Barclay Martin, 1st Friday Artwalk for November, Charlotte Street Foundation, Skinny Dipping

BARCLAY MARTIN CD RELEASE CONCERT
SUNDAY 8 NOVEMBER 2009

An audience of about 1200 people were treated to a concert by Barclay Martin at the Johnson County Community College campus.  The occasion was the release of the soundtrack album for an upcomming documentary called Zamboanga, Poverty, War, Music.  The documentary was shot in the southern Philippines, and is part of the efforts of an organization called the Christian Foundation for Children and Aging.  The show was a very moving inspirational experience, especially since many people in the audience had experienced the type of poverty displayed in some of the movie clips first hand.  To view more clips uploaded by CFCA, go here, here and here.  I found the concert to be near and dear to my heart due to my marriage to a filipina, and to the fact that my mother in law, Amelita Villacarlos Paradela is engaged in a similar effort to help poor children in her home town of Madridejos.  I can't resist to put in a personal plug for her school with some clips of my own...


FIRST FRIDAY ARTWALK IN KANSAS CITY
FRIDAY 6 NOVEMBER 2009

Jane Pronko

Pieces of the Pile

Factory at the Fishtank

Pictures of First Friday


 

Birdies in Kansas City Missouri

18th Street West of Baltimore in Kansas City Missouri on First Friday in November

Kemper Crossroads Gallery on 19th

Outside the Kemper Gallery

Mobile Art Gallery at 19th and Baltimore in Kansas City Missouri

I was told I could buy one and keep it for ever

Galleries facing a courtyard and parking lot between Baltimore and Main off of 20th in Kansas City, Missouri

"Nerdbot" display

LED lights outside of Archival between Baltimore and Main and 20th KCMO

Purple LED

Sometimes you want to find a more silent adventuresome path...

Classicist layers in Kansas City

Classicist Romance

This was a decent First Friday for looking at art without having been crowded out by people trying to gossip in front of the displays. First Friday's are a good time to see and be seen but not the greatest time to see art.

Crowds in front of the Arts Incubator on West 18th Street in Kansas City, Missouri

West 18th Street in Kansas City, Missouri

The wine came from a small private winery

This boiler is seeing new life as a wine rack

Low ceiling

In front of YJ's

Creighton Organization plays in front of YJ's

Ghosts of River Quay

CHARLOTTE STREET FOUNDATION VISUAL ARTISTS AWARDS
FRIDAY 13 NOVEMBER 2009

SKINNYDIPPING AT THE FISHTANK
SATURDAY 14 NOVEMBER 2009

I re-visited the Fishtank Performance Studio for a one woman show written and performed by Shanna Shrum

REGULAR FEATURES

Turn on the player below to see what is playing on the Svoboda KC livestream channel. It could be re-run's, or it might be live, you never know....


Also, I have cross pollination of blogs going on with Chrometuna, and his regular talk show, which runs starts at 3 a.m. daily, so if you are up that late, go to www.justin.tv/chrometuna and chat with him...
Watch live video from Chrometuna's Super Natural Boloney on Justin.tv

Finally...
I have my handy dandy google calender with all the upcoming events in the area and beyond...


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Art on the Road, A trip to the Grand Canyon

Art Never takes a Vacation...

but we did. My wife and I just came off a week long trip to the Grand Canyon. We visited such famous tourist traps as the Grand Canyon National Park, Flagstaff Arizona, Sendona Arizona, Gallup New Mexico, Albuquerque New Mexico and Santa Fe New Mexico. We also hit the tourist trap route 66 hotspot of Tucumcari New Mexico (well we drove through it, on route 66 of course). So what's so artsy-fartsy about a vacation that is probably on the top ten vacation destinations of most Americans, and many people from overseas? First off, if you've never seen the Grand Canyon, you have to. It is.... well, Grand. No works of man can touch the display that lays before you when you approach the rim of the Grand Canyon and look down.

However, if you want to see an attempt to capture the grandeur, then visit the Kolb Studio, which is right on the rim (literally, the studio/house goes three stories down into the Canyon).

Flagstaff Arizona
After two days of visiting, exploring, taking pictures and videos of and generally appreciating the canyon, we headed to Flagstaff. We checked into the boutique antique and generally interesting Monte Vista Hotel. Actually we stopped in the Coffehouse called Rendezvous to use their wifi to look for hotels, when we realized that the place we were in was a hotel. So after reading some reviews, we checked in. We stayed in the Jane Russell room. Each room is named after a famous celebrity that stayed in them. Since it was close to halloween, the thought of ghosts came to mind, and this hotel advertises that it has some. Before we checked out, I had to take our dog, Tima, down by room 210 to test out a statement made by one of the ghost story websites...
Supposedly, the hotel avoids putting guests with pets in this room because dogs go crazy with fear and tear up the room. 

eh? Nothing!
We walked around Flagstaff some and enjoyed what we saw. We ate breakfast at a very interesting delightful place, that also seemed to serve as an art gallery for one of the talented waitresses. The place is called MartAnne's. I'm not much into restaurant reviews on an art blog, but if I need an excuse to talk about the place, the food there IS art. It is also relatively inexpensive, delicious, filling and well worth the wait.



Sedona, Arizona
After touring route 66 in Flagstaff, it was time to brave the switchbacks to Sedona. Now, one thing that becomes apparent once you cross the Oklahoma/New Mexico border is that all the tourist trap art and souvenirs are pretty much everywhere and is the same. So, once you get past all the indian pottery, cacti plants and route 66 magnets/mugs/everything, then you can appreciate the beauty past the touristy areas. Such is the experience we had in Sedona, which wasn't a bad one, we just didn't get to spend too much time to get very deep. We walked around the strip and admired the red mountains/scenery around us and strolled the shops.


Gallup, New Mexico
After Sedona, we sprinted across the state of Arizona to Gallup, New Mexico. We didn't get to spend as much time there as I wanted to. We got to spend the night there in a nice historic motel, which was part of the hotel called el Rancho. It was also a place that brags about the many stars that stayed there, and has the autographed photos on the walls to prove it...



Again, this is not a hotel/motel review site, but there were many artistic aspects of this place that were to be appreciated. Even though the gift shop there shared attributes of gift shops all over the two states of Arizona/New Mexico, there was some art that was unique and made this gift shop seem more like a stroll through an art gallery.

I wanted to walk around route 66 there some and explore, and look at all the great googie. We were rushed for time, though, so I had to settle for a few quick photos...


and hidden behind the neon and incandescent bulbs was this mural on the side of the motel we stayed in...

Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico
So, showing poor form and bad manners, I sent a message via facebook to a friend/former co-worker I know who lives in Santa Fe. Instead of telling me where to go, he and his partner took myself, my wife and our dog into their home and showed us a lot of hospitality. We first met up with Mark in Albuquerque, where he works at one of the tv stations. We first stopped off at Downtown Java Joe's Coffee as was Marks recommendation, and it was a good one. Great coffee and some interesting quilt art on the walls, which I lamely neglected to photograph, but I did get a pic of the place....

We met up with our friend, and he gave us a tour of his work and showed us his regional emmy, (I'm so jealous). He took us afterward to the Albuquerque Press Club, which is an interesting historic place that we were given the priveledge to enjoy...


We followed Mark to his home in Santa Fe. We met up with his partner, and they took us to some great restaurants. Marks partner, Russell is an interesting person. When I first met him in Kansas City, he was a dancer with the Kansas City Ballet. He moved to Santa Fe to work for The National Dance Institute of New Mexico.   He is now the Executive Director.

The Way Home
We wanted to stay in Santa Fe longer, but we didn't have that much vacation time.  Other than a 14 hour almost straight trip home, the journey was uneventful.  We hit a stretch of road in eastern New Mexico where there were no cars for at least 50 miles....

We passed through Greensburg, Kansas, the town flattened by a tornado in 2007 which is now being rebuilt, and we stopped in Pratt to get a break, and to get a picture of the world famous Donald's Serva-teria googie sign....

Mountains and Oceans
So, why did I venture down this self-indulgent journey of boorish redundant douchebaggery? Well, for one thing, I have nothing else to write about/share for now. The other is that Kansas City doesn't have mountains or oceans to attract visitors, but we do have an art scene that even people we met in places like Santa Fe and Sedona have heard about. The check out person in the hotel in Flagstaff visited KC and knew about our great art community. So, while the Grand Canyon and Sedona and the whole southwest has spectacular scenery, our arts scene here is just as spectacular in many ways. We should not forget our tremendous musical heritage with the living jazz we have in this town. We need to capitalize on what we have without destroying it. That can be tricky.

TMI

Stevo


Regular Features



I have cross pollination of blogs going on with Chrometuna, and his regular talk show, which runs starts at 3 a.m. daily, so if you are up that late, go to www.justin.tv/chrometuna and chat with him...
Watch live video from Chrometuna's Super Natural Boloney on Justin.tv

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Rest in Peace Anne Winter

Anne at a Culture Under Fire Event at Liberty Memorial in Kansas City Missouri, August 1991


I remember this event was actually rained out. It was one of many that Anne hosted, or had a big part in. Even though the rain precluded the use of a stage and pa system, parts of the event still went on, including accoustic music and painting. Anne can be seen in the background in the yellow shirt.


Memorial in front of YJ's...

In December 2004, David Ford had an art opening that was part performance piece, in which Anne and her kids participated. I know the video is about 40 minutes long, but she is somewhere at about 8ish. You can hear her in the background talking about her kids school as well as see her in the piece.

My experience with the local diy underground music scene basically began one night in 1988 when I was spinning the dial of my stereo looking desperately for something different in the wasteland of the Kansas City radio station pickings.  I tuned in to a song that I'd never heard before.  I'd like to think it was "Holiday in Cambodia' by the Dead Kennedy's, it was probably something different, but that is what sticks out in my mind.  I listened to that song with excitement and interest... it was followed by another song, then another, then a female voice -- not polished like all the other DJ's on the radio, but it was nice -- like a friend who had just invited you down to her basement to listen to a home made tape.  It was Anne Winter doing the Orphan Annie show on KKFI.  I had discovered the left end of the dial and a beacon of something different.  It is interesting to see how one person can touch so many.  As I was thinking of what to say in light of Anne's passing, I began examining my experiences with the Kansas City area music and arts scene over the past 20 odd years.  Almost every aspect of it was touched by Anne Winter in some way.  To find out what was going on and to break out of my cocoon, I started listening to KKFI, and heard for the first time in 1988, the Orphan Annie show.  I went to the KKFI first birthday party at the Foundry, in March 1988.  The Foundry was a co-op gallery sort of place that was run in part by her husband, Kurt.  I went to a big outdoor Artists for Amnesty event at Volker Park in 1989 -- Anne was running that.  Every trip to Kansas City from rural Missouri wasn't complete without a stop to her store.  Often I could find out exactly what was happening in the Kansas City area from a trip there.  I'd visit and collect flyers from the shelves which were right next to the front door.  I could talk to Anne or one of her knowledgeable workers, who were usually playing in one or two of the bands that were playing about.

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