Local artists are gaining recognition in Cornelius, thanks to exhibits at the Cornelius Arts Center and Cafe Elie. The Cornelius Arts Center is preparing to host the second annual Home Grown exhibit beginning in November, and Cafe Elie will host receptions Oct. 16-17 for its next Main Street Art Exhibition. Meanwhile, Davidson College hosts exhibitions by sculptor Jaume Plensa and PBS animates old radio interviews with help from artist Liss LaFleur. Read on for details.
HOME GROWN
The Cornelius Arts Center is putting out a call to artists to submit works for the second annual “Home Grown” exhibition. The show is not juried, so whether your previous work has sold for thousands of dollars or just graced the refrigerator door, as long as it meets the submission guidelines it will be displayed. Last year 65 Cornelius residents participated in the inaugural Home Grown exhibit, and roughly 300 people showed up to the opening reception, making it one of the largest openings the CAC has ever hosted.
Programs Coordinator Jen Crickenberger said that the exhibit aims to give a venue to local art: “I developed Home Grown as a way for the Cornelius Arts Center to showcase and promote the work of our expansive local art community.”
The show will open on Nov. 14, with an opening reception taking place from 6:30-8:30pm. Check the submission guidelines at the Cornelius Arts Center’s website. All work is due by 12pm on November 1, 2014.
MAIN STREET ART EXHIBITION RECEPTION AT CAFE ELIE
Local artists’ works will go on display at a reception at Café Elie on Friday, Oct. 17, from 6-9pm, and on Saturday, Oct. 18, from 5-8pm. Café Elie is located at 20700 North Main St., suite 110. Many of the artists whose work is going on display are Elie Bou Zeidan’s students. For them, the display is the finale of their classes on acrylics and oil painting.
Bou Zeidan said that the exhibit will feature a variety of styles of art – some students use watercolor as their medium of choice, and one even paints on blocks of wood. For Bou Zeidan, the variety of artists who sign up for his classes shows a growing local enthusiasm for the arts.
“Every 10 meters there is an art gallery,” he said. “We’re reaching out to artists.”
DAVIDSON PROF TURNS GRANDFATHER’S RADIO INTERVIEWS INTO ANIMATED SHORTS
Liss LaFleur has worked with PBS to digitize and animate three interview recordings for “Blank on Blank,” a series of short animated films based on audio interviews with celebrities. The recordings include three of 300 reels that LaFleur, an assistant professor of digital media at Davidson College, inherited from her grandfather Jay Kent Hackleman, formerly the host of “The Way We Were” on KTRH public radio in Houston, Texas.
LaFleur’s work has not yet been posted on the Blank on Blank website, but the site has several examples of the animated audio interview format.
To digitize the entire collection, LaFleur is launching an online fundraising campaign that will allow those interested to donate on behalf of specific recordings. The campaign will run Oct. 14 through Nov. 14 with an ultimate goal of raising $10,000. If successful, LaFleur plans to design an interactive website and project, where final versions of the recordings are grouped thematically.
JAUME PLENSA LECTURE
Sculptor Jaume Plensa will lecture at 7pm on Oct. 23 at Davidson College preceding the first comprehensive exhibition of his work in North Carolina. The exhibition will be on view from Oct. 24 – Dec. 17 in Davidson’s Van Every/Smith Galleries, at the Belk Visual Arts Center, Main and Griffith streets.
“Jaume Plensa: Sculptures and Drawings” will consist of works on paper as well as sculpture in bronze and in stainless steel. All works were created in the past three years and several have never before been exhibited in the United States, including “Nuage VI,” “Rui Rui’s Dream” and “Sanna’s Dream.”
The lecture and exhibition are free and open to the public.
Plensa’s sculpture “Waves III” is part of Davidson College’s outdoor sculpture collection.
