Watch Cheech Marin’s speech at Washington and Lee University about Chicano art starting 5:30 p.m. today at https://new.livestream.com/wlu/cheech-marin.

From Sunday’s arts column:

Courtesy Washington & Lee University. From the Chicano art collection of Cheech Marin: Ricardo Ruiz, “La Envidiosa,” 2009.

Comedian Cheech Marin is a serious art collector.

Though most recognize him as half of the stoner comedy duo Cheech and Chong, he’s demonstrated over the years through dramatic roles on shows like “Nash Bridges,” “Judging Amy” and “Lost” that there are dimensions to his art beyond raunchy humor.

As an aficionado of the Chicano art movement and a promoter of Mexican American artists, he’s as earnest as a college professor.

In fact, he’ll speak 5:30 p.m. Monday at Washington and Lee University about the topic during the opening of “Chicanitas: Small Paintings from the Cheech Marin Collection” in the university’s Staniar Gallery. On display until May 24, the show consists of 65 paintings by 26 painters.

Gallery director Clover Archer Lyle said that for those who can’t make it, Marin’s talk will be streamed live on line at https://new.livestream.com/wlu/cheech-marin.

Lyle and art history professor Andrea Lepage pursued a show from Marin’s collection to go along with Lepage’s class focused on Chicano and Chicana art.

Click here to read the rest of the column.

From my Inbox to you:

Renowned choreographer Bebe Miller’s Virginia Tech visit features public talk and performance of her latest work, ‘A History’

BLACKSBURG – The Center for the Arts at Virginia Tech (http://www.artscenter.vt.edu) will host a week-long visit by the Bebe Miller Company, which will include a master class with Radford University dance students and a public lecture led by company founder and choreographer Bebe Miller.

The visit will culminate with a performance of the company’s latest dance work, “A History,” in Squires Student Center’s Haymarket Theatre on Friday, April 26, at 8 p.m.“A History (http://www.bebemillercompany.org/history.asp)” is a duet performance directed by Miller that features longtime Bebe Miller Company collaborators Angie Hauser and Darrell Jones and draws upon the history of the group’s creative process, giving audiences a glimpse into how dance-making works. “A History” can be viewed as the evidence and performance of the creative conversation embedded in the last decade of the company’s work.

Hauser and Jones appear live and virtually, creating a dynamic theatre-based performance. Their nuanced dancing relationship under Miller’s direction, with dramaturgy by Talvin Wilks, video by Lily Skove, and a media installation by Maya Ciarrocchi, represents the thematic journey that has led the company to the present moment.

Miller will lead a public talk, “Bebe Miller: Dancing at the Boundaries of Art and Technology,” where she will discuss her creative practice and the intersection of art and new technologies in terms of both creating and archiving work, on Wed., April 24, at 5:30 p.m. in Theatre 101, room 201.

The talk, which is free and open to the public, is part of the ArtsFusion seminar series and is presented by the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology(http://www.icat.vt.edu/) in partnership with the Center for the Arts, with support from the Virginia Tech Office of the Provost’s Women and Minority Artists and Scholars Lecture Series (http://www.provost.vt.edu/faculty_affairs/women_minority_artists_scholars/women_and_minority_artists_and_scholars.html). Read more »

Typewriter sculpture by Jeremy Mayer

Martinsville Bulletin reporter Ben R. Williams — who also happens to be an actor, writer and even singer familiar to a certain subset of Roanoke denizens through his performances at No Shame Theatre, his plays at now-defunct Studio Roanoke, and his former band Death Newman— offers a hilarious memoir today about his experience competing in the 48-Hour Novel Contest (click link to read.) Excerpts below:

My pulp novel was called Killer Entomologist. It concerns an entomologist (insect expert) who becomes convinced that members of a prominent Roanoke family, noted for their heartlessness and lack of compassion, are not actually people, but rather giant, evil insects imitating people. For the good of humanity, he realizes he must stop them by any means necessary. …

Writing a novel in two or three days isn’t like putting together a puzzle; it’s more like putting a live octopus on top of a pile of puzzle pieces and yelling instructions at it from another room.

 To read more about the contest, click here.

From my Inbox to you:

VIRGINIA FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES SECOND ANNUAL ACTION! HIGH SCHOOL FILMMAKING COMPETITION

 VFF Outreach and Education Program To Award $2,000 in Prize Money To Aspiring Filmmakers From Throughout the Commonwealth

 Winning Films Will Also Be Screened at 2013 Virginia Film Festival

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA – April 2, 2013 – The Virginia Film Festival is once again encouraging high school students from throughout the Commonwealth to share their filmmaking talents in the second annual ACTION! High School Director Competition.

The Virginia Film Festival is presented by the University of Virginia. ACTION! The Virginia Film Festival’s High School Director Competition is generously supported by the Virginia Film Office.

ACTION! The Virginia Film Festival’s High School Director Competition will return after a highly successful 2012 debut. The Festival will welcome submissions from rising 10^th, 11^th and 12^th graders from throughout the Commonwealth. The Grand Prize winner for the competition will be awarded a check for $1,000. Each of the two runners-up in the competition will be awarded $500, and all three winning films will receive a special screening at the upcoming 2013 Virginia Film Festival in early November. Each filmmaker from the three winning films will also receive a Participant Badge, which provides access to VFF screenings and the VFF Filmmakers and Sponsors Lounge. Read more »

From my Inbox to you:

Younseal Eum

The Eleanor D. Wilson Museum at Hollins University invites you to a lecture by artist Younseal Eum, on Thursday, February 21 at 6:00 pm.  Eum will also lead a tour featuring her site-specific kinetic work DreamFishing, which is on display as part of the exhibition Echo Sounding, on view through March 2.  Eum received her BFA and MFA from Sookmyung Women’s University, Seoul, Korea, before obtaining her MFA in Craft and Material Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia. Her artwork has been included in exhibitions nationwide as well as in Korea and the Netherlands. In 2007, she was honored as the New Artist of the Year at La Mer Gallery in Seoul, Korea.  Eum lives and works in Seoul, Korea where she teaches at Sookmyung Women’s University.

The lecture will take place in Room 119 of the Visual Arts Center (Not the auditorium; room 119 is nextdoor to the first floor entrance to the auditorium).

A reception at the museum will immediately follow the lecture and tour.  The event is admission free and open to the public.

For more information:

Our website: http://www.hollins.edu/museum/index.shtml

Or on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/events/362497970515720/

From my Inbox to you:

Performing Arts Series Life-Sized Hudson Vagabond Puppets with “Mammoth Follies”

The final event in the 2012-2013 Performing Arts Series season at Roanoke College will be on Sunday, March 3, 2013 at 3:00 pm in Olin Theater.  The Life-Sized Hudson Vagabond Puppets will take their audience on a musical trip through pre-history, in their performance titled “Mammoth Follies.”  Tickets are $7 general admission, $5 senior/student. Groups of 8 or more are $5. Tickets are available by calling the Olin Hall Box Office at 540-375-2333, or online at www.roanoke.edu/tickets.

From 1984 to 1998, Mammoth Follies was performed for audiences all over the country. In February 2012, this illustrious troupe of dinosaurs once again stormed the stage in a completely renovated production of this wildly popular and thoroughly educational production.

Mammoth Follies explores the wonders of evolution in an old-fashioned revue of original songs, witty jokes, and earth-smashing dances performed by giant dinosaur puppets. This program dramatizes historic and scientific facts (as well as some myths) about the great age of the dinosaur. Enormous puppets populate the stage, including your host Willie Mammoth, Smiley the Saber-Toothed Tiger, Bessie the lovable 27-foot long Apatosaurus, Tony and Trixie Triceratops, Terry the Pterodactyl, and the 11-foot tall T. Rex in a musical trip through pre-history.

Nathan Harper of the Roanoke Arts Commission rolls dice to help determine where a John Cage painting will be placed for the upcoming exhibition “The Sight of Silence.” Taubman adjunct curator Ray Kass and Director of Exhibitions Leah Stoddard watch.

It figures that the late avant-garde composer and artist John Cage—famous for, among many things, scandalizing the classical music world by debuting four minutes and 33 seconds of silence as a musical composition—would require curators who showcased his exhibits to incorporate factors that randomize their display. “The Sight of Silence,” an exhibition of watercolors Cage painted at the Mountain Lake Workshop in Blacksburg, opens Feb. 15, and was put together following Cage’s principle of “chance operations.”

According to a museum press release, “The exhibition is hung according to a system of ‘chance operations’ so that the show is never presented in the same way. Rolling the dice will determine where five paintings will be hung for this major exhibition—first deciding which gallery, then which wall, and finally where on the wall the piece will be hung.”

Here’s more about the exhibition, taken from the Taubman’s website:

As part of a national 2012 celebration of John Cage’s centennial year, the Taubman presents John Cage: The Sight of Silence, featuring over 60 watercolors and works on paper created at the Mountain Lake Workshop in Blacksburg, Virginia. Best known as a groundbreaking composer, musician, and avant-garde thinker, Cage (1912-1992) was also a prolific visual artist who wove Eastern philosophy with elements of chance as a way to free up the creative process. With additional handwritten musical scores, illustrated notations, and videos of performances also on view, the exhibition provides insight into one of the twentieth century’s most unconventional and influential artists.

Additionally, in the spirit of Cage, the exhibition was installed using Cage’s “chance operations” approach, allowing the throw of the dice determine where works were to be hung on the walls.

Full disclosure: I’m married to one of the artists in this show. From my Inbox to you:

Reception this Saturday for Jax’s Biggest Juried Exhibition

"Summer" by Anita Allen, part of the JAX Juried Exhibition

This Saturday, July 14 from 5-8pm, The Jacksonville Center for the Arts will highlight the current Hayloft Gallery exhibit, 2012 Jax Juried Exhibition, with a Meet-the-Artist reception. The reception will include a juror talk followed by awards presentation and reception. The exhibit opens July 6 and runs through September 15.

This exhibit is the largest juried exhibit the center has hosted in its gallery. Juror, Jim Moon, chose 118 pieces to be featured. “That was the most challenging show I have ever been a part of hanging,” said Jayn Avery, member of the Gallery Committee. “But when I got over my ‘it’s too crowded’ attitude, I began to appreciate the concept of ‘salon style’ exhibiting. It is absolutely amazing – so powerful as you walk in. Every piece, large or small, has an important place in it. I am so grateful to be a part of this gallery.”

Participating artists include Anita Allen, Charlotte Lou Atkins, Jos Biviano, Rebecca Bordeaux, Jeanette Bowker, Audrey Caywood, Pam Chappell, Nancy Clark, Linda S. Correll, Carly Correll, Carolyn Deck, Aileen Fletcher, Rowland A. Guidry, Jane Haddad, John Havran, Kristie Hayes-Beaulieu, Doug Iverson, Fred Jones, Robert Wren Jones, June Kelly, Vikki King, Charles Knighton, Sherrye Lantz, Sandra Lear, Gina Louthian-Stanley, Louie Scott Lovitt, Cheryl Mackian, Linville M. Meadows, Liz Mears, Darcy Meeker, Larry D. Mitchell, Roseanne Moon, Steve Pickford, Nathan Popp, Linda Rae Russo, Helen Shaw, Beverly Shideler, Aaron Staengle, Machiko Oshima Turner, Gibby Waitzkin, Howard Wenger, Shaun C. Whiteside, Emily Williamson, Aleen Wilson, Adija Wolf, Joli Ayn Wood, Gerri Young.

The activities at the center begin at 5:30pm with Jim Moon’s juror talk. The awards presentation will follow and then refreshments will be served as the reception begins. Both the exhibit and reception are free and open to the public, though a $3 donation would help offset the daily operating expenses at the center.

For more information visit www.jacksonvillecenter.org, call (540) 745-2784, or email info@jacksonvillecenter.org

From my Inbox to you:

Summer Arts Festival offers something for everyone

R&B artist Monte Gill

BLACKSBURG, Va.  – The Virginia Tech School of Performing Arts and Cinema (http://www.sopac.vt.edu) and the Town of Blacksburg present the 21st annual Summer Arts Festival. The 2012 lineup of family-friendly events is bigger than ever and includes concerts, movies, theatre, festivals, storytelling, and art exhibits. All events are free.

Beginning June 8, R&B artist Monte Gill headlines the first of eight Friday Night Out concerts. In addition to his talents as a soloist and writer, Gill has toured internationally as a vocalist for Grammy Award winner Alicia Keys. He will be performing with the band The Collective.

Other concerts in the series feature Gerry Timlin (http://www.gerrytimlin.com) (Irish folk), Surrender Dorothy  (http://www.wix.com/craywilliamsjr/wesurrender) (funk rock), County Connection (bluegrass), Panjammers (steel drums), Andrew McKnight & Beyond Borders (http://www.andrewmcknight.net/) (Appalachian, blues and folk), Sexual Chocolate (soul, R&B, oldies), and Celtibillies (http://celtibillies.com/) (Appalachian and celtic). All concerts begins at 6 p.m. on the Henderson Lawn located on the corner of Main Street and College Avenue, on the campus of Virginia Tech. The rain site is Old Dominion Ballroom in the Squires Student Center.

Storyteller Andy Offutt Irwin (http://andyirwin.com/) will entertain audiences on Saturday, June 9 with a children’s show at 2 p.m. and a family show at 5 p.m. at the amphitheater adjacent to Henderson Lawn behind Theatre 101.

“The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) returns by popular demand June 13-16, 20-23 and 27-30 at 7:30 p.m. to Theatre 101 on College Avenue. This fast paced production, directed by faculty member Gregory Justice, combines all of Shakespeare’s 37 plays into one hilarious romp.

Families with children will enjoy the Roanoke Children’s Theatre (http://roanokechildrenstheatre.org/) production of “Go, Dog. Go!” June 17-19 in Squires Studio Theatre. Based on the popular picture book by P.D. Eastman, this interactive stage experience with music and movement is full of fanciful frolic and frivolous fun that promises to please audiences of all ages. Read more »