Tag: The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative

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Strange lot: The Bridge fills with curiosities in new exhibition

Throughout October, the “Gallery of Curiosities” at The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative is the setting for a variety of events, such as experimental music performances, a horror film screening, a Halloween party, trick or treating, and more. Photo by Martyn Kyle

On a sultry First Fridays evening in early October, The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative gallery glows gold beneath the dark, overcast sky. People flock to the warmly lit building to see the “Gallery of Curiosities.” Outside, near the door, there’s a small table draped with a white cloth and adorned with candles, where Leslie M. Scott-Jones (a C-VILLE contributor) reads tarot cards for those who opt to sit across from her.

Inside the gallery, Elyse Smith spins fur from a visitor’s beloved pet into yarn, and all around her, floor to ceiling and wall to wall, hang hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of curiosities, oddities, and objects, each item begging more questions than it answers.

In a thick frame sprouting from the wall, the chalky, fragile white skeleton of a two-headed snake. On a table, an apocalyptic diorama; on another table, a pinhole camera. Sprouting from the floor, a mermaid tail. Stored in a cabinet are slender, corked glass vials of animal whiskers and porcupine quills. Human teeth. A loved one’s ashes.

There are planters made from grinning baby doll heads with all manner of cacti, succulents, and leafy greenery poking out the top. One wall holds nine lidded glass jars, each containing a red tomato in a different state of moldy, liquefying decay. Immediately above it are nine more jars containing chocolate Hostess cupcakes, each alarmingly well preserved.

Inspired by the cabinets of curiosities and wunderkammers of Renaissance and Baroque Europe, as well as contemporary museums like the Museum of Psychphonics in Indianapolis and the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, the “Gallery of Curiosities” is at The Bridge through the end of the month.

The show seeks to elicit a number of reactions from visitors, says Alan Goffinski, director of The Bridge. What is all this stuff? Where did this come from? Is it really from Charlottesville? Who are the people who collect these things?

“Curiosity is this force within us, this natural thing that we’re born with, that we take on as children, that points us toward the unknown and pulls us into a head space of authentic opportunity for learning and growth,” says Goffinski, and this exhibition is a place to exercise, or perhaps rediscover, that force.

The Bridge put out a call for submissions on its website, via email, social media accounts, and even Craigslist, urging folks to submit things they might have on display in their living rooms, attics, and cellars. More than 50 people from the Charlottesville area contributed items, ranging from Fraternal Order of Police memorabilia to Richard Nixon swag.

Tobiah Mundt contributed felted fantastical creations that she describes as a “sculptural representation of the creatures [found] in the place between asleep and awake.”

Hattie Eshleman’s pinkish-reddish-brownish bodily organ brooches, shiny and moist- looking, are a rumination on the inside turned out. “I would love for the viewer to imagine if they had extra organs other than the heart, liver, lungs, etc.,” says Eshleman. “What might those be? Fear? Intuition? An organ that stores forgotten memories?”

Visitors can test their telepathic connection with another person using the same experiment that Upton Sinclair (author of Mental Radio, a book on telepathy) and his second wife, Mary Craig Sinclair, used. Renee Reighart set up the experiment on a table with side-by-side stations, complete with instructions and suggestions for how to clear one’s mind and prepare to send or receive an image to the person on the other side of the divider. It’s “freaky” when it works, she says, but even when it doesn’t, it’s about the wondrous discovery of potential synchronicity and connection with another person.

In the gallery bathroom, there’s the Actuator, researched and developed by artist and musician Will Mullany, who describes his creation as a “proto-conscious mechanical being that guests are invited to interact with.” Mullany displays his research as well, hoping visitors will “set aside their base human inclination to filter their perceptions through logic and reason and accept the ultimate divine logic of the Actuator into their hearts.” And since it’s tucked away in the bathroom, he says, “it offers a sort of serenity and seclusion for these private revelations.”

In most cases, “you won’t be able to tell…what’s tongue-in-cheek and how much of it is fiction, or how much the truth dabbles in fiction along the way,” says Goffinski. For instance, did Ian Coyle’s belly button really produce that much lint—on display in an 8-inch by 10-inch oval frame—in two months’ time?

Coyle says yes; “even in a year’s long creative block, my tummy kept producing works of art.” But still, questions remain.

At its core, the “Gallery of Curiosities” is “an exhibit for Charlottesville, for the quirkiness that exists in our community,” says Goffinski. The show’s power lies in those who’ve curated it, he says, and it affords us a look into the character—both hidden and otherwise—of our friends and neighbors.

“It’s so damn interesting to learn about people in a show-and-tell sort of way,” says Goffinski.

Check out The Bridge’s calendar for a full listing of Halloween-y events related to the “Gallery of Curiosities” exhibit.

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Matters of the art: Going behind the scenes of local galleries and museums

Henry Skerritt, curator of the Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection, takes a look at one of the museums pieces.
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ARTS Pick: Soggy Po’ Boys bring the NOLA sound

The Soggy Po’ Boys are a lot more appetizing than they sound. The six-man band formed in New Hampshire, but its members are firmly rooted in the ways of NOLA jazz, from vintage outfits to the instruments themselves—among them a piano, two saxophones and a stand-up bass that looks straight out of a 1960s club. The Soggy Po’ Boys will perform twice in one night, with the first show including a brief talk about some of the band’s vital influences.

Thursday, June 28. $10-25, 7:30pm. The Bridge PAI, 209 Monticello Rd. 984-5669, and The Whiskey Jar (no cover, 10:30pm), 227 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. 202-1549.

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Laura Lee Gulledge dares you to draw

Laura Lee Gulledge will launch Sketchbook Dares at The Bridge on February 10. Copies of the book are also available for purchase in the McGuffey Art Center gift shop. Supplied photo

With her new book, Sketchbook Dares: 24 Ways to Draw Out Your Inner Artist, artist, writer and teacher Laura Lee Gulledge challenges anyone of any skill level to draw. The former Louisa County art teacher says, “It’s the sort of book I wish I’d had starting off as a teacher but also as a creative working in a sketchbook.” It takes a holistic approach, she explains. “It’s about developing not just the hand but what happens to the heart, head and spirit in creative practice.”

The concept behind the sketchbook format is to present nonintimidating exercises that can be completed in a limited amount of time. “If you spend less time on a project your inner critic gets less involved,” Gulledge says. “It’s more about the process, the journey.”

One exercise, the Unwind Dare, challenges the reader to time how long it takes to draw an object, and then to draw it again in half the time, repeating the process until it can’t be repeated anymore. “It’s a way of loosening up and drawing faster so your fear can’t catch up to you,” says Gulledge. With each of the dares she pairs a relevant quote. For this one, she calls on the wisdom of Leonard Bernstein: “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.”

There are 24 exercises in total, 12 dares and 12 double-dares, which Gulledge explains are continuations of the initial dares “to reinforce the concept.” She suggests the book can be completed in three months by doing two exercises a week. “It’s ideal for over the summer or just for a season,” says Gulledge. “We can handle taking on a project for a season,” referring to it as “a little handheld class,” and “a way to develop your vocabulary visually.”

Some of the exercises elicit critical thinking, some self-reflection and others emotional intelligence. “Sketchbooks are vessels for collecting thoughts, emotions, ideas,” Gulledge says. For those interested in exploring their creativity but threatened by the blank page, the prompts are ideal. “I made half of a book and I need them to complete it,” she says.

It’s a sort of collaboration, or what Gulledge would call an “artnership.” She and a fellow artist coined the term when they began collaborating after each experienced a bad breakup. “We needed intimacy, but we didn’t want a boyfriend or girlfriend,” says Gulledge. “We wanted a creative intimacy. We talked about having an artner crush on somebody. I would think, ‘I want to make out with this person,’ and it was really, ‘I want to make art with this person.’”

Gulledge and her collaborator developed values for their artnership: healing, connection, flexibility, whimsy and success. “We have unofficial tenants, too,” Gulledge says, “like using snail mail and practicing self-care.” Gulledge—who returned to Charlottesville 18 months ago after seven years in New York City—says, “We’re not always creating. We have to rest.”

She likes to think of her artnerships “as part of this broader love movement. Everyone is helping redefine what love is, expanding the definition,” she says.

During the book launch at The Bridge on Saturday, attendees will have the opportunity to form their own artnerships. In addition to solo exercises, drawing activities will include the practice of drawing with an artner, creating artner valentines and filling in the remaining blank pages of Gulledge’s current sketchbook.

“Creatives aren’t necessarily good at working together but if we can, magical things can happen,” she says. “And if we can do that, we can be better about working together in the real world.”

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ARTS Pick: Floom

Floom plays a farewell show Sunday at the Bridge, with special guests Gull and Little Graves. Publicity photo Publicity photo

Maxx Katz won a SOUP grant in 2016 that became instrumental in launching her project Floom, leading indirectly to Sunday’s release of Multi-Voice of the Immensity, a 38-minute track of flute, doomy guitar and voices. “If a performer rings their heart like a bell, it starts ringing everyone else’s,” Katz told C-VILLE after the win. The support gave the avant-garde musician creative currency as well, and after spending a summer in Portland, Oregon, where she was inspired by the city’s metal and experimental music scene, the ripple effect finds us saying farewell to Floom at a show with special guests Gull and Little Graves.

Sunday, November 5. $7, 7pm. The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative, 209 Monticello Rd. 984-5669.

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UVA hip-hop professor contemplates the work ahead

Scholar and performer A.D. Carson appears on Friday at the Telemetry Music Series at The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative. Photo courtesy of Amy Jackson.

When A.D. Carson was in fourth grade at Durfee Elementary School in Decatur, Illinois, his teacher asked the class to write a paragraph about a picture hanging on the wall. The picture was of children playing, and Carson asked his teacher if he could make his paragraph rhyme.

She agreed—encouraged him, even—and soon after gave Carson two dusty volumes, one of American poetry and another of African-American poetry (“apparently those are different things,” Carson says) that he read again and again. Every assignment Carson had from that point on, he wanted to make rhyme.

So it makes perfect sense that, years later, after rhyming his paragraphs and discussing poetry with U.S. Poet Laureate Gwendolyn Brooks through letters, Carson would rhyme his doctoral dissertation—a rap album called Owning My Masters: The Rhetorics of Rhymes & Revolutions.

Carson, who graduated this spring from Clemson University with a Ph.D. in rhetorics, communication and information design, is UVA’s first assistant professor of hip-hop and the global South. Before he stands up in front of a class, though, he’ll take to the local stage on Friday, at this month’s Telemetry Music Series at The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative, and make students of his audience.

“When I see a young person who’s an artist, it’s my duty to listen and be supportive and say, ‘This matters. It’s really important that we have people whose work is this way.’”

A.D. Carson

That’s what art is for, after all: Be it hip-hop, dance, painting or sculpture, Carson believes it all has the ability to make us more empathetic people. We just have to do the work; we have to open our eyes to see and our ears to hear.

Owning My Masters is the product of a lot of work—academic, social, political, personal, artistic—on Carson’s part (and many others, from Carson’s producers, Truth and Preme, to Malcolm X, from Tupac and Billie Holiday to the slaves who worked the plantation where Clemson University now stands). The album does work of its own, addressing, among many other things, racism in America; complex questions about the nature of the dissertation and academia; the institutionalization of hip-hop; and the validity of the black voice, body and experience. Owning My Masters also expects a lot of work from the listener, whether that listener is into hip-hop or not—and that work needs to be done, in Charlottesville and elsewhere.

It’s already begun, of course, in the local hip-hop scene. “I’d be willing to wager that, there are lots of folks in that community that represent and come from, or are listening to, this particular form, who have been aware and dealing with this ‘new thing’ [racism and, to another extent, the presence of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups] that these folks have just become aware of, for a really long time,” says Carson. “Everybody’s treating it like a weed, and perhaps it’s flowering because of what’s been planted here. And if you want to combat it, then why not look to and draw from those communities that have been contending with it for a really long time?”

Listen to one of the tracks on Owning My Masters, and you’ll hear layers of sound and words, each of which holds meaning. On his dissertation website, Carson has annotated most of the 34 tracks, pointing toward much of what’s going on in the song (not everything, though—remember, the listener has to do the work to fully participate).

One of the tracks, “Ferguson, MO,” layers audio of the protests that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014 over a track of Elvis Presley singing “In the Ghetto.” Carson wants the listeners to ask themselves: What does it mean to have Elvis Presley, a white musician whose own music was highly influenced by and heavily borrowed from that of black musicians, singing a song about generational poverty in Chicago that’s playing under an audio recording of a protest occurring after 18-year-old Michael Brown, a black man, was fatally shot by a white Ferguson police officer on August 9, 2014? What is that sonic experience, and what are the questions being asked in that layering, in that juxtaposition? If it’s not clear on the first listen, listen again. Google the names. See where you can empathize.

Another track, “Talking to Ghosts,” samples 12 Years a Slave and features pop culture scholar and hip-hop artist Chenjerai “Bad Dreams” Kumanyika, one of Carson’s dissertation committee members. Carson and Kumanyika arrived on the Clemson campus, situated on what was John C. Calhoun’s plantation, at the same time and went together to see 12 Years a Slave, the story of Solomon Northup, a musician and free black man from New York who is abducted and sold into slavery. Carson and Kumanyika trade off verses, and in one, Carson says, “God bless the child that can hold it in / Believe…enemies bleed when I hold my pen,” referencing Tupac Shakur’s “Hold Ya Head Up,” which itself references Billie Holiday’s “God Bless the Child.”

By seeking out these references, this history, the listener gets an education, and in Carson’s eyes, education—and not only the ivory tower, academic definition of education—is of the utmost importance.

“This work, and education, educating and interrogating our history, interrogating our present and really thinking about what empathy means to us, these are matters of life and death,” and we cannot tiptoe around them any longer, says Carson, adding, “I don’t see myself pulling any punches.”

Correction: This story originally ran with the subhead “UVA’s first hip-hop professor contemplates the work ahead.” While Carson is UVA’s first professor to hold the title “assistant professor of hip-hop and the Global South,” as the article states, Kyra Gaunt was a professor of ethnomusicology at UVA from 1996 to 2002 and helped pioneer hip-hop studies at UVA and elsewhere. We regret the error.

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ARTS Pick: Eugene Chadbourne

Eugene Chadbourne is known for his mastery of instruments such as the banjo (above), guitar, rake and plunger.

Unconventional is a word often found in descriptions of Eugene Chadbourne’s work, but it doesn’t begin to capture the far-out 63-year-old musician’s career. Wikipedia notes that his mastery of guitar, banjo, rake and plunger, and his immersion in free jazz, folk and experimental music led to collaborations with John Zorn, Fred Frith, Jello Biafra, Violent Femmes and Tony Trischka, among others. Many of Chadbourne’s album titles are rooted in cultural provocation such as Corpses of Foreign War, Country Music in the World of Islam Volume XV and Jesse Helms Busted With Pornography. Floom Choir and Jordan Perry open.

Saturday, April 29. $5-7, 7pm. The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative, 209 Monticello Rd. 984-5669.