Visual Arts

Current Exhibit in the Harris Gallery

Why Things Happen:

artwork and text by the students of EXCEL Academy/Orr Campus in Chicago

Opening Reception Friday, May 2nd, 2008, 7-9pm

Exhibit runs April 24th-May 31st, 2008

Why Things Happen is both a statement and a question, and most perfectly captures the quest behind the stories and art of the students of EXCEL Academy/Orr Campus, a Chicago Public School on the West Side of Chicago.

The theme for the school year was War and Peace and it was my intention for my art classes to spend the year in an effort to understand the root causes of violence and to work together to seek solutions. We had several community partners working with us on this project. The Steans Center for community-based service learning at DePaul University mediated a partnership with Professor Pete Vandenberg and tutors from the Writing Center to work with my students on the stories they wrote that are displayed with their linoleum prints. The Oppenheimer Family Foundation funded the publication of an anthology of the stories and prints, titled Journey. Additionally, we were a part of Mikva Challenge and Issues to Action, with our issue centering on what it would take to reduce school violence.

Why Things Happen is a view into the lives and dreams and honest observations of my students. They were challenged to visually express the root causes of violence, to show their audience why different aspects of violence such as racism, sexism, adultism, classism, gang violence, school violence, and dating violence mattered to them. They wrote about events in their lives that were life changing. While these projects may have had disparate timetables, when the two pieces, writing and art, were put together, they began to weave together an exhibit that courageously illuminates ÒwhyÓ in a profound way.

Jeanne Walker

Art Specialist/Service Learning Coach

EXCEL Academy/Orr Campus

Chicago, Illinois

For a preview of stories and images, please visit www.exceljourneys.com

Upcoming Exhibits in the Harris Gallery

Lance Brown:

The Musician Series

Opening Reception Friday, June 6th, 2008, 7-9pm

Exhibit runs June 1st-August 1st, 2008

Artist's Statement: As a musician and songwriter, I find that improvisation is critical to the creative process. That, coupled with years of drawing from the meditative perspective forwarded by Frederick Franck in his series of books starting with “The Zen of Seeing,” I approach all of my work with an eye toward “flow.” As a discipline, I have spent many years following the advice of an old Latin poet who said, nulla dies sine linea, which translates to not a day without a line. This practice forces me to draw, and many times to render in great detail, some subject every single day. I conform most closely to this discipline in my Musician Series but I lean more heavily on imagination and improvisation in my abstracts and pencil drawings. Whether working realistically or abstractly, I feel one must keep the doors of the mind open and, in the same way that improvising musician listen very closely, watch for the next thing the work tells you it needs – then DO THAT!

Exhibition Infomation: THE MUSICIAN SERIES represents a cross-pollination of a lifetime of musical and artistic experience. Though formally trained as an artist, Lance has made his way in life as an actor, musician and songwriter. His one-man show “Will Rogers Now!” has received raves nationwide for the last 20 years. Through many hours on the road, Lance maintained his commitment to his painting and drawing. He feels that not only art and music, but life itself, is a meditation and an improvisation. He strives to communicate that in the style and execution of his paintings.

Though some of the figures may remind you of certain well-known people, they are not intended as portraits. Lance keeps his figures as anonymous as possible so that the viewer doesn’t reflect on the painting’s likeness to a particular person but instead pays attention to the visual dynamic that happens when the person plays an instrument. Anatomical distortion and heightened color intensity are used to emphasize the fact that a musician and their music are experienced statically. They are a combination of kinetic elements that combine to produce a unique event. Lance strives to evoke a similar experience in the viewer. He hopes that these paintings also reflect his abiding respect for the music and musicians that form the foundation for the Old Town School of Folk Music and its mission of bringing music, history and people together.

Lance Brown is truly a “performing artist." Painting on stage to live music is one of the most powerful aspects of his current work. It has produced paintings that are bold in their design and fearless in their execution. As a blues and jazz musician himself, Lance was asked to “PAINT TO THE BLUES” with Eddie Clearwater and his Band at Bill’s Blues in Evanston on January 18, 2008. “Clearwater Mardis Gras” and “Eddy’s Boogie” are two pieces that resulted that evening. Lance has painted to Strauss waltzes before audiences at the Skokie Theater in Skokie. Most recently on April 28, 2008 he painted at Schuba’s with the Scotland Yard Gospel Choir to benefit Urban Initiatives of Chicago. That painting was sold at auction at the end of the event. Last year Lance was in the Around the Coyote Fall Festival in Chicago and he won special honors for his “Purple Suited Blues Man” at the Senior Artists Network “Later Impressions” Show organized through Chicago Cultural Center. Lance has designed two courses to be offered through the Oasis Organization and the North Shore Senior Center: “Drawing as Meditation and Improvisation” and “Life as Art – Juicing Up Your Creativity”. Lance tries to make his life and his work reflect his admonition to himself and others, “Be Happy – Fear Nothing”.

For a preview of Lance's artwork, please visit www.lancestunes.com or www.lancebrownfineart.com

Gallery Information

The Old Town School's Lincoln Avenue location features rotating exhibits of visual art in the Harris Gallery, which is in the main hall of the second floor.

The Harris Gallery is available for viewing during open school hours: Mon-Thur 9am-10 pm and Fri-Sun 9am-5pm

The Harris Gallery curator accepts artists' exhibition applications at any time. Please send a cover letter, including a description of your work and yourself, as well as any other pertinent information. Along with the letter, please provide examples of your work either electronically or in the form disc or slides. If you have a website, please provide a link to it. If submitting by mail, send to:
Alicia Manson, Old Town School of Folk Music, 4544 N. Lincoln, 60625.

If submitting your information electronically, send to amanson@oldtownschool.org.

For more information contact Alicia Manson, Visual Arts Curator.