FREE, inclusive art class • a Renaissance is what they call it.... It's not just an Art Class

a Renaissance is what they call it.... It's not just an Art Class
By E.k. Miles and Leila Macbeth

Come join in a 12 week long journey through artistic expression, conversation, collaboration and the re-shaping of space. Renaissance is not just an art class but a movement toward building collectively and cultivating with others while using multiple art forms and the inherent knowledge we all hold. With study and applied knowledge, this class will stretch us artistically, enabling each person to share their talents----blending together narrative, visual, and installation art forms to create collective pieces of work that incorporates each student's artistic voice and talent.

First class meet Saturday, March 3, 2012, 4:00pm until 6:30pm. If you can't make this class, sign up anyway and come to the next one!

Class is FREE!!!!
(most) Materials provided
12 spaces available (first come first serve)

IF INTERESTED PLEASE EMAIL  elyriq@gmail.com to confirm attendance

Registration deadline: March !st

Class meets 3 times a month

((((((inclusive and diverse environment)))

Marie Alarcón's video installation show, BANISHED, opens February 10, 6-9pm

Opening reception: Friday, Feb. 10, 6-9pm, refreshments served

Additional viewing times: Fridays Feb. 17, 24, & March 2, 3-7pm

Location: 40ST AIR Gallery, 4007 Chestnut St, 1st floor
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Marie Alarcón is a Philadelphia-based video and installation artist. Her videos are collages of texture and light, often set in the majestic natural environs of eastern Pennsylvania. Inspired by liminality, hybridity and memory, her work is influenced by gender and race and pushes to create new mythologies rather then create "true histories."

Through the use of surreal effects created by pushing the capabilities of the camera itself, she creates intense dreamscapes and fantastical visions in which the viewers can lose themselves. Alarcón also teaches non-fiction and documentary workshops to both youth and adults, and has been involved in community media for the past 10 years.

Banished is a curation of Alarcón's short video and installation pieces dealing with transformation. The idea behind Banished is both cathartic expulsion and violent removal, sometimes initiated by the subject, and at other times imposed by another.

Alarcón will be screening her most recent piece MAGIcicada, a 5 minute video that follows a magical ritual of transformation created through live action, animation, and video collage. She will also premiere She Lost Her Wings Before She Could Fly, a video of devotion and the realities it obscures.



Check out the teaser: http://mariedaphnie.tumblr.com/

Great Press about Invitational Opening!

(photo of Celestine Wilson Hughes' "Black Madonna" and "Women of the World do not Drown in Three Feet of Water" taken by Emma Eisenberg)

The following article by Emma Eisenberg testifies to the excellent "Friends and Neighbors, Artist Invitational" opening 40st had on January 13.

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www.WestPhillyLocal.com

40th St Artist Invitational opening is great success

Posted January 16, 2012

Despite the cold, the intimate gallery space at 4007 Chestnut was filled to the gills Friday night to see new work by West Philadelphia visual artists. The invitational format of the show, in which the artists currently in residence at the 40th Street Artist-in-Residence Program invited other artists whose work they admire, made for a diverse and full bodied show. Althea Baird’s tracing paper and india ink print (pictured left) was a highlight, bearing resemblance to a sepia toned photograph, and spoke to, in her words, “our body’s ability to remember.”

Other favorites were Corina Dross’ detailed portraits of graphic artist Lynda Barry and writer Zora Neale Hurston, designed to look like oversized playing cards, and Celestine Wilson Hughes’ bold glass sculptures “Black Madonna” and “Women of the Universe Do Not Drown in Three Feet of Water” (pictured below) which were shaped like cabinets containing human hearts and were reminiscent of Mexican folk art’s raw renditions of love and death. ”They have to do with women, and with fear,” said Hughes during the brief artist talk.

But it was born and raised West Philadelphian Brian Bazemore’s work that perhaps best summarized the exuberance, delicate hope, and community pride that was palpable in all the works Friday night and in the crowd itself - his approximately 10 ft by 4 ft wooden “testimonial” board made with plywood and spray paint bore the inscription “Use each setback, disappointment and success as a cue to push forward/ahead with more determination than before.”

The show is running until January 27.

40th St AIR Artist Invitational ---- Opens Friday, January 13th, 6pm!!

40th Street AIR presents...

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS --- A West Philly Artist Invitational!

The 40st AIR program has invited eleven artists to exhibit at our January invitational. The show opens January 13th, 6-9pm, and will be up until January 27th. Come see dynamic and diverse artwork, meet talented West Philly artists and the 2011-2012 40st AIR's residents!

Featured Artists include:
Althea Baird
Brian Bazemore
Zoe Cohen
Rob D'Amico
Corina Dross
Jasmine Hamilton
Celestine Wilson Hughes
Ab Ominable
KellyAnne Mifflin
Thomasin Parnes
Accra Zuberi

The 40th ST AIR gallery is located at 4007 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia.



*"Wildfire Study" by Zoe Cohen
"52 Borges" by Corina Dross

Marie Alarcón: Artist-in-Residence

Marie Alarcón is a video artist based in West Philadelphia. She has a background in documentary film and frequently collaborates on community documentary projects. Her video art is inspired by liminality, hybridity and memory, which is informed by postcolonial theory and gender studies. Alarcón uses video to create intense dreamscapes, and fantastical visions as a way of leading the viewer towards insights on culture and identity. She is a 2009, Leeway Foundation, Art and Change Grant recipient and is currently exploring post-digital technology and radical autonomy in the context of public art.

Sarah Lowry: Artist-in-Residence

Sarah Lowry is a director, performer, dancer, pilates teacher, and community organizer in Philadelphia and beyond. She has been a founding and full-time member of The Missoula Oblongata since 2005. Recent company productions include Clamlump, The 50 Greatest Ladies and Gentlemen, The Daughter of the Father of Time Motion Study. Here in Philadelphia the company has also become known for their annual ‘Secret Shakespeare’ productions in which artists from all over the country join local Philly performers in one giant show. This year’s Antony & Cleopatra began at the Girard Street subway and led a100-person audience on a parade through the five acts performed by 5 difference different companies, with drinks and desserts served along the way (June 2011). In addition to her work with The Missoula Oblongata, she has worked in a variety of capacities with artists here in Philadelphia; Pig Iron Theater Company, Puppet Uprising, and Ramshackle Enterprises, to name a few.
Currently, Sarah is working on a dance/clown/puppet performance piece with Beth Nixon of Ramshackle Enterprises that began with an interest in The Mill Creek, a river that flows underneath the concrete of West Philadelphia, where Beth and Sarah live. This piece is scheduled to premier January 2012. When not performing, Sarah organizes with anti- fracking organization Protecting Our Waters as well with the Philadelphia Collaborative for Reproductive Justice and Support.

Sarah divides her time between her work here in Philly touring with the Missoula Oblongata and biking over mountain passes in Montana.

Martina Plag: Artist-in-Residence

Martina Plag creates puppetry for adult audiences to address contemporary issues and advocate social change and awareness. She is German and practiced architecture for ten years before pursuing her love of puppetry. Her masks, puppets, automata and experimental short films have been in juried exhibitions and have awarded her seven residencies. In 2008, she established her puppetry atelier: studium-praxis, which under her artistic direction has presented four original productions; two of which were invited to the Joyce SoHO New Dance Alliance Performance Festival and the Festival of Jewish Theatre and Ideas at Theater Three in NYC. Ms. Plag has designed puppets, sets and prototypes for Mum Puppettheatre, Enchantment Theatre Company, The University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Gas & Electric Arts, New City Stage Company, WHITE BOX THEATRE: Philadelphia; Slingback Productions, NYC, the Children's Theatre Company, Minneapolis, MN, Rowan University, Glassborough, NJ , People’s Light & Theater Co, Malvern, PA, and the International Opera Theater in Città della Pieve, Italy.