Johnny's of Carrboro Craft and Music Fest

Johnny's at 901 West Main Street Carrboro will hold a fair this Saturday, December 19th from 9-5.

From the Facebook event page

This is a day of food, fun, crafts, and music. Come out to support your local craftspeople as well as culinary artisans in addition to sipping some yummy eggnog, wine tastings throughout the day and live music. Keep an eye on the FB page for a listing of who is playin' and displayin'. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the local non-profit, Carrboro Community Garden. (Rain date is the next day, Dec 20th.)

 It oughta be fun and you know you have some local shopping still to do!

Frank (Franklin Street Arts Collective) to open in January

The new Art Collective in downtown Chapel Hill is now scheduled to open in January 2010.  It's a pretty exciting development both for downtown CH and the Chapel Hill and Carrboro art scene. From the WCHL radio website:

The 3,400 square foot space at 109 East Franklin Street will employ one full-time director, Barbara Rich, who is herself a painter. Twenty-five core members will exhibit their art year-round and work in the gallery. Up to 50 other local and national artists will show their work on consignment. 

So far the only artist I know who's amongst the 25 is Alan Dehmer who works in gum bichromate photography.  His work is exceptional -- it's a good sign for the Frank.

Steven Silverleaf at the Fleet Feet Gallery -- Wow!

I took a walk over to the Fleet Feet Gallery at 406 E Main St, Carrboro before my show at Weaver Street Realty last night during the 2nd Friday ArtWalk. I wanted to stop by and check out Steve's new collages.

You may have seen Steve's wonderful figurative pieces (drawings, acrylics and oils) of bightly colored bold and other times quiet and cool depictions of people in chairs and other settings and reposes. These often deceptively simple works are moving and thrilling, for example Conversation 1 to the right.

As good as these paintings are I've always been even more excited by his collages.  Still I was unprepared for this latest batch.  Most fairly small (say 12" wide by 36" tall) but a handful of a larger scale, they are playful, dramatic and compositionally strong and complex.  Some have colors that draw you in like an embrace.  Others grab ahold of your eyes like a magnet.  Most play with the image of a bird.  Really thrilling work of the highest quality.  The small photo to the right does not do them justice (but you can find the bird!)

Steve is one of the treasures of the Triangle artist community, much underexposed and often under appreciated.  This is a must see exhibit.  To see some of Steve's older paintings and collages go to his site but definitely make a point to stop by Fleet Feet!

Gotta go to this Friday's 2ndFriday Artwalk!

Don't forget the ArtWalk this Friday in Carrboro and Chapel Hill.  The weather should be nice and cool for a lovely walk between venues (stopping of course at Weaver Street Realty for some wine and a look at some of my new pieces.)

There will be many things to see but there are two that I hate to miss while smoozing at my opening.

The first is collages by my friend Steven Silverleaf at the Fleet Feet Gallery 406 E Main St, Carrboro.  If you haven't seen Steven's collages you are in for a treat!  Bright, vibrant and strong.

The second thing that caught my eye was the showing of some big artwork on shirts and paper by Jenifer Padilla at the Merch 101 Lloyd St, Carrboro. According to the 2nd Friday webpage "Jenifer's most recent, experimental works combine silkscreen with her original drawings and paintings." See some samples at her website. They look really interesting.

2ndFriday ArtWalk Opening at Weaver Street Realty on Main St, December 11th

I will host an opening for my show of new & old works at next week's 2nd Friday Artwalk. The pieces include small to large pastels, acrylics, collages and photos in representational to abstract styles.  I'll post some pictures of the pieces on Flickr this weekend.  Hope you can make it.

December 11th, 2009 6-9 PM during the 2ndFriday ArtWalk
Refreshments (including adult beverages) will be served.

Weaver Street Realty
116 E. Main Street
Carrboro, NC

And a reminder that the show at the Red Bicycle Coffee Shop on Homestead at Airport Road is up through December.

Ginger Young Southern self-taught benefit art sale this weekend

Ginger Young is a great collector and promoter of Southern folk and outsider art. Once a year she has a holiday benefit art sale and it's this weekend, December 5th and 6th. More information at her website.

The 4th Annual Carrboro Film Festival!

The 2009 Carrboro Film Festival was a great success!  Everything went flawlessly. (The AV guy -- I forget his name - was terrific.)  We had a full crowd with big applause and much whooping and hollering for folks' favorite films or directors. 

For me the two best films were the first, Fait by Chris Crutchfield and the last, Empty Space, directed by Rob Underhill and Aravind Ragupathi and featuring the wonderful talent Mike Wiley doing bits from his one-man show Dar He: The Lynching of Emmett Till.  Both truly memorable but they were just the tip of the iceberg.

Fait can be seen on Chris' Vimeo page.  The trailer for Empty Space is here.

If you don't believe me (and I have a vested interest as a Film Fest committee member) Mark Maximov of the Independent has an enthusiastic and insightful blog piece on the event.

Mark your calendar for next year's show: November 21, 2010.

Still from the 2009 Carrboro Film Festival interstitial by Ajit Anthony Prem.