Picks for Tuesday:PBR Book Club and Grace Chin at Teller's

Roberto Bolano, author of 2666

Tonight, the PBR Book Club will get out their boxing gloves as they duke it out over a discussion of their most recent book, Roberto Bolano's 2666.  Tall boys at Frank's will be on hand.

The PBR Book Club may have rival book club. Via Craigslist,  someone is seeking readers interested in Star Wars books, describing the mission as a "nerdy yet noble endeavor." 
See the post here: http://lawrence.craigslist.org/stp/3159019190.html

Check out the PBR Book Club which has next month's selection at its website here: http://pbrbookclub.blogspot.com/

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Grace Chin opens at Teller's:
Bildungsroman

Here is Grace's description: Normally a term used to describe coming-of-age literature, Chin’s Bildungsroman is a collection of water color monotype prints that find the artist turning her own situation into something more.
“It’s a little bit of autobiography, but it’s also examining narrative structure itself,” Chin says. “That’s something that’s always interested me — storytelling, and how you do that with images.”

Here is the Facebook invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/447066005324175/

Five good reasons to listen to audio books

Selection of MP3 audio books at the Lawrence Public Library

photo by William Ottens

More than ever before, we have options for how we can read books. When it comes to audio books, there is no middle ground;  people either love'em or they hate'em.  

The argument for audio books

1. Sometimes we actually get to hear authors read their own works, giving a window and insight into the author's intentions.   We can hear how poets perform their famous works, such as Allen GInsberg's Howl. 

2. Audio can force listeners to hear content they may have skipped over.  For instance, in Bolano's 2666, description of each and every brutal murder in Book Five is tediously read, whereas many readers may skim the details. 

3. We can hear how the reader sings songs in audio. In this audio recording of The Lord of the Rings series, Rob Inglis skillfully invents melodies to song of elves, Tom Bombadil, and others that many people skip over.  In Angela's Ashes, we hear Frank McCourt sing the obscure Irish songs from his youth. 

4. We can discover how to really say the names of Dostoyevsky's Russian characters. 

5. Access is easy with audio.  If you have an I-pod, you probably have access to an online store where you can immediately download your choice from a huge catalog of books.  According to William Ottens of the Lawrence Public Library, you can now download audio books from the State Library Site using these instructions: http://www.lawrence.lib.ks.us/books-more/ebooks-and-more/

Sunday: Tap Room Poetry Series Birthday and Lawrence Modern Gathering

To Do Today: 
Can you believe it? The Tap Room Poetry Series is having its first year anniversary. They will celebrate with a late afternoon Open Mic starting at 5:00. 
Check out the Tap Room's webpage here: http://taproompoetry.blogspot.com/
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Lawrence Moderns Gathering

The Lawrence Moderns is a group dedicated to mid-century ( 1945-1965) architecture in Lawrence.  They will be meeting today at 3:00 to discuss a home built in 1965.  Keith Herrin, KU professor of architecture, will also school Lawrencians on Lawrence modern architecture.
Read more about the Lawrence Moderns from a post we made in April here: http://larryvilleartists.blogspot.com/2012/04/lawrence-moderns.html
Check out their ultra modern website of the Lawrence Moderns here:http://lawrencemodern.com

Who was out for FInal Fridays Downtown?

 Linda in the middle of the Monica Vidal sculpture at the Arts Center

Who was out for Final Fridays last night? We have the pics.

 It was a big ceramics evening at the Arts Center. David Sturm from Bracker's was raku firing outside and Allen Chen exhibited his large thrown pots.
Wonderfair had some amazing print pieces, and The Replay Lounge featured the What Gives for their early show.


 Here are party pics from last night:

Allen Chen with his work

We will dearly miss Allen who will go to Ohio for his new job soon

 The ceramics guys at the Arts Center

 At the Arts Center

 At the Arts Center

 Hipster kids at the Percolator for the Dime Bag Show

 

 At the Percolator

Bret playing at the Replay

 At the Percoloator

 At the Percolator

 At the Pig

 At Wonderfair

In front of the Burger Stand

Friday Picks and History Tour of the Color Wheel

Detail of a lithograph at Wonderfair for Final Fridays

FInal Friday Picks: 

Tonight is Final Friday and we'll be out taking party pics ( posted on Saturday!).  Be sure to check out Karen's top three FInal Friday picks here:http://larryvilleartists.blogspot.com/2012/07/karens-three-final-friday-picks.html

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We are excited to hear that Lawrence doo wop band Dean Monkey and the Dropouts are recording songs for their new CD this weekend.  Band members say this will be their best set of songs yet.  Check out their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dean-Monkey-the-Dropouts/224375187590394

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The Color Wheel

We take its diagram for granted.  However, did you know that there are different versions of the color wheel, especially through history?

The Greeks: For the Greeks, color was first thought of in terms of light and dark. Aristotle believed that color was mixtures of light and dark with basic hues between.  Thus, he arranged his colors to look something like this. 

Linear color 

Age of Enlightenment: Isaac Newton's experiments with light was important to color theory.  He recognized that colors could be created by mixing color primaries.  

The scientist and naturalist Moses Harris was the first to put red, yellow, and blue as primary colors in a color wheel in the 18th century.  Harris worked with pigments rather than lights following a discovery by a French painter that all hues could be reduced to the primary color pigments.  

Itten's Color Wheel

Modern Color Wheel: We owe much to Bauhaus teacher Johannes Itten for the modern looking color wheel.  Itten developed a simplified color wheel, departing from the colors wheels that were used during his time which contained too few or too many colors.  Itten's color wheel makes it easy to find the connection between hues. 

artwork by Itten "Horizontal and Vertical" 1955

Karen's Top Three FInal Friday Picks

Although we've been suffering from Heat Madness this week, we're planning what to do for this month's Final Friday.  Here are Karen's top three Final Friday picks for July.

1. The Replay
The What Gives Reunion Show with Erik Voeks and Jon Harrison and the Harrisonics
6-8  early show.  Although we usually leave it to other scenesters for music pics, we're excited to hear new songs written by Jon Harrison and others. 

2. Invisible Hand
Clare Doveton and Molly Murphy
The Invisible Hand has moved to East Lawrence. Adam has been teasing us with photos of the progress of the new gallery, and we finally get to see the finished space on Friday.   Molly has informed us that she has been working on new art to hang for this show.

Adam's pic of the new space that he has been posting on Twitter and Facebook

3. Wonderfair 
Print Invitational

Wonderfair will host a Print Invitational curated by Micheal Krueger featuring 20 artists. The line-up looks good and Wonderfair will have special cocktails, too. Wonderfair encourages "Print Nerds to Unite."

small detail of one of the lithographs in the show

Here is the Facebook Invite for this event which lists the artists:  https://www.facebook.com/events/169036326564022/
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AND what will @Larryvillelife promoting this weekend?  Among other things, dumpster diving! Read his interview with artist  Leo Hayden here: http://larryvillechronicles.blogspot.com/2012/07/new-interview-leo-hayden-takes-us.html

How does the LJ World pick its art features? We are clueless.

Deflated Balloon Sculpture by Chicago Artist Willy Chyr

With all the great art in Lawrence, we are clueless as to how the Lawrence Journal World picks art to feature for its newspaper.  The art the LJW journalists have chosen to write about has been random and obscure. 

A good example is coverage by the LJW of the now deflated balloon sculpture (in the above picture) by Chicago Artist Willy Chyr, currently on exhibit at the Arts Center. This sculpture was on the front page of the LJW, and one of the few if only only lengthy art articles to be given attention to by the LJW. The online edition also included a video. 

Although we usually love nerdy projects, and Chyr's had potential by combining physics with art, we somehow were never really impressed by this. Lately,  the sculpture looks like discarded balloons after a child's birthday party.  Balloons are deflated, falling off,  and can be found on the floor of the Arts Center.  The sculpture is very sad looking.  Although art works are sometimes meant to disintegrate organically, such Patrick Dougherty's woven wood sculpture displayed with a live tree campus, Chyr's piece was not. 

Chyr's sculpture started off bright and cheery, but soon the balloons started deflating and falling off

The Journal World could have focused attention on the many artists in Lawrence who are creating high quality work. For instance, in a room a few feet away from Chry's sculpture, the Arts Center's skilled Artist in Resident, Allen Chen, had an amazing installation of hanging ceramic globe pieces.  

Allen Chen's installation

Japanese Artist Yoyoi Kusama

Infinity Mirror Room, New York, 1965

Yoyoi Kusama's work has been in the international news lately.  She just had a major exhibition at the Tate Modern Gallery this past spring, and last night, Louis Vuitton unveiled windows for its store on 5th Avenue in New York that she collaborated with.   She is best known for her massive Infinity Net paintings, her sculptures, her performance art, and her installations.  If those are not enough, she is also a novelist, a poet, and fashion designer.

Window of Louis Vuitton's 5th Avenue Store

As Ali Smith worte in the Tate Etc. "For Kusamai, art is a fetile bleed, something which spreads on to the walls, the floor, out into the room, all over the self.  Mindscape and landscape are the same in her work, a reminder that we are all where we live, that we make what surrounds us as much as it makes us."

Passing Winter, 2005

This is what the Tate Gallery says about her work: The nine decades of Yayoi Kusama’s life have taken her from rural Japan to the New York art scene to contemporary Tokyo, in a career in which she has continuously innovated and re-invented her style. Well-known for her repeating dot patterns, her art encompasses an astonishing variety of media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, film, performance and immersive installation. It ranges from works on paper featuring intense semi-abstract imagery, to soft sculpture known as ‘Accumulations’, to her ‘Infinity Net’ paintings, made up of carefully repeated arcs of paint built up into large patterns. Since 1977 Kusama has lived voluntarily in a psychiatric institution, and much of her work has been marked with obsessiveness and a desire to escape from psychological trauma. In an attempt to share her experiences, she creates installations that immerse the viewer in her obsessive vision of endless dots and nets or infinitely mirrored space.

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Performance Art of the 1960's
THE POLKA-DOT DIVA: A ONE-ACT PLAY (written by Monty DiPietra during the time the Moma retrospective in 1999). 

location: The Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
time: late 1960s, late summer, mid-afternoon.(enter Japanese Artist, stage left, followed by Assistants. They move to the museum’s sculpture garden. Assistants disrobe. Guests, upstage, take notice and seem shocked. Japanese Artist produces a brush and paints colorful polka dots onto the naked Assistants, who pose as statues. New York Daily News Photographer appears and takes the picture that will appear on his newspaper’s front page the following day. Enter Museum Security Guards, stage right. They escort Japanese Artist and Assistants downstage, where Policemen have appeared...)





Policeman 1: (serious tone) You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law...
Japanese Artist: At the museum you can take off your clothes in good company; Renoir, Maillol, Giacometti, Picasso...The nude has become socially acceptable among the more permanent residents of the garden of the museum. Phalli are also a la mode, particularly the harder varieties in granite, basalt and bronze. (Policemen lead her away)
Guests: (emphatically) Bravo! Bravo!

Photo in the New York Daily News, 

See the interactive Tate site with a video of Kusama here: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/yayoi-kusama

More on DiPietro's review of Kusama's performance art here: http://www.assemblylanguage.com/reviews/Kusama.html


See 10 things to know about Kusama from the blog Worn Fashion Journal here: http://www.wornjournal.com/html/10-things-about-yayoi-kusama/

How is color chosen in consumer goods?

Most sought after fall fashion item: The burgundy crinkled coat

Color choices for items like cars, interior design, and even kitchen appliances are contrived and planned. The high costs for product development necessitate that industries use color palettes that consumers are more likely to buy.  Two important groups making decisions for industry behind closed doors are the Color Association of the United States, known in the industry as the "color czars" and the Color Marketing Group.  They make decisions on what they feel will and should dominate a certain industry.  Some of the decision making is based on world economic and political trends. For instance, right now is a conservative business climate.  A color palette is created, and chosen colors are then used in items that consumers buy.

Pre-determined color palettes are seen in high end clothing design as well, contrary to the myth of artistic whim. 

We are starting to see what writers for blogs and magazines and other experts are predicting for the trends for the fall 2012 fashion. Fall fashion often reflects harvest colors.  This year, the mood for the designs seems somber;  possibly reflecting styles from the Cold War era.  Shiny or crinkled leather is very "in" for this fall, too.

The "in" colors for 2012 fall fashion

The colors for fall 2012 have burgundy type reds, pewter blues, and neutral grays.  Although there are exceptions, the cuts and styles tend to be conservative. 

Here are some examples of fall high fashion wear from Tory Burch: 

Inspiration for the collection came from this vintage wallpaper design

Last Night's Sketch Tease

Last night, we had a great drawing session at Sketch Tease, held at Atomic Photography.  Because the space is used for a photography studio, the lighting was excellent.  Two models, Scarlot  Harlot and Lavonne Mystere dressed in wonderful costumes and had interesting poses.
 Here are some pics from the evening.

Sketch Tease and The Art of the Pin Up

Although it has been a slow couple of weeks in lazy Larryville, there are events happening tonight that are worth attending!

Sketch Tease will allow artists to draw at models in costume from 7:00-10:00 tonight.  It will be held at Atomic Photography.  cost: $5.00. 

Bring Drawing supplies. 

Here is what the invite says: It's an evening of lovely ladies, furious sketching, chatting, music, plus a little food & drink to keep the natives from getting restless.

Scarlot Harlot and Lavone Mystere will be your models for the evening! Plan on attending?

Bring your own art supplies and drawing/painting surfaces! Nothing too unwieldy, but if you have a drawing board or collapsible easel, bring it along! Maybe you just draw on an ipad? It's up to you!

Photographers bring your cameras! Just be aware of the lighting and that will be no flash. 

Here is there Facebook Invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/392754974104330/

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Stop by the 4th annual Dime Bag Show tonight at from 6-9 p.m at the Percolator.  In this show, artists make a work of art from stuff ( junk?) found at the Social Service League.
All proceeds from this show go toward the Percololator.

Here is the Facebook invite https://www.facebook.com/events/385099301544886/

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The Art of the Pin Up

Although originally in monthly male magazines such as Esquire in the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's,  pin-up art is becoming more reputable.  The spencer Museum has a collection of Vargus originals, and pin-up art is seeing its way into international auction houses.  Here are examples of pin-up paintings from two notable pin-up artists. 

Gil Elvgren

 Alberto Vargus