Art's Role in Greensboro Economic Development

"...when we support the arts, we not only enhance our quality of life, but we also invest in Guilford County’s economic well-being."
-from Arts and Economic Prosperity III, a study by Americans for the Arts

The nonprofit/arts industry in Greensboro generates $30.73 million in local economic activity. Read more about this study at the United Arts Council of Greater Greensboro's website.

Upcoming August Events

All-Arts, Sciences & Technology Camp 2009
July 26-31 - UNCG Division of Continual Learning - Greensboro
A weeklong, residential summer camp for ages 7-15. Designed to give in-depth and experiential instruction in the arts and sciences, the camp also includes recreation, multi-cultural entertainment, and a wide variety of activities that suit individual tastes and preferences. Find 866.334.2255

Authoring Action
July 30 - August 2 - 7 pm - Bethabara Moravian Church - Winston-Salem
Authoring Action (formerly the Winston-Salem Youth Arts Institute) presents its Commencement Engagement by the Authoring Action Ensemble. Authoring Action is a live experience, where teens present uncensored, original and true works of poetry, monologues, raps, lyrics and short films from their perspective. We engage our audience, not for applause, or standing ovations, but to change your life and make a difference. The thirty teens participating in this Summer's Institute invite the public to experience their words as a force for change. Admission is $10 and tickets will be available at the door. Reservations are recommended.
336.749.1317

Bearing Witness: The Tree
July 31 - 7 pm - Reynolda House Museum - Winston-Salem
Opens with a reception and ballet performance by the Winston-Salem Festival Ballet, a new funded partner of the Arts Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. Bearing Witness is choreographed by Gary Taylor with music by North Carolina composer Rob Sharer. It celebrates the tree, a symbol of permanence arching over generations of our lives. R.s.v.p. to Claudia Clark.
336.758.5889 or clarkcm@reynoldahouse.org

Culture of Color Saturdays
August 1-August 29 - Greensboro Children's Museum - Greensboro
Saturdays, August 1, 8, 15, 22, 29, (2:00pm) Join GCM each Saturday this summer as we celebrate the Eastern Indian culture in our new series called the Culture of Color! Activities may include learning new words, dressing in cultural costumes, sampling different foods, learn dance and doing art.
336.574.2898

National Black Theatre Festival
August 4 - 8 - Various Times - National Black Repertory Company - Winston-Salem
The festival is an outreach program of National Black Repertory Company, which unites African American theatre companies across the country and showcases over 100 performers. Performances to be held at the Reynolda House, Reynolds Auditorium, the Stevens Center, Wake Forest University campus, Salem College campus, UNCSA campus, Benton Convention Center, Winston-Salem State University campus, etc. Accompanying activities include the NBTF Film Fest, Youth Celebrity project, National Youth Talent Showcase, TeenTastic program, Readers' Theatre, Artist Networking Showcase, NBTF Poetry Jam, workshops and seminars, International Colloquium, vendors' market and celebrity receptions. Full schedule online.
336.723.2266

SECCA Presents Inside Out with artist Kianga Ford and the music of Turbo Pro Project
August 5 - 6 pm - The Garage - Winston-Salem
As part of its 2009 public art program Inside Out: Artists in the Community II, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) is proud to launch Kianga Ford’s 34 x 52 x 40. In the next chapter of Ford’s ongoing The Story of this Place series, the title of this project refers to Forsyth County as the 34th County of North Carolina (in slang, the “Tres-Fo”) and its evolving relationship with the major North / South highway (52) and the major East / West highway (40) of Winston-Salem. In conjunction with the National Black Theatre Festival, and in ongoing partnership with the Delta Arts Center, the special August 5th launch event will celebrate the work’s provocative marriage of theatre, music, and spoken word. Over the past half-year, Ford has explored Winston-Salem to research its history, speak with members of the community, walk its neighborhoods, and imagine lives shaped by the city’s patterns of settlement, desegregation, and industrialization. She will shape this material into a series of audio-guided routes/walks, and on Wednesday night audiences can hear a selection of these narratives set to musical accompaniment. As part of 34 x 52 x 40, Ford has collaborated with the experimental, North Carolina-based band The Turbo Pro Project, described as a fusion of Americana, Bluegrass Banjo, Hip Hop, and R&B.
336.725.1904

A Taste of the Blues
August 6 - 5:30 pm - Millennium Center - Winston Salem
Live Blues Music, Southern Cuisine, NC Wine and Beer Tastings and Tony Award Winning Play Featured at First Annual Event to Benefit Authoring Action Organization and North Carolina Black Repertory Company
Cost: $50/$75
336. 397.5591

Wisteria & HOPE
August 6-7 - Salem Fine Arts Center, Salem College - Winston-Salem
In conjuction with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the National Black Theatre Festival's feature presentation is drawn from the stunning poetry of Kwame Dawes and the music of Kevin Simmonds, Wisteria & HOPE is a multimedia music/spoken word performance that opens up two disparate worlds—of African American women recalling life in the Jim Crow South, in Wisteria, and in HOPE the struggles and grace of individuals dealing with HIV/AIDS.
336.723.2266

Friends Around the World' Day
August 16 - 1-5 pm - Greensboro Children's Museum - Greensboro
Join us the 3rd Sunday of each month as we welcome our friends from all around the world to the Museum for a day of fun and play! We will enjoy a variety of multicultural activities, while making new friends from new places.
336.574.2898

Artist's Talk: Sherri Lynn Wood
August 20 - 5:30 pm - Weatherspoon Art Museum - Greensboro
Sherri Lynn Wood’s “Mantra Trailer” is featured in the exhibition Our Subject Is You at the Weatherspoon. In addition to this, her most recent work, the artist has been involved for many years in making participatory art works. Wood’s recent projects include: Passage Quilts, working with the bereaved to make improvisational quilts from the clothing of the deceased; Prayer Banner: REPENT / MERCY / …, a communal mourning project concerning the war in Iraq; The Piñata Anchor of Hope, a geo-psychic, temporary public art project for the City of Durham during a time of upheaval and rapid development; and 1200 Hats, a collaboration with residents of the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women. Sherri Lynn Wood is an interdisciplinary artist, activist, and healer, based in Durham, NC and San Francisco, CA. She combines her knowledge of craft, theology, sculpture, and systems centered theory to invent and facilitate aesthetic vehicles of intervention for healing and social exchange.
336.334.5770

Image from the archives of threewalls

Workshop: Group Stitching Mantra with Sherri Lynn Wood
August 22 - 2 pm - Weatherspoon Art Museum - Greensboro
Join artist Sherri Lynn Wood on an imaginative, communal, meditative journey that merges the Eastern spiritual practices of mudras, mandalas and mantras with the simple act of stitching. These programs are sponsored, in part, by the Hillsdale Fund. Fee: $10 members/ $20 non-members. Register by e-mail: t_dowell@uncg.edu.
336.256.1449

Artist's Talk: Steve Lambert
August 27 - 4 pm - Weatherspoon Art Museum - Greensboro
Steve Lambert talks about bridging the divide between museum visitors and his own practice. Lambert's, I Will Talk With Anyone About Anything, 2006/2009 is currently featured in Our Subject is You.

Image from visitsteve.com

Snap Shot City

Heard about this from Winston-Salem blogger: SueMo.

Snap-Shot-City is a community development project of sorts that encourages us to explore our local communities and to share what we love about them globally (via the internet). On a preassigned day, people, usually in teams, all over the world snap photos around their community of a certain theme, which Snap-Shot-City chooses. The photos must be uploaded by 8 P.M. Awards will be given out following the deadline. Sign up your team.

Here are two photos from the theme "Multicultural."

Snapped in London, England.

Snapped in Nottingham, England.

Welcome to the WORD project

Piedmont Triad Initiative for Community Arts offers welcome to the WORD project, the newest addition to our registry of community and arts organizations (listed on right).

the WORD project (TWP) "gives people the platform and tools to find their own voice and create their own poems. It is is designed to engage persons to tap into their creative spirit and find their authentic self. Whether it’s a business leadership retreat or a an after-school program for youth, whether is a one time 2-hour workshop or a 12-week workshop series, TWP encourages participants to speak their personal truth through creative writing in a non-intimidating atmosphere."

In terms of community arts collaboration, TWP is interested in K-12 education (e.g., literacy, graduation rates, achievement gap), civic engagement (e.g., community leadership, voting), community development (e.g., gang prevention, neighborhood improvement), and social capital (developing/enhancing personal relationships). TWP enjoys working with children, the elderly, and women.

Check out the list of past participants.

ARTStem Documentary Screening

ARTStem is a new year-long initiative bringing UNCSA faculty together with public school educators to explore teaching and learning at the intersection of the arts and STEM disciplines of science, math, engineering, and technology.

Between the Folds
July 30 - 1-2 PM - Gold Theatre of the UNCSA film village.
Free and open to the community.

Vanessa Gould writes in the Director’s Statement: “At its heart, Between The Folds is a film about potential. The potential of an uncut paper square. The potential of a wild scientific idea. The potential to see things differently. For as long as I can remember, the concepts of art, science and math have seemed deeply connected - three ways of interpreting our experiences in a language that's universal. When I first learned about the strange phenomenon of artists, scientists and mathematicians from all over the world working in the very same medium of origami, I knew there had to be something special about it - that in the simplicity of a square must be hiding some untold potential for creativity and new ideas . . .”

Join Our Facebook Group!

Who else in the Triad is interested in community arts? If you would like to know, join the facebook group. Search "Piedmont Triad Initiative for Community Arts" on facebook and join up. It's a piece of cake.

Study Community Arts in Graduate School- RISD Masters in Arts and Design Education

For those who are interested in going back to school and don't mind traveling far, here is a program recommended by the Community Arts Network.

Rhode Island School of Design: MA in Arts and Design Education
Community Arts Education Track

The MA Community Arts Education option is designed to provide a professional qualification for the "teaching artist" who sees a career in the expanding field of arts learning in community-based arts centers and organizations and in out-of-school time programming. In addition to the MA program’s set of core courses, a Community Arts Education student’s program of study includes professional practice internships which take place in one of a number of community arts organizations or agencies in Providence or in surrounding communities.

These include AS220, New Urban Arts, RiverzEdge, and CityArts for Youth. Additionally, studies include studio, graduate seminars, and liberal arts. The selection is dependent on personal interests and requirements specified for the track.

Image of RISD from Business Week

Fun Facts about RISD:

1. RISD is located in Providence, Population 175,000. The city has been dubbed a "Renaissance City" because of the nurturing environment it now offers to artists.

2. RISD brings over 200 prominent artists to campus each year.

3. Education is interdisciplinary. Students are encouraged to take classes outside their area of study.

4. Student body is about 2,300 people.

5. 94% of RISD students are employed after graduation, over 65% in their direct field of study. 6. Ongoing projects of interest at RISD include the design and construction of alternative housing for Pakistani refugees and the design of super-efficient homes.

7. The RISD Museum of Art has collections in Ancient Art, Asian Art, Contemporary Art, Textiles, Painting/Sculpture, Decorative Arts, and Prints/Drawings/Photographs.

Life in Forsyth: Local Sidewalk

"Untitled" by Maurice Scott

An event for the children of prisoners that I saw posted at Life in Forsyth reminded me of this artist's piece that really struck me the first time I saw it. It is featured on the website of the Prison Arts Creative, an Ann Arbor, Michigan-based organization, which collaborates with incarcerated adults, incarcerated youth, and the formerly incarcerated to strengthen community through creative expression. The website has a collection of pieces by ten or fifteen artists, so please check them out. I'm curious what types of enrichment activities are done in Triad jails...

Here is Maurice Scott's artist statement:

He sat there fingering the thin blades of grass growing sparsely around his favorite stump.

He could hear, it seemed. His mother's voice in the distance. "Maurice you're going to be a preacher when you grow up."

He would laugh and roll in the deep red earth. For hours he lay there alone drawing in the dirt. This time the earth said, "the preacher is in your hands."

Upcoming July Events

Culture of Color Saturdays
July 11 - 25 - Greensboro Children's Museum - Greensboro
Saturdays, July 11, 18, 25, 2pm Join GCM each Saturday this summer as we celebrate the Eastern Indian culture in our new series called the Culture of Color! Activities may include learning new words, dressing in cultural costumes, sampling different foods, learn dance and doing art. Activities free with admission/membership.
336.574.2898

African American Heritage Day
July 18 - 11 am - 4 pm - Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum - Burlington
Josephus III, local poet; Ohemanna, Gospel Choir; Kummbia African Dancers; Fred Motley, storyteller; and Boo Hanks from Music Maker Relief Foundation will perform WFMY’s Carol Andrews and Sonya Correll Cook will read their children’s books. Numerous demonstrators and exhibitors plus vendors will take part in this exciting FREE event.
336-449-4846.


'Friends Around the World' Day
July 19 - Greensboro Children's Museum - Greensboro
Join us the 3rd Sunday of each month as we welcome our friends from all around the world to the Museum for a day of fun and play! We will enjoy a variety of multicultural activities, while making new friends from new places. Children’s author, GAMMA JAM, will be here to share her stories. Free with admission/membership.
336.574.2898

Enrichment via the Arts
July 20 - 30 - Creative Learning Center for Very Young Children - Winston-Salem
Summer art activities at CLC allow the children to experiment with a variety of media and forms. Music activities include listening, singing, playing instruments, and even making instruments! Dance delights CLC children, who have opportunities to invent their own dances to accompany music and to watch students at the School of the Arts practice and perform ballet, jazz, or contemporary dance. Othella Johnson began the Creative Learning Center in 1972 on the campus of the North Carolina School of the Arts.
336.773.0017

Color Texture Abstractions
July 24 - 6 PM - Gateway Gallery - Winston-Salem
Gateway Gallery wil open the exhibit "Color Texture Abstractions" with a reception on Friday, July 24, 6-8:30pm. The exhibition features abstract paintings by Pat Spainour and Jack Hernon and pottery by Kenneth McMahan and Jonathan Lindsay. Guitarist and vocalist Drake Duffer will perform during the reception. The exhibition will be on display through September 19.
336.777.0076 x238

“Our Subject is You” Exhibit
Through September 13 – Weatherspoon Art Museum – Greensboro
“Our Subject is You” is the first exhibition organized by the Weatherspoon Art Museum to focus on participatory art. The artists in the exhibition rely on the involvement of the public in order for their work to be realized. They form avenues for meaningful engagement within the context of the gallery, inviting museum visitors to contribute to the creation of artwork through social interaction, collaboration, and/or performativity. Artists included in the show are Tonico Lemos Auad (Brazil/UK), Harrell Fletcher (USA), Nina Katchadourian (USA), San Keller (Switzerland), Steve Lambert (USA), Darren O’Donnell (Canada), Sherri Lynn Wood (USA) and Erwin Wurm (Austria). In the exhibition, museum visitors will take part in the formation of artwork and through special live participatory events at the June 19th opening.
336.334.5770

One Significant Cup of Joe

"In the Face of Strange Fruit" by Derrick Monk

To expand on some information mentioned in the last post about artist Derrick Monk, here is a piece by Monk from a recently opened installation of eight bronze-cast coffee cups around Greensboro. These cups were sculpted by the "Coffee Cup Collaborative," a group of eight local artists.

These mugs commemorate the moment in civil rights history when a few African American men sat down at a whites-only lunch counter and asked for a cup of coffee. Be sure to check out the full article in the Greensboro News & Record, which beautifully explains the project as well as the significant history behind it.