Audrey Rossmann Exhibition

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Art Museum of Greater Lafayette presents an exhibit of pottery and ceramic artwork by Audrey Rossmann of West Lafayette. “A Tribute to Audrey Rossmann: Realizing Excellence” features both functional pottery as well as one of a kind sculptural vessels from the collections of several Lafayette area residents. An iconic figure in the Lafayette area pottery community, Rossmann, through her efforts as a pottery teacher at both the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette and the Morton Community Center, has introduced hundreds of area residents to the pottery art-form over the span of a 40 year career. The exhibit is a tribute to an excellent artist who has given much to our community.

See the work of one of Indiana’s finest potters from August 15 to September 29.

Art Museum of Greater Lafayette
102 South Tenth Street, Lafayette, IN
Admission is FREE
Gallery Hours - Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4. pm.
765-742-1128
www.artlafayette.org

Akeley Lecture, Una Herencia Mexicana

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Ellen E. Fisher, Director of the Littleton Collection, will present the Akeley Lecture, Una Herencia Mexicana, at the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette, on August 26 at 7:00 pm. Fischer’s lecture will focus on an overview of the Akeley Collection, with specific emphasis on the artist (Leonora Carrington, 1917 -) a British born Mexican Surrealist. The Art Museum’s painting, The Annunciation, by Carrington, was acquired by Anna and Edward Akeley and selected by Fischer as a gift from the Akeleys for the art museum’s permanent collection. Ms. Fisher will also include a discussion of works by the artist, Gunther Gerszo, as well as Remedios Varo, the Spanish-Mexican Surrealist painter and will conclude with time for Q & A from participants.

The Akeley Lecture is funded by gifts from the late Anna and Edward Stowe Akeley, both members of the Physics Department at Purdue University. Edward spent his retirement years teaching Physics in Mexico City and collected the works of Modern Mexican artists including Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, Carlos Merida, Jose Clemente Orozco, Raul Anguiano, Roberto Montenegro, Gunther Gerzo and Leonora Carrington.

The Akeley Lecture is free and open to the Public. Community residents, high school, college and university students are welcome.

Una Herencia Mexicana is the focus of a keystone exhibition of Mexican Heritage works by Mexican Modernist Artists, drawn from the permanent collections of Purdue Galleries and The Art Museum of Greater Lafayette. The show is sponsored by Eli Lilly, Tippecanoe Labs and the Purdue University Latino Culture Center and was curated by Michael Atwell, Curator of Exhibitions, Wabash College and Craig Martin, Director of Purdue University Galleries. The exhibition runs through August 29.

Fisher received her BFA from the Herron School of Art, studying with Richard Emery Nickolson, and received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She served as the Curator at the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette from 1987-1997, before moving to Vero Beach, Florida. She served as Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Vero Beach Museum of Art, where she curated an exhibition of Modern and Contemporary Mexican Art from the Prensky Collection, which was later donated to the Naples, Fla. Museum of Art.

She currently serves as Director of the Littleton Collection and Gallery in Fort Pierce, Florida. The gallery is the creation of Harvey K. Littleton, the renowned glass artist, who has been called the father of the American studio glass movement. The Littleton Collection specializes in art glass. The artists whose work is represented includes Harvey Littleton’s former student, Dale Chihuly, as well as works by Rick Beck, Ken Carder, Kyohei Fujita, Pavel Hlava, Robert Levin, Joel Philip Myers, Stephen Powell, Mary Shaffer, Therman Statom and Yan Zoritchak. Works by Harvey Littleton and by the artistic team of John Littleton and Kate Vogel are also shown.

While working at the Littleton Collection, Fischer is also a free-lance writer for the Vero Beach Magazine, specializing in feature articles on art and artists.

Fischer writes “Leonora Carrington was never a Surrealist. At least, that’s what she says now. Born in England in 1917 to a wealthy industrialist and his wife, she was sent from the age of nine to a succession of private Catholic boarding schools where she was expelled from one after the other. She was not interested in school and couldn’t have cared less about pleasing her teachers, or going along to get along. She was headstrong, self-assured, and imaginative. Her insistence on writing backwards, from right to left, drove the nuns crazy. Inevitably, she would be returned to her parents with the verdict that she was ineducable. Her exasperated parents finally sent her to Miss Penrose’s school in Florence, where she stayed for about a year. While she thought the subjects taught there were as useless as those at any of the other schools, she was in Florence after all, and she soaked up the Renaissance art that she saw there and on trips to Padua, Venice and Rome. After a stint at finishing school, she was presented at the court of George V. The next step for a young lady of good social standing would have been marriage to a suitably well-off young gentleman, but Leonora had other plans. Against her parent’s wishes she went to London to study art . . .

Leonora was influenced neither by the style nor the indigenous subject matter of the Mexican artists she met; she continued to develop her own vision based in European painting, myth and alchemy. But Mexico itself influenced her artistic outlook by way of its outdoor markets where, alongside a plethora of foodstuffs and ordinary household goods, wondrous things were sold - including mysterious potions and charms guaranteed by their hawkers to cure ills both physical and spiritual. She was fascinated by the curanderos, healers who mixed herbal knowledge with indigenous Mexican folk magic and Spanish Catholicism. Although she did not embrace Mexican art in her work, by 1964 Mexico had embraced Carrington as a Mexican artist with the inclusion of her work an exhibition of contemporary Mexican art in Mexico City’s National Museum of Modern Art.

Because she did not expect her work to be appreciated by an audience beyond her small group of sympathetic friends, Leonora Carrington has always painted for herself. But in 1948, the year after she painted St. Anthony, she had a solo show at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York that was reviewed in Time Magazine and Art News. Her first one-person show in Mexico, in 1950, received raves in the Mexican press and opened the way to her wide appreciation there.”

Art Museum of Greater Lafayette
102 South Tenth Street, Lafayette, IN
Admission is FREE
Gallery Hours - Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4. pm.
Phone: 765-742-1128
www.artlafayette.org

Indiana Arts Commission to implement new regional block grant funding plan

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The Indiana Arts Commission (IAC) announced today the implementation of a new regional funding formula designed to more equitably distribute public arts funding throughout the state.

“This new funding formula was developed with the input of all 12 of our Regional Arts Partners, and represents their joint recommendations,” explained Lewis C. Ricci, IAC executive director. “The purpose was to adjust our regional block grant distributions in such a way to more fairly reflect the geographic size and population of each region, as well as its unique cultural needs.”

Early this year the Regional Arts Partners formed a taskforce to tackle the problem of under-funding in some of the more rural IAC regions. The primary challenge was to redistribute the available funds – regardless of any future changes in the IAC’s budget allocations.

“The Regional Arts Partners all agreed some regions were severely under-funded,” said Jeff Kuehl, chair of the Regional Arts Partner Consortium and Regional Coordinator for the Columbus Area Arts Council. “With the limited funds available the Partners knew some regions could experience a modest reduction in their block grant, but they also recognized that for the future health of the partnership initiative and the cultural interests of all 92 counties, something needed to be done to level the arts funding in Indiana.”

Recommended jointly by the 12 Regional Arts Partners and ratified by the Indiana Arts Commission at its June meeting in Fort Wayne, the new funding formula is almost totally based on region population as documented by the U.S. Census.

“The Regional Arts Partners really took the initiative in trying to resolve this issue knowing that in some cases it could mean a slight funding reduction to some regions,” Ricci said. “The Partners agreed that a more equitable funding formula was not only needed, but should be maintained regardless of what may happen with state budget allocations.”

The resulting formula will be applied each year based on available state funding for the Regional Block Grant. The new regional funding formula will be introduced in stages to allow for a period of budget adjustment. Fifty percent of the funding change will occur in Fiscal Year 2010 (July 1, 2009 – June 30, 2010) with 100 percent of the change taking place in Fiscal Year 2011.

For more information on the Regional Block Grant revisions, please visit: www.IN.gov/arts/3047.htm.
For more information about the Regional Arts Partnership, please visit www.IN.gov/arts.

The Tippecanoe Arts Federation is the Region IV Arts Partner. Region IV serves 14 surrounding counties. Activities of the Tippecanoe Arts Federation are provided, in part, with support from the Indiana Arts Commission, a state agency, with funds from the Indiana General Assembly and the National Endowment for the Arts.

17th Annual Dancing in the Streets to be a “Rockin’ Night of Fun”

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Lafayette–West Lafayette Development Corporation announced details of the 17th Annual Dancing in the Streets festival today during a press conference on the John T. Myers Pedestrian Bridge. This year’s Dancing in the Streets presented by IBEW Local 668, will be on Saturday, July 19, 2008 from 4:00p–Midnight on the streets of Downtown Lafayette–West Lafayette.

This year’s theme is “Rockin’ Night of Fun” and features a full schedule of entertainment and activities. As part of the festivities, Lafayette’s Main Street will transform into a hot rod paradise when hundreds of classic cars and motorcycles cruise the streets of Downtown. Also back this year by popular demand is the Laser Light Show, sponsored by IBEW Local 668, in West Lafayette’s Tapawingo Park.

Advanced tickets are $5.00 and available at Guaranteed Transmission, IBEW Local 668, First Financial Bank locations, and the Lafayette–West Lafayette Development Corporation office at the Depot. Admission at the gate for adults is $8.00, children ages 5-12 are $1.00 and children under age 5 are free.

Entertainment: Two stages of entertainment will keep Downtown streets rockin’. Jayne Bond and the Pink Martinis will keep the energy elevated with their high-power act immediately after the classic car and motorcycle cruise. Other acts include Roy E. Reynolds’ “Tribute to Elvis” performing one show only from 6-7 pm, The Groove Catz, the Snake Charmers, American Cheese, Soulshine Band and The Late Show. Additional entertainment will be on the John T. Myers Pedestrian Bridge.

Food: Food will be provided by 12 local restaurants in Tapawingo Park and at Riehle Plaza including long time vendors Sgt. Preston’s and Arni’s Pizza and a new vendor this year, Scagnoli’s. Food and beverages will also be served by in-house vendors including Chumley’s, Skylight Coffeehouse, Java Roaster, the Black Sparrow, Red Seven, and The Vault.

Car and Motorcycle Show and Cruise: A classic car show, sponsored by Chase Bank has anchored the festival for years but has now been expanded to include motorcycles and show bikes. The classic car and motorcycle cruise will begin at 7 p.m. and includes a two mile oval on Main and Ferry Streets between 2nd and 10th Streets. This year $1,000 in cash prizes will be awarded to classic cars and motorcycles. Guaranteed Transmission and the Development Corporation are this year’s prize sponsors. All car exhibitors will receive gifts and coupons from our sponsors, vendors and local businesses. Awards will be given in several categories including the Mayors’ Awards. Car registration is available at the McDonald’s Open Cruise on July 18th at the McDonald’s on 510 Sagamore Pkwy N and the Fifth Third Bank branch on 2nd Street, in Downtown Lafayette, from 12 noon – 6:45 p.m. on July 19.

Laser Light Show: A laser light show will light up Tapawingo Park just after dark during the event. Sponsored by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 668.

Advanced Ticket Sales: Advanced tickets are $5 and are available at IBEW Local 668, AAMCO Transmission, Guaranteed Transmission Service, First Financial Bank locations, and at the Lafayette–West Lafayette Development Corporation.

Volunteers: Volunteers are still needed to work two-hour shifts at Admission Gates and Ticket Booths. All volunteers receive free admission and a Dancing in the Streets t-shirt. Please contact the Lafayette-West Lafayette Development Corporation at 742-4044 or by email at jness@lwldc.org for more information or to sign up.

Entertainment schedule:

Riehle Plaza:

• 4:00-6:00p: The Groove Catz
• 6:00-7:00p: Roy E. Reynolds - The Tribute to Elvis
• 7:00-8:00p: Classic Car and Motorcycle Cruise
• 8:00–10:00p: Jayne Bond & The Pink Martinis
• 10:00–10:15p: Lo Woods
• 10:00–12:00 midnight: Snake Charmers

Tapawingo Park:

• 4:00-5:00p: Lo Woods
• 4:30–7:30p: Smiles Unlimited providing face painting and balloon art
• 5:00–7:00p: American Cheese
• 7:00–9:00p: Soulshine Band
• 9:00–9:15p: Lo Woods
• 9:15-10:15p: The Late Show
• 10:00–10:30p: Laser Light Show
• 10:30–12 midnight: The Late Show returns

John T. Myers Pedestrian Bridge:

• 5:30–6:00p: DMG’s StarCity Dancers
• 6:15–6:45p: Triple S Sassy Snake Stompers
• 8:00–9:00p: Oasis Dancers

Roving Entertainers

• 8:00–9:30p: First Class Only Civic Youth Theatre’s Traveling Thespians

Eric Thiel performs at Lafayette Farmers Market, Saturday July 19

LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Eric Thiel will be performing at the Lafayette Farmers’ Market Saturday, July 19th. Eric has been a guitar player and singer in the Greater Lafayette area for 40 years, playing first solo gig at the Magic Theater coffee house in 1968. Repertoire of jug band, blues, folk and rock. Bands over the years include: Hell’s Tunas Blues Band, Street Music, Hormones a GoGo, and Menage a Trois.

Sweet corn, green beans, potatoes, zucchini, red beets, tomatoes, onions, turnips, berries, honey, maple syrup, Traders Point Certified Organic Whole Milk, Fair Oaks Cheeses, perennial flowering transplants, gourmet pet treats, meats, kettle corn, free range farm fresh eggs, herbs, fresh baked bread and sweets, baked goods, and arts/crafts are among the products now available at the Market.

The Market, managed by the Downtown Development Council of the Lafayette-West Lafayette Development Corporation, is open on Tuesdays from 7:30 am – 12:30 pm, Thursdays from 4-7 pm, and Saturdays from 7:30 am – 12:30 pm through October. The Market is located in Downtown Lafayette on Fifth Street between Main and Columbia Streets.

For more information, contact Jane Ness at the Lafayette-West Lafayette Development Corporation at 765/742-4044.

« Previous Page — Next Page »