Larryville Artists

Monday, February 9, 2015

A Day for Sending Love: Discovering Unique Valentine Cards

The staff at Larryville Artists admit that we are suckers for Valentine's Day. Reporters are nibbling on decadent chocolates as we type. The aroma of roses is in the air. Our staff is on the frenzied hunt to find unique Valentine cards to send to loved ones.

During a card hunting excursion, we spotted fabulous Valentine cards at the Wonder Fair Gallery. Some of our favorite cards at Wonder Fair are made by Kansas City's Hammer Press. Hammer Press uses a letterpress to make their cards. The cards have subtle colors, slight embossing, and made with heavy weight paper.

Wonder Fair's Merideth holds a card designed and printed by Hammer Press

Card by Hammer Press

Sip and Shop February 13

Be sure to check out the Sip and Shop event on February 13. Local artists will have Valentine cards and gifts. Starting at 6:00 at The Roost, The Sip and Shop hosts local artists and will feature hand painted cards, jewelry and more.
See the Facebook Event here: https://www.facebook.com/events/1376411409325139/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Looking for Love....in a Drink

Dusty Dog

at The Eighth Street Tap Room

Valentine’s Day is a time for love. During this season, our staff is investigating what love means. What is love? Does love lead to happiness? Can we find Love?

In pursuit of this enduring and incessant philosophical inquiry about love, we asked our persnickety Larryville Artist Food Critic to help us in an expedition. We visited The Eighth Street Tap Room in search of love in a drink.

An Easy Beats record played as we entered The Taproom. Our bartender, Mitch, accepted our challenge to create love in a drink. After conferring with others sitting at the bar, Mitch mixed a Dusty Dog.

Made with vodka, lemon, fresh squeezed ginger, angostura bitters, and crème di cassis, the drink is sweet without tasting syrupy. The ginger and lemon give a slight bite. A lovely shade of pink that doesn’t taste pink, our cocktail lacks frills (in a good way).

Is the Dusty Dog puppy love? We gave Mitch extra points for creating a love drink that isn’t sickeningly sweet.

Cost for our love: $4.00

Our bartender Mitch

He is also an illustrator

Check out his art here:

http://www.mitchmeseke.com/

Friday, February 6, 2015

Our Last Farewell Drink at Pachamamas

Aviation at Pachamamas

We visited our favorite Pacha bartender, Paige, and asked her to make us a cocktail. After many cocktails served to us while lounging on comfy couches at Pachamamas, this may be our last. Pachamamas closes its doors after Valentine's day.

What send-off drink did Paige make us? Paige created an Aviation consisting of gin, luxardo, and crème de violette topped with a cherry.

Aromatic, floral, and light, the Aviation is tart and smooth. With a touch of sophistication, this cocktail is for pondering over the latest New Yorker Magazine while sitting on penthouse balconies.

We accompanied with Pommes Frites sided with a kicked up homemade ketchup. Companions drank Red Stripe in tall cans.

Au Revioir! Pachamamas. Take care.

Paige

Companions drinking Red Stripe while lounging on a couch

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Film Screening: Burroughs The Movie

Burroughs in New York in the 1970's. Punk meets the counter culture conscious mind.

Liberty Hall is showing the digitally restored Burroughs: The Movie on Thursday at 7 p.m. and 9 p.m.. The movie is currently being distributed for worldwide screenings through Janus Films.

Capturing a 1970's Burroughs, documentary film director Howard Brookner shows Burroughs when he was on a wave of influence on New York artists, musicians and writers. The film contains interviews with NYC contemporaries Allen Ginsberg, Terry Southern, and Patti Smith.

Burroughs is candid about his controversial personal life in the film. We see a personal life that is shattered; Burrouhgs shot his wife and killed her, and his relationship with his only son is fragile.

Roger Ebert writes in a June 1984 review of the movie: ;The most painful passages in the film deal with his son, Willie Jr., an alcoholic and speed freak – “the last of the beatniks” – who wrote a couple of books and then committed suicide during the filming. Father and son are awkward together; although they are both anti-establishment rebels, it gives them nothing in common.

Burroughs: The Movie will be added to The Criterion Collection.

More information about the screening at Liberty Hall can be found here: http://www. Lawrence.com/events/2015/feb/05/burroughs-movie/?et=85483

More Burroughs:
This American life has a nifty take on Burroughs in their recent podcast Burroughs 101. Iggy Pop narrates. Listen to Burroughs 101 from This American Life Here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/546/burroughs-101

Photo via Maggie Allen

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Newsy: K.C. Grant Funding Workshop

Deep Goes the Weasel

David Cedillo

via Rocketgrants.org

The second of six different arts funding workshops takes place in InterUrban ArtHouse on Thursday February 5th at 7pm, when grants administrators and grant recipients from Charlotte Street Foundation's Rocket Grants will present a workshop on this regional arts funding opportunity.

Arts Funding Series 2015 aims to outline the arts grants available to individual artists, artist groups and small organizations across the Kansas City Metropolitan Region, and further afield. Granting bodies include ArtsKC Regional Arts Council, Kansas Creative Arts Industries Commision, Charlotte Street Foundation, Mid-America Arts Alliance, and Downtown KC Council's Art Loop. Projects eligible for funding across this broad scope of grantors include public art projects, performances and exhibitions, community arts activities, strategic development, capacity-building and career-advancing opportunities.

“Artists across the Kansas City Metro have a unique selection of funding opportunities available to them,” says IUAH Assistant Director Nick Carswell. “Our hope is that more artists can explore grant funding as part of their portfolio of revenue streams, and as a vehicle to create engaging and sustainable art projects that benefit not only the individual artists, but the entire community.”

Each workshop will feature a presentation by a granting organization, and will cover details about grant guidelines, eligibility, timelines, budgets and successful narratives. Workshops will also feature successfully funded projects from previous grant recipients, and will be followed by discussion and Q&A.

Local performance artist David Cedillo attended a similar workshop by IUAH in March 2014, which resulted in his experimental project Mondo Deep being rewarded a $6,000 Rocket Grant with interactive performances at local drive-in movie theaters. David says: “I talked to Nick Carswell after Julia Cole’s [Rocket Grants coordinator] presentation about reshaping Mondo Beep to make it eligible for a Rocket Grant, and he suggested teaming up with a visual artist like a sculptor. We were just brainstorming that night, but a few ideas came to me in the days that followed.”

The aim of these workshops is to connect individual artists with funding opportunities, to increase the quality and success of future applications, and to support the development of future art projects that are both suitable for arts funding and benefit the community through artistic excellence and community engagement.

For more information, visit www.interurbanarthouse.org/artsfundingseries2015/ or contact InterUrban ArtHouse on (913) 432-1916

Text provided by Press Release, InterUrban ArtHouse

Saturday, January 31, 2015

Plugging into the Folk Alliance Conference

Composer David Amram playing jazz with a country band at the 2014 conference

By Anne Tangeman

Bluegrass, ragtime, old-time, country, blues, jazz, rock and more will be showcased at this year’s Folk Alliance Conference and the new-this-year Music Fair at Kansas City’s Crown Center Westin and Sheraton hotels Feb. 18-22. Attendees will find multiple music stages and open jams, music camps for adults and kids with lessons from locals to icons like guitarists Redd Volkaert, Andy McKee, Bill Kirchen, and Bela Fleck. There’s also a music related film festival, art gallery and expo hall. Lawrence will make its presence known with several bands playing the local showcases on Wednesday night at the Westin as well as a full Friday night showcase at the Sheraton.

Much like South By South West, the conference is a gathering of international musicians, agents, festival bookers and fans with seemingly endless stages of music. While you’ll run into what you might think of as traditional ‘folk’ music, you’re just as likely to come across Lawrence native Chuck Mead rocking his Nashville honky tonk in one room and down the hall see 80 year old composer and world music expert David Amram throw down some jazz with a young country band.

The ‘industry’ side at the Westin Crown Center has a steep SXSW-like entry badge fee of $275-375 which gets you entry to keynote speeches and gets ambitious musicians in front of agents and festival bookers. The new, public Music Fair portion at the Sheraton next door is just $25 per day or evening or $125 for the week and gets you access to six stages of music, the film festival, art gallery, expo hall and music camp.

If you play, bring your instrument (there’s even an ‘instrument check’ if you want to put it away for a while). You’ll find folks playing in the hallways, the alcoves and if you’re lucky enough to have a Conference full-on badge, you’ll find a Winfield-like experience of late night jams into the wee hours in blocks of hotel rooms turned into (really) small venues at the Westin.

Folk Alliance website

Music Fair Events

Music Fair Concert Schedule

Conference Concert Schedule

Not to be missed:
Wednesday - All local lineup public show at the Westin

$20 for ten stages of music from funk/soul group the Phantastics to Hembree to Lawrence’s own Carswell and Hope, along with Schwervon, the Latenight Callers, KC’s Rural Grit folks, Betse Ellis and more.

Thursday – Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn, Billy Strings & Don Julin

Friday – Lawrence KS Live stage (Ashes to Immortality, MAW, Tyler Gregory. Brody Buster, Nicholas St. James, Carswell & Hope and 40 Watt Dreams). At midnight The Hillbenders TOMMY: A Bluegrass Opry (yes, that TOMMY). Also don’t miss guitar icons Bill Kirchen & Redd Volkaert

Saturday – David Amram, Betse Ellis, Kasey Rausch and more.
Be sure to check out the Art Gallery & Poster Show with works from Daniel Johnston, Tim Kerr and more.