artbeat magazine

THE COMET 19JULY 2022ARTBEAT MONTHLY NEWSLETTER OF THE NCW ARTS ALLIANCE JULY 2022 FREE

ON THE COVER: Josh R. McDonald Opening July 1 at Collapse Gallery

NCW ARTS ALLIANCE HIRES EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR; RECEIVES OFFICIAL 501-C3 STATUS

MUSE WORTHY by Lindsay Breidenthal

Kmbris Bond The newly formed NCW Arts Alliance has hired Kmbris Bond as its fi rst executive director. Bond, a longtime local teaching artist, accepted the part-time position in June.

Bond had been serving as chairperson of the steering committee that has been working over the past 18 months to establish the NCW Arts Alliance.

As executive director, Bond will turn her focus to supporting expansion of the NCW Arts Board of Directors; creation of the organization website and basic infrastructure; as well as building initial fund raising and membership systems. Bond will also continue to serve in her role as the Education and Volunteer Specialist at the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center. Taking her place as board chair is Megan Kappler of Ephrata. Kappler is founder and board president of the Full Circle Theatre Company and works for Columbia Valley Community Health as the Training and Education Manger. She specializes in creative art therapies.

The current NCW Arts Alliance board members also include Scott Bailey, director of Wenatchee Valley College’s Arts program; Wenatchee-based mixed media artists Lindsay Breidenthal, karen dawn dean; Natalie Dotzauer, Professor of Art at Wenatchee Valley College; and Jamie Howell, owner of Howell at the Moon Productions.

In other news, the NCW Arts Alliance was recently granted offi cial status as a 501(c) (3) non-profi t organization by the IRS. This critical step will allow the organization to receive grants and other public or private allocations only available to recognized 501(c)(3) organizations, as well as to receive tax-deductible donations.

Want to fi nd out more about the NCW Arts Alliance? Contact us at arts@ncwarts.org

Lindsay Breidenthal “What art seeks to disturb is monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine.” - Oscar Wilde

I’d like to raise a glass to the shapeshifters, embodied enigmas, and boundary breakers as you consistently re-draw the lines, confuse and delight.

Pride month highlights the multi-faceted aspects of sexuality, ethnicity, and identity - raising questions about what categories we assume and why. It takes creativity and humor to blossom on the edges of defi nition, to see yourself in the “other” and play with contradiction.

Oscar Wilde points out, “…The artist should never try to be popular. Rather the public should be more artistic.” I see an artistic inclination in most people, but our busy lives don’t really allow this innate quality to fl ourish as it should.

Instead of focusing on how insane/ignorant/disgusting some people are, it takes creativity to imagine assuming that role in a play, for example. The research it takes to create a mural, fi lm, poem will change how you see your subject - guaranteed. Who better to point out an elaborate system of political smoke and mirrors than a magician? Can you think of better social critics than comedians and writers? So, what does this have to do with art? Everything. Like Oscar said, “It is life that imitates Art.”

Calling all songwriters!

Spend a week exploring your instruments and creating music with singer/songwriter Chloe Caemmerer at the Grunewald Guild in Plain. The course, “Songwriting: Songbird Lexicon” runs from July 17-23 and is just one of nearly two dozen art courses off ered this summer. Find out more at grunewaldguild.com.

SCAN TO SIGN UP FOR THE NCW ARTS NEWSLETTER FOR MORE EVENTS AND OPPORTUNITIES!

NCWARTS IN SEARCH OF WEB HELP

Handy on the interwebs? NCW Arts needs an art-loving individual or team to help us launch the fi rst iteration of our new website. Help get this organization off the ground and into the ether! Contact us at arts@ncwarts.org.

‘SHADOW APERTURE’ Installation Not to be Missed

Art Review by Scott Bailey

As the curator of exhibitions at the MAC Gallery on the campus of Wenatchee Valley College, I’m always looking to show the most interesting, challenging and educational exhibitions we can produce. Among all the exhibitions we’ve put on, the current show is truly special. Seattle-based artists Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo are partners in life and in art as Lead Pencil Studio. They are toplevel, internationally respected and exhibited artists accustomed to showing at major museums or doing large-scale public commissions, which ordinarily would put them well out of our league and, as a result, makes Shadow Aperture the most signifi cant exhibition ever produced specifi cally for our gallery. It was the MAC Gallery’s white cube space and the off er of an opportunity to create art-for-art’s-sake with complete freedom, albeit on a more intimate scale (and budget), that enticed them into the Wenatchee Valley. Shadow Aperture is ethereal, minimal, and conceptual - a succinct presentation, where everything in the show is essential. Upon entering the space, it takes a moment for one’s eyes to adjust to its quietness. The exhibition consists of a central hanging wire sculpture that suggests a window opening, two steel fl oor pieces, and four “drawings” that stretch and challenge the defi nition of that discipline. The latter are extremely understated gestures—metal rods that protrude magically from the gallery walls in angles that feel familiar as openings seen from oblique perspectives and yet are alien in their present forms. Behind the crisp and pared-down elements of the sculptures are some hightech architectural processes and calculations. Computerized virtual models imagined light streaming through the ghostly window (Aperture) with its negative space represented by wispy metal cross-hatching. The light from that invented source has landed on the fl oor and wall, paradoxically transformed into solid, heavy, cold-rolled steel geometric shapes (Shadow Plates 1 and 2). Consummate professionals, the tight craftsmanship of Han and Mihalyo is evident throughout this exhibition. Architects by training, they bring unique sensibilities to their art across a variety

of mediums including digital media, photography, video, ceramics, sculpture, drawing, design, and installation. The show has a Sublime quality that seems related to the West Coast Minimalists and Light and Space Movement artists like James Turrell and Robert Irwin, but this work is more about the imagined suggestion of light and its absence than the spiritual glow of the light itself. Scott Bailey We’re fortunate to be able to hold the exhibition over through August so that more viewers can experience the thought-provoking and powerful calm it exudes.

Scott Bailey is an artist, and the Director of WVC’s Art Department and MAC Gallery. The MAC Gallery summer hours are Mondays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Fridays 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

SCAN FOR DIGITAL INTERACTIVE FIRST FRIDAY

MAP!

Online map courtesy of the Wenatchee Downtown Association wendowntown.org

Music comes to the outdoor Meadow Stage as venerated regional favorites The Paperboys kick off the Summer Concert Series at Icicle Creek Center for the Arts in Leavenworth on Saturday, July 30, at 7 p.m. Tickets available at icicle.org.

FIRST FRIDAY ART MAP

2 3

1. MAC Gallery

Lead Pencil Studio: Shadow Aperture, 5-7

2. Lemolo Cafe & Deli

Dan McConnell, cartoonist & LIVE music by Corban Welter, 6-8

3. Two Rivers Art Gallery

Tina Reeve Tharp, painter; Jeanne McPherson, live pianist, 5-8

4. Mela

Amber Zimmerman, painter, 5-7

5. Tumbleweed

Kealani Clay Jewelry, 5-7

6. Gilded Lily

Paula K. Odell, oil painter, 1-6

7. Ye Olde Bookshoppe

Down by the River Lavender, 4-8

8 Pickle Papers

Josie Rutherford, watercolor markers demo, 4-7

9. Mountain Chick Floral

Kyle Folden, live music, 4-7 10. Collapse Gallery

Josh McDonald, artist reception, 12-9

11. Pybus Market

Victor and Kellie Von Beck, artist reception; music by Norman Baker, 5-7

4

5 6 7

8

9

10