Archives 2008: January - June

found sound (Public Music Reconnaissance) | Patrick Renner
January 23 – February 28, 2009

Mezzanine Gallery

Patrick Renner will present an installation consisting of found telephone poles with attached sound-harvesting devices. These mechanisms, based on the function of the standard music box, will be activated by all the leftover nails, staples, and hardware used to hang public notices of garage sales, lost pets, property listings, et al. The random melody the devices produce is the reinterpretation of imbedded information that we see all the time as we pass through the urban landscape.

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Highway 71 Revisited | Barry Stone
January 23 – February 28, 2009

Grace R. Cavnar Gallery

Highway 71 Revisited is ongoing and multifaceted project. The series includes photographs of Stone’s family, strangers under highways, fake flowers, abstracted galaxies made from flour, field recordings and collage. Through the juxtaposition of many different kinds of imagery and methodologies, Stone creates a malleable language depicting a sense of place, and the artist’s place within it. Stone’s goal is not to coolly document the margins of highway culture, but rather to bring a personal and poetic point of view. In this way his picture-making builds a symbolic system, a framework for the perception of the world or a meditation on a set of ideas.

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Museum Educators Open House | January 24, 2009
9 AM – 1 PM

Lawndale Art Center will operate a booth hosted by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston for Houston Area educators. Area museums will provide information for educators about activities, events, group visits and other educational programs. For more information or to register, please visit www.houstonmuseumdistrict.org

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Spacetaker SPEAKeasy
February 18, 2009
6:30 – 8:30 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 and a guest arts organization hosts two to three artists from varying disciplines to present, in an informal atmosphere, creative dialogs/talks/presentations about their work followed by a question and answer session. 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 collaborations.

On Wednesday, February 18, 6:30 – 8:30 PM, three artists whose work is currently on view at Lawndale Art Center, Kathy Kelley, Aram Nagle and Patrick Renner will speak.

www.spacetaker.org

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Cultured Cocktails
with Beaver's and Spacetaker
February 19, 2009
5:00 – 10:00 PM

Beaver's
2310 Decatur Street
Houston 77007

Celebrate Lawndale Art Center with Beaver's and Spacetaker. Join us at Beaver's when a portion of the Cultured Cocktails menu proceeds will benefit Lawndale from 5 – 10 PM. Beaver's and Spacetaker celebrate our local art scene each week by contributing proceeds to a new local non-profit arts organization each week!

www.beavershouston.com
www.spacetaker.org

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Quilting Bee-hemoth
February 28, 2009
12:00 – 5:00 PM

Room 317

During this Saturday workshop, Studio artist Kevin Curry invites everyone to become part of his ongoing Housewarming project through the cutting, sewing and sorting of fabric as well as the laying out of patterns to be handed off to those sewing [either at Lawndale or at their leisure]. Three sewing machines will be on hand and anyone is free to bring their own if they wish. All participants are also invited to bring any fabric that they wish to have included in this piece. All ages and abilities are invited to become part of the social and interpersonal aspect of this event and it's outcome.

For the Housewarming project Curry is constructing an oversized quilt to cover the entire outside of a house here in Houston. Made entirely from donated and thrift store purchased fabrics, Curry's intention is to address the metaphorical and physical embracing of the present by the past.  The quilt is sewn following a traditional ‘log-cabin’ pattern that has been enlarged fourfold. So far, over 800 square feet has been completed, with many more to go.

Curry was recently honored as recipient of a 2009 ‘Idea Fund’ grant through the Warhol Foundation Initiative, Aurora Picture Show, DiverseWorks and Project Row Houses that has enabled him to finally bring the Housewarming piece to fruition.

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March 13 – April 18, 2009
Opening Reception Friday, March 13, 2009 from 6:30 – 8:30 PM
Artist talks at 6:00 PM

Ritual Prototypes for the Afterlife | Dennis Harper
March 13 – April 18, 2009

John M. O'Quinn Gallery

Ritual Prototypes for the Afterlife is a sculpture installation meant to evoke the interior of a spacious tomb within which monumental archetypal artifacts representing the needs and desires of one traveling to the next realm are prescriptively arranged. The furnishings suggest ritual preparations of an aggressive and indulgent culture anticipating a hereafter purportedly lacking in the activities and amenities it has grown accustomed to in life—sex, entertainment and high-speed internet. Discrepancies between secular and religious expectations are examined by presenting them in the context of an ancient culture that made little distinction between secular and religious life. Ritual artifacts provide a common point of reference. The video component, while helping to establish the context of the installation, presents a narrative that examines the extent to which culture and circumstance shape the life of an individual.
Artist's website

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Ta Marmaruga | David Waddell & Kelly Ulcak
March 13 – April 18, 2009

Mezzanine Gallery

Ta Marmaruga, loosely translated from the ancient Greek, describes the dazzling things that an escaped prisoner encounters in Allegory of the Cave from Plato’s Republic. Illustrated in this tale is the suggestion of seeing the enlightened truths lying under the apparent surface of things and the notion that education is not only the input of knowledge into empty minds but making people realize that which they already know. This project is an experimental collaboration; beginning with a simple premise and a literal narrative. Combining Ulcak’s quirky narratives and drawing style with Waddell’s abstracted and painterly stop-motions these two come together to attempt to tell a story about knowledge and knowing.
Waddell's website
Ulcak's website

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The Listening Post | Tim Brown
March 13 – April 18, 2009

Grace R. Cavnar Gallery

The Listening Post takes the viewer into the world of the contemporary call center, where the anonymous is personal and the personal is anonymous. Part illustrative documentation, part confessional, part sociological experiment, The Listening Post explores the contrast between the isolated and hermetic environment of the call center and the human and sometimes messy connection between caller and operator.
Artist's website

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Silent Topographies | Brent Fogt
March 13 – April 18, 2009

Project Space

Silent Topographies is an exhibition of highly detailed drawings that explore growth and metamorphosis at both the micro and macro levels. These drawings borrow from a wide range of visual imagery, including maps, aerial photography, plants and sixties-era psychedelic patterns. The exhibition invites viewers to explore these complex micro and macro worlds from vantage points both close and far.
Artist's website

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Empty Bowls Houston
March 21, 2009
11:00 AM – 4:00 PM
For tickets, go to emptybowlshouston.org

Empty Bowls Houston is a unique lunch event and fundraiser that brings together the arts and crafts community to fight hunger in our area and benefits the Houston Food Bank. For a minimum $25 donation, guests enjoy a simple lunch and select a bowl from hundreds of one-of-a-kind; hand-crafted bowls donated by Houston area ceramicists and craft artists. The event will be held again this year at two neighboring facilities: the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft at 4848 Main Street, and Lawndale Art Center at 4912 Main Street.

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Bayou City Art Festival
March 27, 28 & 29, 2009
10:00 AM – 6:00 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.

Volunteer opportunities are available with Lawndale at our Memorial Park Creative Zone booth and with BCAF event staffing. Register with Lawndale now to recieve more details about volunteering at this event!

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10th Annual Midtown Vision Cultural Arts Tour
Saturday, April 18, 2009
12:00 - 5:00 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 Kevin Curry, Amber Eagle and El Franco Lee II. For more information on this event, please visit www.midtownvisions.org.

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Art Car Parade Trophy Making Workshop
Saturday, April 18, 2009
1:00 - 4:00 PM

On Saturday afternoon, April 18, from 1-4pm, come to Lawndale and make a one-of-a-kind work of art to be awarded to prize-winning art cars in the 2009 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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Lawndale Art Center's 14th Annual
20th Century Modern Market
April 22 – April 26, 2009

O'Quinn, Cavnar and Mezzanine Galleries

Click here for more information.

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May 8 – June 13, 2009
Opening Reception Friday, May 8, 2009 from 6:30 – 8:30 PM
Artist talks at 6:00 PM

ROUND 3 | Kevin Curry, Amber Eagle and El Franco Lee II
Lawndale Artist Studio Program Exhibition
May 8 – June 13, 2009

John M. O'Quinn Gallery

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 Lawndale Art Center at 4912 Main Street in the heart of Houston’s Museum District.  This exhibition features residents for the third year of the Lawndale Artist Studio Program, Kevin Curry, Amber Eagle and El Franco Lee II.

While at Lawndale, Kevin Curry has continued his multi-faceted exploration of language and culture evident in information-based technologies and societal detritus. Often times working intuitively with his surroundings, Curry looked to the debris-field left in the wake of hurricane Ike in establishing a new body of work reflective of contemporary landscapes through the repurposing of signs that littered the streets of post-Ike Houston. Curry has also been continuing work on Housewarming for which he was recently awarded an Idea Fund grant. This piece involves the construction of an oversized quilt sewn in a traditional Log-cabin pattern that will be tailored to cover the entire outside of a house here in Houston upon it's completion. Curry sees this as a literal embracing of the present by the past as much as it is a dialogue of social topography.

Amber Eagle’s current work is driven by an interest in feminine trappings and wiles. In this exhibition she uses wood, nail varnish and a pastel palette to explore things that have traditionally signified female power such as antebellum dresses (the bigger they are the larger space your beauty commands) and long decorated fingernails. Amber will be driving a semi truck powered skirt to the opening.

El Franco Lee II describes his work as bringing “an illustrator’s technique of realism and surrealism to the fine arts arena. The intent is to set my work apart from ‘Pop Art’ and ‘Folk-Art’ by depicting real life events consequentially, addressing the needs of fine art audiences who demand cultural and innovative renderings of the unexpected. The collections of Urban Mannerist Pop Art in acrylic paint, mixed mediums, pencil and ink are many times very graphic in content and can sometimes startle if not offend the observer, however upon further examination the observer is captivated and drawn into the life experience. The spectator is forced to face truthful realities of humanity. The focus is to peel away the outer layers of still life and graphic illustrations to reveal the disguise of what would once be considered ordinary.”

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Washington Avenue: Forgotten to Gentrified |
Robert Sennhauser
May 8 – June 13, 2009

Mezzanine Gallery

Robert Sennhauser’s exhibition for the Mezzanine Gallery is the result of the first year and an a half of a three-year ethnographic study; photographs and edited, taped interviews of Houston’s Washington Avenue, and surrounding area, as it is gentrified. Presented as a “flow chart” Sennhauser photographed Washington Avenue, from Houston Avenue to T.C. Jester. His documentation consists of overlapping photographs plus additional photographs, interviews, and information including street names, historical notes, physical changes and individuals, past and present, connected to specific locations.

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regarding discards | Stephanie Martz
May 8 – June 13, 2009

Grace R. Cavnar Gallery

Stephanie Martz’s work deals with discarded traces of individuals. Through signatures and notes individuals leave their marks on books that are then discarded. Clothing becomes stained and then lines the rows of hanging clothes in second hand stores. Interiors of abandoned house destroy themselves like a disease does to the body it inhabits. What was once prized begins to decay, becomes stained, is no longer relevant to an individual’s identity, and is left for another (and becomes a part of another’s history). Everything is interconnected. We are connected through genes and diseases just like we are through another’s printed words in a book, and items and wallpaper left behind for decay.

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Out of Site | Noah Simblist
May 8 – June 13, 2009

Project Space

“Out of site is about the architecture of conflict in Israel-Palestine. In the summer of 2008, I participated in a program run by the Israel Committee Against Housing Demolitions (ICAHD), which gathers international activists to rebuild Palestinian homes destroyed by the Israeli government. While living and working in the village of Anata, I came to see that a house being destroyed and rebuilt connects the practice of everyday life with much larger historical and ideological currents. As a result, the symbolism of the construction or destruction of architecture has enormous symbolic weight. Identity becomes interwoven between the layers of building blocks and rubble, which quickly become more abstract than their mere utility.
There is a wall or separation barrier that is being constructed through Anata. Dividing two national identities and cultures within one socio-economic fabric, this wall has been compared by its critics to its predecessors in South Africa, Warsaw and Berlin. These powerful allusions speak to the depth that this wall cuts into the landscape and to the collective psyche of its inhabitants.
Out of Site investigates the religious, political, and nationalist symbolism inherent in ideas of home, land, and borders. Out of Site speaks to the specters of diaspora and exile that haunt the landscape of Israel-Palestine, a site which seems out of reach, always bathed in its utopian and messianic mythology.” – Noah Simblist

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Collaboration Among the Arts Final Projects | Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts
May 8 – May 30, 2009

Room 317

Also on view in Room 317: Final project presentations by University of Houston students in the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts course Collaboration Among the Arts.

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Art Lies Issue No. 61 Launch & Discussion
with Guest Editorial Contributor Stuart Horodner
May 16, 2009
11 :00 AM- 1:00 PM

Members of Art Lies and Lawndale Art Center are invited to welcome Stuart Horodner, Artistic Director of the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center to Houston. Light brunch and refreshments will be served.
Stuart Horodner and Anjali Gupta, Executive Director and Editor of Art Lies will have an informal discussion about the current issue of Art Lies at Lawndale. A light brunch and refreshments will be served for your enjoyment. This event marks the beginning of Art Lies bringing Guest Editorial Contributors to Texas for panel discussions, informal talks and studio visits.
Art Lies is available in the United States at independent bookstores, museums and select Barnes & Noble locations and internationally via the Web at www.artlies.org.

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Urban Illustration Workshop
with Lawndale Studio Artist El Franco Lee II
May 16, 2009
2:00 - 4:00 PM

Middle school through high school students are invite for a free workshop introducing urban illustration by Lawndale Studio Artist El Franco Lee II. Participants need to bring a picture of their favorite icon from a news paper, magazine etc. The icon can be from sports, music, politics, movies, or art. Participants will create an environment, situation, or action pose to put the iconic figure into. The figure that they choose is not what will make the drawing urban. This style is created by the drawing utensils, such as number 2 pencils, ball point pens or marker which are usually found at any office building or school environment. It's called making the best out of what you've got.  This alone is what adds the urban mystic. El Franco will share with the students any advice, guidance or drawing techniques that can help them start making their own piece.
Pens, pencils and paper will be provided. This workshop is aimed at a middle school through high school students and will begin with a short presentation by EL Franco.

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MICROLIVING | MASSIE / PEREZ Fabrication Studio
University of Houston - Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture
May 22 – June 27, 2009
Opening Reception Friday, May 22, 2009 from 6:00 – 8:00 PM

Mary E. Bawden Sculpture Garden

MASSIE / PEREZ collaborative design studio in Houston, Texas are developing two full-scale prototype MICROLIVING dwellings, structure + skin fabrications, with 5th year students at the University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture.  The Comprehensive Design and Digital Fabrication studio is focused on the dual themes of LIGHT FABRICATION + MICROLIVING.  The collaborative 5th year design studio is a joint initiative between William Massie, Head of Architecture Department at Cranbrook Academy of Art, and Santiago R. Pérez, Assistant Professor, UH College of Architecture.  Massie and Perez intend for the experimental architecture proposal to provoke critical discussion beyond the architecture academy, in regard to domestic space and dwelling in the Twenty First Century. This project is sponsored in part by a University of Houston Faculty Development Grant. William Massie is a world renowned architect and “Digital Fabrication” specialist, featured in the February 2009 issue of DWELL magazine.  Santiago Pérez teaches advanced studios and seminars focusing on emerging fabrication technologies, generative modeling and interactive architecture. For more information on this project, please visit:

http://srplab.uh.edu/blog/
http://microliving.uh.edu/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22685249@N04/

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Gallery Talk with Amber Eagle
Saturday, June 13, 2009
1:00 PM

Join Lawndale Studio Artist Amber Eagle for an informal gallery talk on Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 1:00 PM. Amber Eagle is a 2008-2009 Lawndale Artist Studio Program participant. Her work is currently on view in the exhibition Round 3 in the John M. O’Quinn Gallery through June 13, 2009. Eagle received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA from California College of Art. She has spent the past ten years working and exhibiting in Mexico. She is recipient of McColl Center for the arts residency, Headlands Center for the Arts, winner of the 2008 Art Car Parade and a Core Fellowship. She is from Charlotte, North Carolina.
http://www.ambereagle.org

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