• Article

    Asian Arts Initiative shepherds community engagement and integration in Philly’s Chinatown North

    Published December 10, 2014 by

    Photo of Gayle Isa by Neal Santos. This article is cross-posted with permission from Creative Exchange.  Gayle Isa started working at the Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia in 1993. This was in the aftermath of the infamous Rodney King verdict and the riots in Los Angeles that followed. Racial tensions were high, including those between African Americans and Asian Americans, all across the country. Asian Arts Initiative grew out of this particular moment in time, initially gathering a group of community activists and artists to address these racial tensions through the arts and help Asian American artists find their own voice within the community. At the time, there were no organizations or programs that focused on Asian American artists, culture, or traditions. The Painted Bride organized the Asian American festival "Live Traditions/Contemporary Issues," the first festival dedicated to Asian American culture in the city of Philadelphia. Isa came on board as an intern for this momentous festival, and the seed for Asian Arts Initiative was planted.
  • Article

    Three Miami films to screen at Sundance Film Festival

    Published December 10, 2014 by

    El Sol Como un Gran Animal Oscuro TRAILER from Dennis Scholl on Vimeo. Above: El Sol Como un Gran Animal Oscuro. Underscoring the vitality and diversity of the independent filmmaking community in South Florida, three made-in-Miami films have been accepted to the prestigious 2015 Sundance Film Festival. They include: “The Strongest Man,” a feature by writer-director Kenny Riches; “El Sol Como un Gran Animal Oscuro,” (“The Sun as a Great Dark Animal”), an animated short film directed by Christina Felisgrau and Ronnie Rivera, and “Papa Machete,” a short film about Haitian machete fencing or tire machet, a vanishing tradition, written by Jason Fitzroy Jeffers and Keisha Rae Witherspoon and directed by Jonathan David Kane. The Sundance Film Festival is scheduled for Jan. 22 to Feb. 1 in Park City, Utah. Going to Sundance “feels a little unreal,” says Jeffers, a Barbados-born journalist and musician. “Papa Machete,” which follows Alfred Avril, a subsistence farmer and master fencer, grew out of Jeffers’ personal interest in the machete as tool, weapon and symbol in Caribbean culture. “Papa Machete” is his first foray into filmmaking.
  • Article

    An incredible eye for natural beauty

    Published December 9, 2014 by

    Man praying in Sahara desert, Algeria. The photographs from Sebastião Salgado almost look too surreal to be real. But the images of nature and mammals that he captures are spectacularly real, now on display at the Dina Mitrani gallery. Iceberg in waters...
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    Erik Howard brings the corner and the community together in unlikely ways through The Alley Project

    Published December 9, 2014 by

    By Nicole Rupersburg, Springboard Exchange To read the abundance of news coverage coming out of Detroit over the last few years heralding the downtrodden city as a hotbed of creativity and innovation, attracting young creatives and start-up entrepreneurs from all over the country – the Detroit-is-what-you-make-of-it, "blank slate" narrative –...
  • Article

    Explore Dance: December 2014 update

    Published December 8, 2014 by

    By Ardia Greenhauff, Miami City Ballet 20 first & second grade students from Fienberg-Fisher Elementary School in Miami Beach are learning to dance through Miami City Ballet’s Explore Dance Program. This educational outreach program is designed to promote the arts to our community’s youth through weekly classes held at MCB...
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    Palm Beach Opera makes Opera @ The Waterfront interactive

    Published December 8, 2014 by

    Ceci Dadisman is director of communications for Palm Beach Opera, a 2013 winner of Knight Arts Challenge South Florida. With our free concert, Opera @ The Waterfront right around the corner, we are putting the finishing touches on our custom mobile app to make the concert completely interactive for audience members. We were awarded a $30,000 grant from OPERA America’s Building Opera Audiences grant program.  These funds were used to develop an app that will engage the audience in multiple ways. The app is free and available for download for Apple or Android devices. The main portion of the app is called “Follow Along.”  When users access this section, they will receive fun facts in real time about what they are seeing on stage.  For example, during the Overture from “William Tell,” app users will see “You’ve probably heard this overture in ‘A Clockwork Orange,’ ‘Armageddon’ and ‘Toy Story 2’” pop up on their screens. The facts automatically populate in the “Follow Along” portion of the app without the user having to refresh the page.  
  • Article

    Amplify your creative business with Macon Arts Alliance

    Published December 8, 2014 by

    By Stephanie Fritz, Macon Arts Alliance Amplify, a professional development program of Macon Arts Alliance, a Knight Arts grantee, held its first workshop at the Terminal Station on Tuesday, November 11. The mission of Amplify is to build and support a community of creative entrepreneurs in central Georgia with resources,...
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    C.H.O.I.C.E. International hosts a holiday concert

    Published December 8, 2014 by

    C.H.O.I.C.E. International hosts a holiday concert. C.H.O.I.C.E. International is the acronym for Cultivating Healthier Options in Communities Everywhere. This nonprofit organization was founded in 2012 by Veronda Ford to help people maintain a sound mental, physical and spiritual state of being. If individuals in society can...
  • Article

    Charles Ladson is a painter who rediscovered his home in Macon

    Published December 8, 2014 by

    Photo of Charles Ladson by Matthew Odom. This article is cross-posted with permission from Creative Exchange. Like so many other artists, Charles Ladson had an interest in art and painting at an early age but didn't think it was something he could pursue as a career.   Ladson's granddad and mom were both interested in the arts: he was a hobby painter, and she was an art history major. Through that she encouraged me, and dad as well," Ladson says. "From a young age there were art books around, and the smell of oil paint and turpentine from granddad's paintings. The smell oil paints hooked me from a young age! I didn't really start painting until later in high school, maybe a little bit at Wesleyan College."  He would sign up for art classes taught by Wesleyan faculty and artists around town, but "traditional" college wasn't really for him.   "I failed miserably at college and it dawned on me that I needed to do something more with the arts than I could [where I was]," Ladson says. At the time the School of Visual Arts had a satellite school in Savannah, so he enrolled there. Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – for him, a lawsuit between the School of Visual Arts and theSavannah College of Art and Design shut the satellite school down after a few short years and all of the remaining students, roughly 30 total, were sent to New York to finish their BFA degrees.
  • Article

    I survived Miami’s art week…

    Published December 8, 2014 by

    I survived Miami's big art week, but I was left with a nagging desire for radical change within the art world. I'm tired of seeing women and their anatomy used as objects (subjects) of sexual desire or pleasure, who are often bound up and/or forced to pose like robotic Barbies....