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Sunday EDITION
oxfordcitizen.com
Volume 2 | Issue 51
Powerhouse Gallery Series deadline for submission upcoming
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Inside 2 Lifestyle
BY JEFF ROBERSON OXFORD CITIZEN
The Powerhouse Gallery Series provides artists with the opportunity to showcase their work to the community through a variety of different exhibitions. The Yoknapatawpha Arts Council has opened its annual call for submission for the 2016 Powerhouse Gallery Series. The deadline is fast approaching, however. That date is Oct. 30, and only the application has to be in then. The shows are actually in 2016. One of the main objectives of the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council is to promote local artists and also fully engage the community in all the creativity that regional artists, professional or student, have to offer. “The gallery series is events or exhibitions that we have planned starting in January,” said Miller Heiman, Yoknapatawpha Arts Council Intern. “Anybody can apply. Professional artists, folk artists, anybody. We want the benefit to be for the artists. There are opportunities that are so diverse.” Heiman talks about several of the events in the gallery series. “One is called Wherefore Art Thou. It’s in conjunction with the Shakespeare folio exhibit at the Ford Center. So people are going to submit pieces that are related to or about some Shakespeare quote. Then two months later we have a birdhouse show, which will benefit Habitat For Humanity. Another is an art exhibit at City Grocery so work can be displayed. We have an art vending machine at Cups. There’s an ornament auction. There’s an art show and an art auction for 2016. I’m a painter but I also do ceramics. So there are at least five of those shows I could participate in.” Heiman said getting the word out about the series and also getting information back from the artists are both important. “We want feedback from the artists,” she said. “It offers a lot of variety for artists. Especially
John Hailman has followed up “Midnight to Guntown” with a second volume – “Return to Guntown: Classic Trials of the Outlaws and Rogues of Faulkner Country."
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for student artists, it offers them an opportunity. It attracts a whole spectrum of artists from the community. I’m just trying to reach as many people as possible. And you don’t have to be an established, well-known artist to be a part of it.” Heiman said she wants people to understand there is more of a connection to the community and the arts community than they might think. She believes they can be one and the same. “My definition of art is the visual arts, paintings and galleries, also theater arts, literary arts. I want to contribute as much as possible in the gallery series,” she said. “The more exposure I can bring to the gallery series is a good thing. The community and the art community need to be the same. Art is the community.” Wayne Andrews, executive director of the Yoknapatawpha Arts Council said the series is successful and changes every year. “We created it in response to what artists needs were,” he said. “It keeps changing every year as our artists are getting more experienced or have different needs. We adjust to what we’re doing.”
6 Lifestyle
Lea Fyfe is attendance clerk at OHS and has quite a view on all the happenings at the front door to the high school building.
Andrews also said the community is becoming more involved, which is a good aspect of the series. “We’re doing more partnerships with community groups. We’re partnering local artists with national artists. They wanted to look at more solo shows, so we came up with each artist getting their own individual space within the building. We created this so local artists could participate. We’ve got to keep adding more artists to the mix.” The gallery offers 10 shows per year, according to its press release. Each exhibition is featured on the monthly Art Crawl. There is also an easy online application form this year.
There is no limit to the number of exhibitions an artist can apply for and all mediums are accepted. It is free to submit to all shows but the “Wherefore art thou?” show will be a community event supporting the Shakespeare folio exhibit at The Ford Center and offer a cash prize for the artist that submits the best work paired or inspired by a Shakespeare quote. The show has a $10 submission fee with the prize based on the number of submissions. (a minimum $150 prize has been guaranteed.) You can find the submission link here: http://ow.ly/SDzeM and on the arts council website at www.oxfordarts.com.
14 Sports
The Commodores and the Chargers won Friday night football games as the regular season winds down soon.