Courtesy Virginia Tech. Chromatmos I (top) and Chromatmos II by Truman Capone. Each piece measures 5 inches by 19 inches.

Blacksburg artist Truman Capone, a professor emeritus and former director of Virginia Tech’s School of Visual Arts, had works “Chromatmos I” and “Chromatmos II” selected for “SMALL WONDERS, Piccole Meraviglie,” a juried show that took place at LINEA Spazio Arte Contemporanea (the LINEA Contemporary Art Space) in Florence, Italy from April 20 to May 4. Though being selected for the show was an honor in its own right, the show’s jury awarded Capone the grand prize, full participation in the Florence Biennale, to be held Nov. 30 to Dec. 8 in the Fortezza da Basso. Capone’s art competed against artists from 20 other countries.

According to a bio provided by Tech, Capone received his bachelor’s degree from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, a master’s degree from Virginia Tech, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Radford University.

David Stewart Wiley is the artistic director of the Virginia’s Blue Ridge Music Festival, a part-time position he’ll hold in addition to his regular duties as music director and conductor for the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra and the Long Island Philharmonic.

The Virginia’s Blue Ridge Musical Festival in Floyd starts May 30. It’s  a week-long program of classical music concerts and classes helmed by David Stewart Wiley of Roanoke Symphony Orchestra. The festival is selling passes for $99 until Wednesday, after which the price goes up to $110. For students the cost is half-price.

Read more about the festival here.

Check out the schedule here.

The festival’s orchestra will be comprised of master musicians and apprentices who are themselves accomplished players.

This isn’t the first event like this to be held in Floyd. The organizers of the National Music Festival came to Floyd in 2011, presided over a two-week festival that summer, but left that winter after determining the funding wasn’t available to support their salaries.

Photo courtesy Colleen Redman. Wiley and Akemi Takayama perform at a gala held at Floyd EcoVillage.

Wiley said the National Music Festival showed there’s enthusiasm in Floyd for classical music. The new festival, which shares some of the same board members, has a smaller budget and realistic financial goals, he said, with a year’s worth of fundraising undertaken beforehand. About $50,000 has been raised to support the festival’s $88,000 budget.

The programming will include a reprise of Jeff Midkiff’s “From the Blue Ridge,” debuted by RSO in 2011, and the debut of a composition by Steven Brown, “Fanfare for Floyd.”

Though concerts will happen in venues all over Floyd, the Floyd EcoVillage has served as the festival’s home, Wiley said.

Composer Philip Glass and his orchestra, the Philip Glass Ensemble, will kick off the Center for the Arts’ first season held in its newly-built home.

The Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech will open its first full season in its new home with a performance by a legendary American composer, end with a multimedia theater performance for children by an Italian troupe, and in between will host professional dance companies, experimental plays, a popular NPR host, a bluegrass festival and even a Pops performance by the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra.

Executive director Ruth Waalkes has said one of the goals of the new $100 million institution with its state-of-the-art 1,260-seat performance hall has been to complement, not duplicate, the programming that already exists in the Roanoke and New River valleys . Sure enough, the lineup of 21 acts sports little overlap with the Jefferson Center’s jazz offerings or the Roanoke Performing Arts Theatre’s comedians and Broadway in Roanoke shows.

The acts are also chosen based on their potential to involve community members and create opportunities for educational programming, Waalkes said.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

Jeff Goldberg/Esto Photographics

From Sunday’s column:

A Virginia Tech architecture professor and her students created a technologically interactive art installation modelled on Japanese lanterns at the Smithsonian.

Part of a series called “The Lantern Field,” the installation consisted of swaths of paper folded into flowery shapes hung from bamboo poles. Motion sensors caused the lighting to change colors and electronic bamboo chime sounds to change rhythm as people moved through the space beneath the “lanterns.”

“The Lantern Field” was on display at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art during the National Cherry Blossom Festival in April. The seeds that grew to become the installation were planted before Aki Ishida joined the Tech faculty.

The project was inspired by the lantern festivals Ishida saw while growing up in Japan.

“Public parks would transform overnight into magical landscapes,” she said. Yet that magic was ephemeral. “These were paper lanterns that would go away after the days of the festival.”

“The Lantern Field,” too, was ephemeral. The installation went up April 5 and came down two days later after the gallery closed.

Ishida, 42, came to the United States when she was 11. By 2004 she was a New York architect teaching part-time at the Rhode Island School of Design. Japanese architecture has a tradition of using paper to modify lighting.

Click here to read the rest of the column.

(Here as promised in Sunday’s column is the video of the making of “The Lantern Field” at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art.)

From Sunday’s column:

Cornelia Marin of Saint-Lo, France, standing before one of her murals.

A French artist visiting through an arrangement with Roanoke Valley Sister Cities will take part in Roanoke’s Art by Night studio tour from 5 to 9 p.m. this Friday.

Cornelia Marin of Saint-Lo in Normandy, France, just arrived in town Saturday. The Roanoke-Saint-Lo Sister City committee received a Mini-Arts and Cultural Plan Implementation Grant from Roanoke and the Foundation for Roanoke Valley to help fund Marin’s trip.

This is Marin’s first visit to the United States, according to a news release from the Roanoke-Saint-Lo Sister City committee.

Marin will create a temporary installation at the Wilson Hughes Gallery at 117 Campbell Ave. S.W. called “L’Evolution de la Femme (The Evolution of Woman).” Marin brings a lot of excitement and enthusiasm to her work, said Roanoke-Saint-Lo committee chairwoman Mary Jo Fassie. It’s been 15 years since the committee last brought an artist to Roanoke from Saint-Lo, Fassie said.

Marin’s artworks include paintings, sculpture, mosaics and performance pieces. Her subjects are usually women. A native of Romania, she moved to France after Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu was overthrown in 1989. She’s exhibited in Paris, Germany and Italy.

She’s staying until May 13, and has a full itinerary ahead. She’s taking part in an “Explore the Galleries” program at 4 p.m. Thursday at Taubman Museum of Art and the museum’s Spectacular Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Roanoke-Saint-Lo committee member Janice Kaufman will be on hand as a translator.

Click here to read the rest of the column.

Click image for an enlarged view of the tour map.

Click here for a Google Map tour of Open Studios of Roanoke 2013.

Spring has come to Roanoke, which means it’s time for artists to open their studios once again to a weekend’s worth of visitors.

This year’s Open Studios of Roanoke tour features 26 artists at 13 stops, including new arrivals and familiar faces in new places.

Max Mitchell, 26, has opened Roanoke Art Works, abbreviated “R.A.W.,” at 26 Church Ave. S.W. His father, potter Steve Mitchell, has been a mainstay of the Open Studios tour for many years. Max Mitchell, a painter, has moved back to Roanoke after attending Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and living in Philadelphia for seven years.

“I never really liked being in the city,” he said. “I always liked being in the mountains.”

Steve Mitchell will have work on display in Roanoke Art Works this weekend, as will Roanoke painter Greg Osterhaus.

The father-son duo made waves in the regional art scene even before Max Mitchell moved back — in 2011, he won the grand prize at the Biennial Juried Exhibition at Roanoke College, and his father won second place.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

A still from the 2013 Oscar winner for Best Animated Short Film, “Paper Man.”

The Grandin Theatre 2013 Film Festival of New Cinematic Delights

Where: The Grandin Theatre, 1310 Grandin Road, Roanoke

When: Screenings run 1 to 9 p.m. Friday through Sunday; 5 to 9 p.m. Monday through April 25

How much? Weekend pass $50; senior citizens, students and Grandin members $35; individual special events, $12. Weekend passes include all events Friday through Sunday as well as the Wednesday screening and by Mat Smith and the Thursday screening and talk by Katie Teague.

Info: 345-6177; http://grandintheatre.com/?page_id=881

Schedule: grandintheatre.com/?page_id=1056

The Grandin Theatre wanted to showcase its new digital projection equipment in a special way.

“It was just the right time to do a film festival,” said executive director Kathy Chittum. The landmark Roanoke theater in the Grandin Court neighborhood has never held one before, she said.

The theater had a scare when the digital projectors Chittum hoped to have in place by April 2 wound up on back order. But Monday, Chittum gleefully reported that installation had started, and the projectors will be in place when the festival starts Friday.

“It has been a hair-pulling, maddening, fun, exciting, thrilling experience all the way around,” she said of putting the festival together.

The festival’s headline event is the regional premiere of “The Place Beyond the Pines,” a crime drama with art house credentials starring A-listers Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper. But there’s also a lot of independent and offbeat fare, including films with Roanoke ties. Many of the films will be shown multiple times over the festival’s course.

“It’s a celebration of film,” Chittum said.

Click here to read the rest of the story.

From Sunday’s column:

One week prior to its grand reopening, Center in the Square in Roanoke will hold a black-tie gala from 8 p.m. to midnight on May 11 called “Grand Affair” — not unlike the Affair in the Square fundraisers held in the Campbell Avenue building in years past.

Those who buy the $75 tickets will get a preview of Center’s 5,500-gallon live coral reef aquarium, as well as three other salt water and one fresh water aquarium. Live music will play in the building and on the institution’s much-touted green roof. The History Museum of Western Virginia, the Science Museum of Western Virginia and the Harrison Museum of African American Culture will also take part.

Center has also announced that it will hold its ribbon cutting at 9:30 a.m. May 18 and then an open house event called “Family Day of Discovery” from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m.

For more information, call 342-5700 or visit www.centerinthesquare.org.

Click here to read the rest of the column.

From Sunday’s column:

Painter Elizabeth Sauder is one of the artists taking part in the Lexington/Rockbridge Studio Tour. Photo courtesy of Jean Tremmel.

The Lexington/Rockbridge Studio Tour has added a few more artists and a bit of barbecue to its second go-round.

The free self-guided tour features 11 studios along a 20-mile loop. Participating guest artists from North Carolina, West Virginia, New Mexico and several cities around Virginia bring the total number of exhibiting artists to 36. The tour hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and April 21.

Artist Susan Harb, whose treehouse studio is part of the tour, said that the Effinger Volunteer Fire Department on Collierstown Road will be selling barbecue dinners “to add even more authentic Rockbridge County flavor to the tour.”

Harb organized the first tour in April 2012, acting on a suggestion by fellow Lexington artist Marsha Heatwole, who will demonstrate printmaking in her studio at 1125 Sugar Creek Road. Other ongoing activities include portrait painting by Marcia Germain at Harb’s studio at 62 Brushwood Place and photo shoots at Ellen Martin’s photography studio at 876 Enfield Road.

The kinds of arts and crafts for show and sale on the tour include painting, sculpture, silversmithing, pottery, photography, hand-loom weaving, basket weaving, stained glass and jewelry making, with prices ranging from $20 to $20,000.

Click here to read the rest of the column.

From my Inbox to you:

The Grandin Theatre announces a film festival to showcase the very best the theatre has to offer – an iconic beautiful setting with new digital upgrades on the way and an outstanding program including Academy Award nominated shorts, powerful and important documentaries such as The Invisible War featuring a Skype session with director Kirby Dick, Bee People with the director and film star present, 56 Up, A Place at the Table, A Fierce Green Fire, and Chasing Ice.  Other eye-opening, inventive films like The Brass Tea Pot and Any Day Now will also be featured.  Unforgiven and Vertigo will be presented as part of the Hollins University Lecture Series with Q & A afterwards. Premieres include The Place Beyond The Pines, starring Ryan Gosling, Eva Mendes and Bradley Cooper and Leonie, starring Emily Mortimer and a Skype session with actor Jan Milligan.

Dates:    April 19th through Sunday, April 21st.

Cost:      $50 for entire weekend for general public. $35 for Grandin Theatre members, seniors and students. $12 for individual events.

The entire weekend will delight attendees with featured special guest appearances by filmmakers and directors, insightful panel discussions and screenings of films likely not to be seen anywhere else. Monday, April 22nd through Thursday April 25th will have highlights of the event.

With an eye towards the linked goals of heightening film awareness while promoting the historic Grandin Theatre as a treasured iconic cinema art house and fostering an open community dialogue, we are proud to announce our treasured partners:

• City of Roanoke
• Hollins University
• SARA
• The Blue Ridge Land Conservancy
• Roanoke Diversity Center
• Marla, Cory and Maggie of Oliver’s Twist
• City Magazine
• HomeTown Bank
• 101.5 the music place

Please visit www.grandintheatre.com as unique events and films will continue to be added as this exciting, first-time event approaches.