Every Monday, I’ll be bringing you top picks for art events (openings, classes, screenings, performances—all the good stuff) to help you plan your artistic adventures for the week.
We’ve got a great round-up this coming week, and don’t forget that this Friday is the monthly Gallery Stroll, so your options for arts-related excursions are even broader. Check out the events below, and if you have an upcoming event that you’d like to let us know about, send your info to arts@catalystmagazine.net.
Wednesday March 14th
Daniel Stolfi, founder and director of The Awesome Puppet Company, will be leading a puppet making and storytelling workshop at the Art Access Gallery this week. If the thought of craft-glue encrusted sock puppets with googly eyes tempts you to skip this, reconsider: Stolfi’s background is in medical anthropology and drama therapy, and his creations run more in the vein of avatar-of-primal-trickster-god than fuzzy, adorable muppet. (Seriously: We had a creation from one of his earlier workshops in The Leonardo offices, and it was powerful, and more than a little bit creepy.) The cost for the class is $50 dollars, so whether you’re in the market for arcane dealings with elder myths or simply a new and interesting way of telling your own personal story, register for the class and head down to 230 South 500 West #125 from 4:30 to 6:00PM… but be sure to carry iron, and whatever you do, don’t reveal your true name. Art Access Gallery, 230 South 500 West #125, 4:30-6PM.
Thursday March 15th
Chris Johnson, the Director of the Scientific Computing and Imaging Center at the University of Utah will be giving an Art Talk at Kimball Art Center’s Badami Gallery in Park City. The current exhibit SCI: The Art of Science explores the artistic aspects of computer simulations of natural phenomena. If you’re interested in the areas where the border between “art” and “science” get a little blurred, this should be an exciting foray into the disputed no-man’s land between the two. The event is free and open to the public. Badami Gallery, 638 Park Avenue, Park City, 6-7PM.
Friday March 16th
Start your evening with an early dinner at the Tin Angel Café and join journalist, artist and Poetry Slam matriarch Melissa Bond for the opening of her show
Minutia. A photographic series that finds the archetypal in the mundane, Bond explores the small and persistent details that make up the everyday of raising children. Bond has explored these themes, and spoken with the haunting voice of the intellectually engaged observer/woman/mother in her poetry, which you can read here. Tin Angel Café, 365 West 400 South, 4-7PM.
Friday also holds the opening for nationally renowned artist John Bell’s first local solo show in three years, Postmodern Blues. Bell characterizes his work as “postmodern mash-up,” incorporating techniques and themes from abstract expressionism, geometric abstraction and pop art. (Not having seen the current show, my prediction on what you can expect to see: Sane and rational universe, no. Familiar celebrities and cartoon characters trapped in abstracted Orwellian dystopias, yes.) One of his pieces involved a technique he refers to as “Google collaborations,” using the first 10 images generated by typing a keyword into the uniquitous search engine, an interestresting tech-take on the pop part of pop art. Nox Contemporary, 440 South 400 West Suite H, 6-9PM.
Saturday March 17th
If Friday’s Gallery Stroll only whetted your appetite for fresh air and art-related constitutionals, join the Utah Watercolor Society at the Sweet Branch Library for the March Paint Out. After dispersing to sample the visual delights the Avenues have to offer, the group will meet back at Sweet from 12:30 to 2:30 PM to share the resulting works, and, one presumes, to complain about or praise the vairiable March weather. (The group will meet come rain or shine, so be prepared!) Sweet Branch, 455 F Street (9th Avenue), 10AM-2:30PM.