Archives 2010: January - June

Spacetaker SPEAKeasy
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
6:30–9 PM

Spacetaker Artist Resource Center
Winter Street Studios
2101 Winter Street
Houston, TX 77007

Every third Wednesday of the month at the Artist SPEAKeasy, Spacetaker hosts two to three artists from varying disciplines (visual, performing, literary, etc.) to present, in an informal atmosphere, creative dialogs/talks/presentations about their work followed by a question and answer session where the audience can glean further insight into the artist, the artist's aesthetic and creative process. The evening is designed not only to bring together artists and those who appreciate the arts, but also to introduce local artists to each other to encourage conversation and cross-disciplinary collaboration between artists and their chosen media.

Spacetaker Arist SPEAKeasy on Wednesday, January 20, 2009, features artist collective UUPA Crust, made up of artists Robert Hodge, Lovie Olivia and Michael Kahlil Taylor of the exhibition DARe to go FURther, opening January 22 at Lawndale.

More…

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Artadia Information Session for the Artadia Awards 2010 Houston
Thursday, January 28, 2010
6 PM

Please join Artadia’s Executive Director, Lila Kanner, to discuss the Artadia Awards 2010 Houston and answer questions about the process and online application. Free and open to the public. No rsvp required. Limited seating available on a first come first serve basis.

For more information visit: www.artadia.org



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January 22–February 27, 2010
Opening Reception Friday, January 22, 2010 from 6:30–8:30 PM
Artist Talks at 6 PM


DARe to go FURther | UUPA Crust
Robert Hodge, Lovie Olivia and Michael Kahlil Taylor

Taking into consideration the staggering range of diversity that the African Diaspora has to offer, DARe to go FURther aims to investigate and reveal many enigmatic layers.  UUPA Crust fastidiously addresses the presence of stereotypes, myths and cultural similarities of both African-Americans and native Africans.  Robert Hodge, Lovie Olivia and Michael Kahlil Taylor of the UUPA Crust Collective, are exploring and navigating beyond the surface of many beliefs associated with certain communities.  In forms of visual narratives, paintings, and mixed media on paper, UUPA Crust analyzes the adaptation and mutability of culture. 

The artists of UUPA Crust share a common fascination for cross-continental interactions, and the parallelisms despite lost and altered history of individuals particularly whose roots are African.  “Cleverly hidden in the show title is the region of DARFUR which caught the attention of all of us.  We felt that the mass media’s handling of the information was discerning.  This motivated us to pry further into how blacks are globally received.  From our neighborhoods and beyond we celebrate our culture and heritage by daring to go beyond the newspapers and T.V. screens.”  This is expressed visually and metaphorically. In this past year, the members have traveled to the African continent, the Caribbean and the common melting pot of New Orleans Louisiana to gather detail.  In the tradition of anthropologists UUPA Crust has spent time gathering and cataloging to bring us steps closer to these visual resolutions. 

“From Kenya , the Caribbean to New Orleans and back to our neighborhood blocks we’ve witnessed cultural exchange and contrast that we wish to express in these works.”  Various symbols of wealth, status and spiritual practices are relevant through tattoos, scarification, piercings and elaborate coiffures as forms of identification.   Myth, folklore, spirituality and hip-hop harmoniously blend  into  visual amalgamation expressed through DARe to go FURther

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Harmonic Spheres | Christopher Cascio & Anne J. Regan

Christopher Cascio’s work explores the themes of sound production and replication by using the visual impact of finely cut paper on bright negative space. Cascio creates ornately cut Xeroxes of tangled cords and audio equipment arranged over a fluorescent orange background with a thick layer of high gloss varnish on top.  The concept of this series of new work centers on the visual interpretations of synthesized sound and the complexities inherent in signals passing through various speakers, processors and recorded media. Cascio is interested in conceptual associations brought to mind (such as the idiosyncrasies of sound gear collections/collectors,) as well as certain visual associations such as how the lined up gear resembles structural elements and other familiar geometric patterns.

Anne J. Regan's works are rooted in the blues, in the heavy history of the south, of its struggle with truth and longing for a home.  Astrology, rootwork and alchemy play heavy roles in her practice, all resting upon the belief that devotion and embracement of such belief systems will conjure the true nature of the concepts in the works. Each piece is constructed to temporarily transfix the viewer with an intuitive recognition of presence, engaging them in a call and response between the work itself and its materials. The natural world features in these pieces as a binder to now intangible people, places and times. Soil, air, water and wax become symbols not only of the history of the locations themselves but of death's sanctification of the land, of a sacred space to return to, of those still moving and singing within us. Nothing ever goes away.

Both artists' works focus on the different spheres of sound: sensory, spiritual, historic, cosmic, social and scientific.  In Harmonic Spheres, Casico and Regan's habits are laid bare as it becomes clear that they are both collectors who have dismantled and reconstructed their devotions into these fully developed worlds. Shown alongside each other, all of these combine to create another new composition, their final harmony, which resonates throughout the gallery space.

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Christopher Cascio


Anne J. Regan

Poly-Lawn-Dale | Ned Dodington

For the installation at Lawndale Ned Dodington will fill the Grace R. Cavnar  Gallery with roughly 40 nylon-stocking-filled pods of grass seed and  potting soil, left to grow from simply black pods into green, verdant, almost hairy, living sculptures. Poly-Lawn-Dale will hope to show that by recontextualizing the natural and the cultural we can begin to understand new ways of being in a complex and multi-natural world. Poly-Lawn-Dale is at once intricately designed and totally unplanned. Human intervention is visible and also erased by the whimsy of living grass.

Dodington states, “ ‘Nature has never been natural’ and as our global economy and global populations continue to expand and intertwine the distinction between what were once thought to be the natural and cultural worlds become less and less clear. Furthermore, with continued movements towards social equality (women’s rights, religious tolerance, abortion rights, and non-traditional marital unions), and environmental responsibility, the vanguard of social activism today appears to be centered around bio-politics and ethics.  It is becoming less and less clear what exactly makes us Human and why exactly we find that so important. Poly-Lawn-Dale will explore these issues with the installation of a highly artificial/natural installation.”

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Ab-Scrap | Sally Heller

Sally Heller explores, and exposes, the glut of a consumer-oriented society by building an abstract landscape installation using scraps and other found materials including netting, plastic flowers, cardboard, coat hangers and blanket scraps-cultural remnants of our everyday lives. A curtain made of chain surrounds parts of the landscape, broken up into swags, creating large negative spaces. The negative spaces are covered with tulle and opaque material, functioning as a device that lures the viewer to peek inside through its few openings which will break to form a single entrance. A video of a swamp scene, projected onto the landscape introduces the viewer to the relationship between real nature and its artificial counterpart.

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Migration Center | Jarrod Beck

Migration Center is a displaced built environment—beginning as a cast in place structure in the Mary E. Bawden Sculpture Garden, the project is contextualized and studied in the Lawndale Art Center’s Classroom 317. The casting forms are drawn maps on drafting film: unwieldy sheafs collaged with stained plastic tarps, dried pools of oil and graphite. Inks, dyes, rife with particulate matter, fill the sealed pockets, left to cake and dry. Precision, the architect’s vision, meets the chaotic material landscape through a shearing, folding, stitching: casting forms are created recalling cactus spindles, body doubles, the bones found excavating a foundation, strips of the party missed.

Under the sun, on broken grass, the limp bodies are laid out and prepared for their solid state. Bags of plaster are mixed, pristinely white and poured into the molds as it warms, scalding hands. As a limb cures, another is poured, depending on the just-formed for support. Filling out the tangle of form, growing into a structure, wearing the evidence of the process. Joints struggle and crumble. These slips come together on site to create a body, a wall, a weather system overwhelming the senses.

 After exploring the environment outside, visitors will be invited upstairs into the classroom for a presentation of artifacts and drawings: skins and offcasts from the body downstairs. As a place of study and rest, the interior Migration Center offers an inhabitable threshold between what was and what comes after, all within the weight of what we’re left with.

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Also on view

Snack Projects | featuring Gerardo Rosales
January 22–February 27, 2010

Snack Projects is a miniature and portable art space, a “gallery” measuring 11” x 20” x 13”, organized by artists Michael Guidry and Robert Ruello. Snack Projects will feature the work of both local and regional artists throughout the 2009-2010 exhibition season at Lawndale Art Center.

Snack Projects will feature the work of artists Bill Davenport, Rachel Hecker, Claire Chauvin, Gerardo Rosales, Dean Ruck and Nancy Douthey.

snackprojects.com

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March 12–April 17, 2010
Opening Reception Friday, March 12, 2010 from 6:30–8:30 PM
Artist Talks at 6 PM


In conjunction with FotoFest 2010

Dirty Secrets from the Cataract Cinema | Dan Havel &
Chuck Ivy

In conjunction with FotoFest 2010, Lawndale Art Center presents the work of two artists exploring the visual and emotional potential of salvaging old film images and re-mixing them to create digital prints and short films in the John M. O’Quinn Gallery.

Dan Havel revisits images discovered in an abandoned X-rated movie theatre and shoe shine shop in downtown Houston during his installation of a site-specific work made for the 1996 FotoFest Biennial. The work mixes the naughty and kitschy images of x-rated film plots with the abstract expressionist effects of decay. The work seeks to redefine the context of its origin as adult films and introduce the viewer to a fluid landscape of images altered by the entropic effects of water and time on the film emulsion. The colorful, faded surfaces are cracked and scratched, with fractals of pooled emulsion intertwining and framing the various figures, stories, and locations in the films. Primarily known for his large scale sculptural installations, this current body of work introduces the Houston audience to a rarely exhibited and long standing tradition in Havel’s career of exploring the use of found images and objects. Havel seeks to expose the visual and contextual transformational power of entropy. It also marks the artist’s first experimentation with digital images and video formats.

Chuck Ivy’s work asks the question, “How much time can a single image represent?” Ivy has written software to reduce segments of feature films into a series of still images, each representing an average of light and color from approximately one minute of running time. The resultant images are as much a function of the parameters of his program as they are of the editing within the original film. The fluid images explore the territory between sharp frozen moments and the blur born of long exposures, revealing unexpected beauty as they snatch a hint of recognition from the brink of abstract noise.
www.chuckivy.com

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Dan Havel


Chuck Ivy


 

site: interventions, observations, & simulations | Caroline Gore

in conjuction with FotoFest 2010 and the Society
of North American Goldsmiths 2010 Conference

In conjunction with The Society of North American Goldsmiths (SNAG) 2010 Conference and FotoFest 2010, Caroline Gore exhibits work creating a link between photography and jewelry in the Mezzanine Gallery at Lawndale Art Center. Gore responds to spaces where she lives and travels, imbuing value and beauty through materials used and created sites of origination for adornment. Gore adhered gold foil to the streets, and on other parts of the environment to create a wearable or simply a signifier of adornment for the environment. The resulting jewelry sourced from this process functions on multiple levels, as a way to share the site-specific experience through wearability.
www.carolinegore.com

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Tip Toe | Jonathan C. Leach & Ariane Roesch

Jonathan C. Leach and Ariane Roesch transform the Travis Street entrance and the Grace R. Cavnar Gallery as a place of transit through the use of colored light and fabric to create a structural dynamic that moves the viewer through this transitional space while creating spatial shifts and color vibration. Both artists’ individual practices focus on communication, architectural structures and human interaction. The site specific installation takes into account how visitors and staff move through the space during exhibitions and openings. The use of directional lines in both artists’ work traces pathways within space, serving not only a formal but also a symbolic function. For this collaboration, Leach and Roesch use a band of fabric rather than lines. Strings and wire will shape and pull taught the fabric to weave it through the hallway and gallery space.
www.plasticagenda.info
www.arianeroesch.com

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Laureate | Anne Allen

Since completing an artist residency at the Oregon School of Arts and Crafts in 1996, Anne Allen’s work has turned from jewelry making towards drawing, where she continues to explore her interest in pattern, handicrafts, design and the decorative arts. Sources include hairnets and netting, machine-made lace and doilies, wallpaper and textile patterns and ancient jewelry forms. Allen is interested in the way commonplace, mass-produced items point to the handmade, art origins in their decorative history, and how the banal comes from what once was beautiful.

Laureate explores through a series of drawings, the form, function and decorative aspects of select coverings and jewelry for the head. The subjects range from hairnets and lace mantillas from today, to the delicate forms found in the gold diadems of Greek and Etruscan antiquity. The exhibition includes large wall drawings executed in gold ink or graphite, along with smaller, life-sized drawings on paper in silverpoint, gouache and gold leaf, with added select collage elements.

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Also on view

Snack Projects | featuring Dean Ruck
March 12 –April 17, 2010

Snack Projects is a miniature and portable art space, a “gallery” measuring 11” x 20” x 13”, organized by artists Michael Guidry and Robert Ruello. Snack Projects will feature the work of both local and regional artists throughout the 2009-2010 exhibition season at Lawndale Art Center.


snackprojects.com

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Bayou City Art Festival Memorial Park
March 26–28, 2010
10 AM–6 PM

As a Non-Profit Partner of the Art Colony Association, Lawndale Art Center hosts a booth in the Creative Zone of the Bayou city Art Festival. Lawndale Art Center’s booth offers a fun and easy art activity for children visiting the festival.

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Paint a Pet
Workshop with Dawn Black
Thursday, April 8, 2010
6–8 PM

Paint your favorite pet in watercolor and gouache with Lawndale Artist Studio Program participant Dawn Black!  Learn how to transfer your pet's image onto a piece of watercolor paper and how to paint it using water-based paints. This program is free of charge and for all ages and all skill levels.  Please bring a few photos of your pet.

Workshop is limited to 15 participants.
Update: The workshop is now full. Please check out our upcoming events below for other studio artist programs.

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GET OUT! OF THE CLOSET!
Screening at Lawndale Art Center
presented by B & G & Lightfoot Productions and Zenfilm
Friday, April 9, 2010
8 PM

A breakthrough in reality television, “Get Out! Of The Closet!” follows host Natty Ice as she crosses the country helping those struggling with their sexuality in a direct, no-nonsense, in-your-face fashion. She dishes out truth sticks – sticks made out of THE TRUTH - to each and every Closet CaseTM that she meets, inspiring them to lead a brand new life full of exciting opportunities. Natty emphasizes (through an intervention-style confrontation) that there’s no reason to live your life full of shame, or more importantly, full of shame-rage. Each person that appears on the show is given carte blanche access to the life they could have – opportunities to say yes to themselves, to fussy meals and tight, expensive clothing – to explore themselves, their own bodies, and the bodies of strangers who share the same sex. If you, a loved one or even a casual acquaintance needs to GET OUT! And OUT OF THE CLOSET!, the bold new reality show is for you!

www.getoutofthecloset.tv

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11th Annual Midtown Visions Cultural Arts Tour
Saturday, April 10, 2010
12 –5 PM

Midtown artist's studios, galleries, complexes and collectives will be open for you to purchase artwork from the artist's studios and view compelling installations, mixed media and performances. Come enjoy some of Houston's most creative visual and performing arts environments and be a part of Midtown's growing art community! Stop by Lawndale and visit with current Lawndale Artist Studio Program participants Dawn Black, Nick Meriwether and David Waddell. For more information on this event, please visit www.midtownvisions.com.

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Art Car Parade Trophy Making Workshop
Saturday, April 10, 2010
1–4 PM

On Saturday afternoon, April 10, from 1–4 PM, come to Lawndale and make a one-of-a-kind work of art to be awarded to prize-winning art cars in the 2010 Art Car Parade. Rain or shine—come join us and support Houston’s Art Car Parade—the first and largest Art Car Parade in the world!

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April 21 – April 25, 2010

Click here for more information.

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May 7–June 12, 2010
Opening Reception Friday, May 7, 2010 from 6:30–8:30 PM
Artist Talks at 6 PM


Lawndale Artist Studio Program Exhibition
| Dawn Black, Nick Meriwether & David Waddell
May 7–June 12, 2010

The Lawndale Artist Studio Program is part of Lawndale’s ongoing commitment to support the creation of contemporary art by Gulf Coast area artists. With an emphasis on emerging practices, the program provides three artists with studio space on the third floor of the Lawndale Art Center at 4912 Main Street in the heart of Houston’s Museum District. This exhibition features residents for the fourth year of the Lawndale Artist Studio Program, Dawn Black, Nick Meriwether and David Waddell.

Dawn Black’s drawings question the nuances of identity politics and cultural norms by depicting scenes of meticulously drawn (in gouache, watercolor, and ink) figures that have been culled from the Internet and various periodicals. The intrinsic narratives created by the figure’s groupings are intended to be layered and ambiguous, thus allowing the viewer to seriously consider the relationships depicted. While a resident at Lawndale, Black has been working on a series of works that examine both acts of violence and society's response to these abuses.

Nick Meriwether presents a collection of work created while in residency at Lawndale. This new work spans a variety of themes and mediums. While in residence, Meriwether focused heavily on experimentation. Circuits and motors were valued as equal to the paintbrush. The result is a cloud of ideas expressed through sculptural forms such as unaccommodating robotics, shotgun blasts, spray paint and truck hitch testicles among other surprises.

David Waddell presents his expanding world of creatures through new iPod pieces, wall drawings and collaged specimen studies.  Waddell extracts components from printed material in our popular culture. Images are regenerated  and brought to life through digital means. These cultural creatures camouflage into our modern landscape and mechanically perform human actions and natural deeds.

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Dawn Black


Nick Meriwether


David Waddell

 

Spoiler | Ann Wood
May 7–June 12, 2010

Since becoming one of the many unfortunate victims of Hurricane Ike, Ann Wood has been making pieces that are loosely about objects or events that can “get you” or “spoil” your day. A subtle undercurrent in her newest work has also been the idea of the food chain and how danger is relative: a bird is wonderful to look at unless of course you are a worm. While nature has always informed Wood’s work, the idea of the food chain, looming danger in seemingly innocent situations, and the uneasiness that comes with that knowledge has begun to take on new meaning and increasing importance because of her own new-found sense of vulnerability.

Spoiler is a site-specific installation in the Mezzanine Gallery. Ann Wood creates most of her work using thread, foam, rubber, and fake objects like insects, hunting decoys, fruits, and flowers. The ideas of scrapbooking, sewing, “women’s work,” and nurturing are important for Wood and give the piece a quirky sense of humor.

“With Spoiler I am thinking about how ants, in their quickness to rebuild, represent ambition and drive...if you destroy their hill they begin to rebuild immediately. I am also thinking about ‘ants in the pants’ and how that silly, light-hearted saying is used to signify a general sense of uneasiness. And of course, the cliché of ants spoiling a picnic is an obvious reference. The word spoiler is also used to describe an ending that has been prematurely given away. That’s important, too, as this installation includes a lot of clues as to the “ending” before you reach the Mezzanine Gallery.” –Ann Wood

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The Stand | Lily Cox-Richard
May 7–June 12, 2010

Lily Cox-Richard is interested in the historic and commemorative roles of sculpture, from public monument to personal grave marker. Her current work explores the power of icons and objects, and how this power shifts with time, context, and readability. The Stand is an exhibition of new work exploring the props used in neo-classical sculpture to shore up both structure and allegory. In Hiram Powers' 1872 marble The Last of the Tribes, a Native American woman flees western civilization. As she runs, the edges of her skirt flip as they brush past a tree stump. In Lily’s sculptures, these props and trappings are freed from their roles of symbol and support and reinvested with new visibility and presence.

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Farming of the Future (Now is The Only Thing That is Real)
| Malcolm Smith
May 7–June 12, 2010

Aquaponics is a high-density food production arrangement that produces both plant matter and fish in one system with an absolute minimum of water usage.

Very little power is required to operate the Aquaponic system. The lower part of the system houses the fish that create the fertilizer for the plants. The plants are contained in what is called a “grow bed” which sits above the fish tank. A single water pump propels nutrient rich water from the fish tank to the grow bed(s). Plants become a natural filter as they absorb nourishment from fish waste, reducing or eliminating the water's toxicity for the aquatic life while the water fills the plant container. Once the plant container is full a device known as an “auto siphon” drains sparkling water effortlessly back to the fish tank using only the power of gravity. No external power is needed for the auto siphon to operate.

The water, now clean, is returned to the marine animal environment and the cycle continues. Aquaponic systems do not discharge or exchange water. The systems rely on the natural relationship between the aquatic animals and the plants to maintain the environment. Water is only added to replace water loss from absorption by the plants, and evaporation into the air.

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Also on view

Snack Projects | featuring Rachel Hecker
May 7 –June 12 , 2010

Snack Projects is a miniature and portable art space, a “gallery” measuring 11” x 20” x 13”, organized by artists Michael Guidry and Robert Ruello. Snack Projects will feature the work of both local and regional artists throughout the 2009-2010 exhibition season at Lawndale Art Center.


snackprojects.com

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Lawndale Artist Studio Program Application Information Session
Monday, May 10, 2010
5:30–6:30 PM

This workshop will introduce the Lawndale Artist Studio Program to prospective applicants, including a short presentation about the program and application guidelines, followed by a tour of the studio spaces and introduction to the current studio program participants.  The workshop is optional for program applicants.

For more information on the Lawndale Artist Studio Program, click here.

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Altered Realities
Curated by David Waddell
Friday, May 14, 2010
6 PM

Saturday, May 15, 2010
2 PM

David Waddell, media artist, Director of Media Studies at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and Lawndale Artist Studio Program participant, curates a video screening in two parts. The first part will include work from HSPVA’s digital lab. The second part will be an eclectic group of artists selected from around the United States.

Waddell’s videos have been screened in Washington, D.C., Chicago and San Francisco. His iPod work has been on display at Fotofest in the Fall 2008 and at Gavin Brown Enterprise, in 2007. He curated the show “Play” at Commerce Street Art Warehouse in 2007 and was included in Aurora Picture Show’s Extreme Shorts (2009).

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Audio Transmission for Beginners
Workshop with Nick Meriwether
Thursday, May 20, 2010
6–8 PM

Make a contact microphone with Lawndale Artists Studio Program participant Nick Meriwether. In this class you will learn the basics of electronics. You will also learn the fundamentals of soldering while creating your very own contact microphone*. Plus you will learn how to transmit sound through a laser beam!

It is easier than you might think. This class is for anyone with an interest. You do not have to have ANY experience or prior knowledge to be successful.

Registration for this class is required as seating is limited. Please register by emailing dnance@lawndaleartcenter.org or calling (713) 528-5858. There is a $10 equipment fee for the class, which includes all of the materials you will need and allow you to take home the contact mic you make in class.

*(A contact microphone is a mic that is designed to transmit audio vibrations through solid objects.)

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Gallery Conversation with Emily Ballew Neff, Curator of American Painting and Sculpture, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and Lily Cox-Richard
Thursday, May 27, 2010
5:30 PM

Join the conversation as Lily Cox-Richard introduces her project The Stand, currently on view in the Grace R. Cavnar Gallery, and Emily Ballew Neff discusses the complexities and significance of Hiram Powers’ The Last of the Tribes, a sculpture in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the impetus for Lily’s project.  Together they expand on ideas of density, tension, and conflict in sculpture. Following the talk, join Lily for a walk to the MFAH to see Hiram Powers’ sculpture in person (On Thursdays, the MFAH is free and open until 9pm).

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Lawndale Art Center Night at the Ballpark
June 2, 2010
Game time 7:05 PM
Houston Astros vs Washington Nationals

Come out and cheer on the Astros with Lawndale friends. Purchase tickets in the View Deck I for $12.00 and $3.00 for every ticket sold will be donated to Lawndale Art Center. Since we’ll be in the section closest to outer space, come dressed in your best alien or “astro”—not, space city cowboy duds. Costumed fans will receive an exclusive Lawndale sticker and be featured on our Flickr page and upcoming newsletter.

To purchase tickets: Log on to astros.com/lawndale. Create an account and use the password art to make your purchase.

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