arts shorts

Eugene Fashion Week (see 4/25 issue) wraps up this weekend with the Ready-to-Wear (May 3) and Avant-Garde (May 4) runway shows at The Shedd. EW is excited to see this culturally symbiotic relationship; EFW is exactly the kind of youthful shot-in-the-arm The Shedd needs to attract a younger demographic, and The Shedd provides the kind of institutional recognition that EFW needs to keep growing.

• The Arts & Business Alliance of Eugene hosts Arts After Hours, a schmoozing event for the arts and business communities, 5 to 7 pm Thursday, April 18, at the Lord/Leebrick Playhouse, 174 W. Broadway; $8-$10 members; $15-$20 non-members.

• Thanks to the McDonald Theatre and the UO Outdoor Program, it’s time for the Banff Mountain Film Festival at 7 pm Thursday, April 18, reminding you once again to get off your couch and into the outdoors, or at least into a plush theater seat; $11-$13.

For an entire Minnesota winter, Peter Happel Christian left a thick stack of black and white photo paper, tied up with twine, on a cedar pallet in his snowy backyard. Over the season, the paper turned black, the corners curled and the waterlogged sheets began sticking together. By the time the snow was melting, the stack had transformed into a rigid, solid mass the color of darkness.

The founders of Eugene Contemporary Art (ECA) want the city of Eugene to embrace challenging art. “Difficult art is what everyone remembers from history,” ECA Executive Director Courtney Stubbert told the audience at the packed Red House Oct. 19 during the “Creative Conversations: Re-imagining Eugene — What the Arts Do for Downtown” panel discussion. “The commercial arts scene has always been a limp, sad creature. Difficult art is what Eugene needs.”

Art is as art does, and sometimes we find it in the most unusual of places: Wallace Shawn, for instance, brought lower Manhattan audiences into posh bourgeois apartments to stage The Fever; Wayne Coyne gathered Flaming Lips fans into an Austin parking garage for his Zaireeka boom-box experiment; and another Wayne — Wayne Vajgert of Springfield — is hoping local art aficionados are willing to wander outside the gallery scene in order to view his growing collection of outlaw art.

As the annual Burning Man Festival approaches, Justin Lanphear prepares The Triceratops for its 385-mile journey to Black Rock City, Nev. The repurposed Frito-Lay delivery van that now looks like a prehistoric beast is Eugene’s most prominent art car.

“About six years ago I realized I could buy a house, or I could build The Triceratops,” Lanphear says. “I realized that if I bought a house, I would never build the triceratops. So I found out where to get these decommissioned delivery vans, and I went for it.”

Memory is a precious thing, and film allows us to capture moments that would otherwise be transitory. We take solace in those captured moments because sometimes memories can leave us — sometimes they can fade away and never return. That last part is exactly what installation artist Michelle Given wants her viewers to explore. 

What can a person buy with $2.50 these days? A pack of gum? A ballpoint pen? Perhaps a single condom? Certainly not a gallon of gas anymore. But if you have a few bucks in your pocket Saturday, July 28, you can come away with some beautifully strange art, art supplies, CDs and who knows what else at Eugene Storefront Project’s (ESAP) Trailer Park Art Sale. 

Kerry G. Wade carefully combines pragmatism and found objects in his handcrafted furniture on display at the Jacobs Gallery. His materials are simple: old water skis, toboggans, snow skis and board games. All are used, all are authentic and all are reminiscent of Wade’s childhood. 

“I love the nostalgia that vintage material brings about,” Wade says. “It brings a sort of mystery.”

Local art enthusiasts accustomed to cruising exhibits, lectures and readings at The WAVE Gallery space will discover a pivotal change in the life of the gallery. Former owner, artist and entrepreneur Sabrina Jackson is turning over the space to local nonprofit Eugene Contemporary Art (ECA). 

“The answer to keeping independent art alive in Eugene is not to try to make money off of selling it in the traditional gallery format,” Jackson says, “but more so in engaging the community in education and art-related events through nonprofit organizations.”

Encaustic painting is an acquired skill that is by no means easy to master. It involves the careful melting and pigment alteration of heated beeswax, which is then applied as a paste. Think of it like painting with a medium far more difficult than acrylic, and then imagine trying to make your creations not look like crocodile crap on a canvas; this, Marianne Clancy has on lock.

“I moved away after living here in the ‘70s,” says Clancy. “Now my daughter is at the University studying and I am ‘home’ again in Eugene.”

“Student-athletes are often recognized for their accomplishments in their respective sports. However, UO student-athletes are well-rounded students with diverse interests that extend beyond their athletics pursuits.”

These are the words of Rob Mullens, director of Intercollegiate Athletics at the University of Oregon, lending his perspective on a remarkably unique new exhibit that just opened at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.