine Azaiez (violin) and Adam Matlock (accordion).

 

Future Events:

SUNDAY FEB 21 | 3 PM: Kirsten Lamb (bass), Zachary Rowden (bass), Matt Rousseau (drums), Dan O’Brien (saxophone, clarinet, flute), Stephen Haynes (cornet), Joe Morris (guitar)

SUNDAY MARCH 20 | 3 PM: Lester St. Louis (cello), Dre Hocevar (drums), Stephen Haynes (cornet), Joe Morris (guitar)

SUNDAY APRIL 10 | 3 PM: Dana Jessen (bassoon), Stephen Haynes (cornet), Joe Morris (guitar)

Improvisations :: Arcade

Curator musicians Joe Morris and Stephen Haynes join their invited guests for freely improvised music, created in real time. The listening environment encourages intimate and deep contact with the music, the musicians, and other audience members.

On Sunday, December 13 at 3 PM, we continue our fifth Improvisations music series with fresh talent under the title Improvisations::Arcade. Sunday’s event features Dan Blacksberg (trombone), Daniel Levin (cello), and Brandon Lopez (bass).

BRANDON LOPEZ is a bassist and composer. He has worked across myriad aesthetic/cultural disciplines, but improvisation is the preferred language. “As with any individual dealing with creative work, much of the inspiration for the work is a difficult pin down. I grew up in a strange cross-section of Appalachia and Suburbia with forest, air, mountains, and new construction homes. I’m Latino and American in various shades. I’ve been in much grappling with the ideals of Euro-centricism, strangled and strangling back. I’m not sure what it all means, but I’d like to be reverent and irreverent with all of it.” – Brandon Lopez

DAN BLACKSBERG is rapidly emerging as a new leading voice on the trombone. With musical activity that spans avant-garde jazz, modern classical music, improvised music and klezmer, Dan brings a burly, rough-edged sound intended to push at the technical and textural extremes of his instrument. Based in Philadelphia, Dan leads a variety of groups, such as the Dan Blacksberg Trio and Electric Simcha, and co-leads groups such as Archer Spade, the New York/Philadelphia avant-jazz quartet Bird Fly Yellow, and the terror-improv group Psychotic Quartet.

DANIEL LEVIN is “one of the outstanding cellists working in the vanguard arena” (All About Jazz), “ridiculously fluent, virtually overflowing with ideas” (New York City Jazz Record) and “very much the man to watch.” (Penguin Guide to Jazz). No matter what setting he plays in, cellist Daniel Levin occupies a musical space bordered by many kinds of music, but fully defined by none of them. Born in Burlington, Vermont, he began playing the cello at the age of six. In 2001, he graduated with a degree in Jazz Studies from the New England Conservatory of Music, and arrived on New York City jazz scene shortly therafter. Since then, Daniel has developed his own unique voice as a cellist, improviser, and composer.

Future Events:

SUNDAY JAN 24 | 3 PM: Yasmine Azaiez (violin), Adam Matlock (accordion), Stephen Haynes (cornet), Joe Morris (guitar).

SUNDAY FEB 21 | 3 PM: Kirsten Lamb (bass), Zachary Rowden (bass), Matt Rousseau (drums), Dan O’Brien (saxophone, clarinet, flute), Stephen Haynes (cornet), Joe Morris (guitar)

SUNDAY MARCH 20 | 3 PM: Lester St. Louis (cello), Dre Hocevar (drums), Stephen Haynes (cornet), Joe Morris (guitar)

SUNDAY APRIL 10 | 3 PM: Dana Jessen (bassoon), Stephen Haynes (cornet), Joe Morris (guitar)

Bowl Offering to Benefit Shedrub Ling

Artist Elizabeth Phelps Meyer will culminate her exhibition “Metanoia” with a bowl offering to benefit sacred sites in Nepal. Meyer will offer to the public the 1,080 red ceramic bowls featured in the exhibition. Participants in this exchange will have the opportunity to make a donation toward the rebuilding of the Ky-Nying Shedrub Ling and Nagi Gompa monastery and nunnery, located in the Kathmandu valley of Nepal.

A massive earthquake devastated Nepal in April of 2015. Meyer, who lived in the country in 2007, was moved to create a work to benefit a place for which she feels profound love. The color of the bowls is rooted in the vermilion powder (“sindoor”) that adorns sculptures at sacred sites in Nepal. Each bowl is filled with a mix of sindoor powder, red sand, and occasional clay remnants that are symbolic of the land in a country that needs to be rebuilt.

The creation of the bowls was an accumulative meditative practice for Meyer – part devotion and part “social sculpture.” The decision to give the bowls away after the exhibition is a “reminder of the fragility of our world(s), and [an] opportunity for people to practice generosity themselves,” says Meyer.

This event is free and open to the public. Meyer will be offering bowls from 2-9 PM on January 16th, the final day of her exhibition. One bowl will be offered per person attending the exchange.
DATE CHANGED: Puppetry Workshop

Artist Elizabeth Phelps Meyer will lead a stop-motion animation and puppetry workshop in conjunction with her current exhibition “Metanoia,” now on view.

In this workshop, participants will learn about the art of stop-motion animation using a professional figurative armature. Participants will work in teams (of 2-3 people each) both to help construct armatures using kits, and to make short videos using already assembled armatures, a small animation stage, a green-screen, and a DSLR camera mounted to a tripod and tethered to a MAC computer. Non-drying clay will also be available for modeling onto the armatures as each team prepares to make their video by creating a “character” to animate.

As they make video, participants will also learn and employ the technique of “rotoscoping” using real-time video they shoot, and the software i-stop motion, in order to represent human movement in a convincing way. At the end of the workshop, participants will enjoy screening the videos created by each team.

The workshop will last 6 hours, with a break for lunch (participants are responsible for making their own lunch arrangements).

DATE CHANGED – Now scheduled for Saturday Dec 12
Thank you to everyone who RSVP’d for this event! All slots are now full. If you would like to be added to the waiting list, please send an email to Zoe Allison at zallison@realartways.org
Elizabeth Phelps Meyer: Artist Talk

The artist discusses her art practice and ideas in relation to the concept of metanoia, which is defined as a profound, usually spiritual, conversion, transformation, or awakening.

“Metanoia” is a video and sculpture exhibition. A trilogy of videos set in a fictional art gallery feature stop-motion puppetry and crafted landscapes, which explore the transformative power of color. A handmade landscape installation is on display, including twelve of Meyer’s puppets. One thousand and eighty hand-thrown red ceramic bowls, each containing a “fractured landscape” of red sand and clay remnants, complete the exhibition.

Free & Open to the Public

Carla Gannis: Garden of Emoji Delights
by Carla Gannis

New media artist Carla Gannis reimagines the 16th century masterpiece The Garden of Earthly Delights by collaging signs & symbols of everyday virtual speech – called emoji – over Hieronymous Bosch’s original work.

Carla Gannis will at Real Art Ways for a artist talk on Thursday, February 4 at 7 PM.

Take a look in the Hartford Courant: http://www.courant.com/entertainment/museums-galleries/hc-emoji-art-hartford-1030-20151029-story.html

Insook Hwang: The Energy-Love:Miracle

Exploring ideas of memories and experiences, New Haven-based artist Insook Hwangdraws inspiration from the models of DNA molecules to create small, repeating images that assemble into a larger more net-like form.

For The Energy-Love: Miracle exhibition, Hwang creates a site-specific installation in our Real Room, transforming it into a imaginative and invigorating environment as her role as the artist is to bring love and positive energy to the audience.

The American Slave Coast
With Authors Ned & Constance Sublette

Slavery went beyond free labor; domestic slave breeding practices were a deeply entrenched economic system in United States history. By showing that enslaved people functioned as very expensive commodities whose value depended not only on how much they could produce but on how much they could reproduce, the Sublettes’ narrative reveals that the majority of the South’s wealth lay not in land, cotton or rice, but in slaves – specifically, in what they term the “capitalized womb.” Along the way, they describe the roles of major figures of colonial and US history – Jefferson, Jackson, Polk, and many others — in creating and defending the slave-breeding economy, which expanded along with the growing nation, while others – most especially the enslaved themselves – resisted it.

This event is free and open to the public.

An Evening with Kate Bornstein

Trans: Beyond the Tipping Point

With Laverne Cox on the cover of Time magazine, and Jazz Jennings with her own television show, it’s clear that the world of transgender is itself in transition. Kate Bornstein speaks to the changing language of trans, the clear division that runs through almost every trans community, and a strategy for unifying all our new and disparate trans identities without “invisibilizing” anyone.

Author, activist, performance artist, and gender theorist Kate Bornstein is one of the most influential voices in the discussion of gender and trans issues. She has created performance pieces and theater works, led workshops, and written several award-winning books in the field of Women and Gender Studies which are taught in over 120 colleges and universities around the world.

Bornstein recently spent two months with Caitlyn Jenner and six other trans women filming season two of “I Am Cait.” She is also about to release a 25th anniversary edition of her first book, Gender Outlaw, and is working on her sixth book, Trans: Just for the Fun of It.

Photo by Virginia Hamrick.

Battle Trance

An unusual combination of four tenor saxophones, Battle Trance mesmerizes with “a floating tapestry of fascinating textures made up of tiny musical motifs, and a music that throbs with tension between stillness and agitation, density and light,” (New York Times).

Tickets are $10/$5 for members. Student admission is $7.

Preview Battle Trance on their Bandcamp website here: http://battletrance.bandcamp.com/releases

Howard Fromson: Here and Now

“Here and Now” exhibits new sculptures, chairs, and photographs of installations at the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Hartford Library, and the Mortensen Riverfront plaza by inventor, artist, and philanthropist Howard Fromson.

Fromson’s pieces emerge from principles of weight and balance defined by a basic geometric shape: the tetrahedron. Steel is bent, crimped, and folded in repeating patterns to create a variety of sculptures, from motorized kinetic pieces to what are known as Fromson Tetra Chairs.

Accompanying the sculptures in the exhibit are large photographs of pieces on view around the Hartford region. A four-seat Tetra Chair is installed at the Hartford Public Library, and two other chairs enjoy public use at the Lincoln Financial Sculpture Walk along the Connecticut river.

David Borawski: Sell Me Down the River

From the artist:
“Sell Me Down the River consists of three recent video works: Endless War (2010); Governmentally (2013) and Double Down, just completed and premiering for this exhibition . Screened together all three speak to the idea of being trapped, with imagery of confinement and disorientation. The term “sell me down the river,” which in this case is taken from the Stone Temple Pilots song of the same name, refers to betrayal and deception. These works were instigated by our current political landscape, which has fostered hatred and fear in the service of oppression. Ongoing corporate assault on our democracy peels away at our freedoms within a maze of bureaucratic sleight of hand, betraying and deceiving the population.”