One Ear Society: Life imates Art?

One Ear Society: Life imates Art?

Monica back from Cuba part 2

I studied with the resident company at Teatro America in Centro Habana and at the Projecto Comunitario Ile Bata in Vieja Habana. I focused on the development of my dances for both Yemaya and Oshun, the goddesses of ocean and fresh water , respectively in the Santero Pantheon. It was a tremendously rewarding experience, leaving me with a humble understanding of the complexity and depth of this art form. The roots of Afro-Cuban dance extend back to West African rhythms that traveled across the atlantic on slave ships, merged with indigenous instruments, were influenced by Spanish colonial dance and then syncretized with Catholic saints. Learning a folkloric dance is much more than just a technical study. There is a cultural essence that one must learn through a process that feels more osmotic. I believe it is important to experience the cultural context of how the dance is passed down from teacher to student, mother to daughter, father to son and how the essence of it is maintained and preserved within the culture itself. There is something very sacred to me about a live performance art in all its illusive intangibility that is nurtured by a community and kept alive. To me, this is a profound concept, where art and culture collide and how one feeds the other. The degree to which the Cuban culture and its music and dance are merged is remarkable. As a dancer and choreographer I look for ways to translate this natural exchange between art and ones community. In a more technological, post-modern world that often focuses on individuality rather than community this is not a easy process. I was deeply inspired by all that I learned in La Habana from its art to its people, as a reminder of it is not what we own, but rather how we live our lives that is important. As Erich Fromm wrote "To have or to be" it is how we infuse our lives with soul, culture and art that matters. It is this connection both to nature and to ones community that fuels my desire to dance and create art.

Monica back from Cuba part 1

Poster says "Old Havana, City in Movement 15th International Festival of Dance in the urban landscape"
La Habana, Cuba
I recently made a pilgrimage to the source of Afro-cuban dance to study both the rhythmic patterns of the percussion and the dance itself. La Habana in many ways reminded me of why I dance, for what and for who. "Habana is very much like a rose. It has petals and thorns, so it depends on how you grasp it. But in the end it always grabs you."- A quote from the film The Lost City, well describes the often contradictory beauty and fragrance of the city. Wandering the streets of La Habana I found musicians on street corners, open air Son, Rumba and Salsa bands, dancers on stilts in the streets and walked by more than a few Santeria ceremonies in houses with their doors open. The prominence and accessibility of music and dance within the culture was remarkable to experience. In a city that has much less access to the material things with buildings falling down, rickshaws, horses and buggies, there seemed to be a tremendous compensation in the realm of spirit and art. This is what spoke to me. The way music and dance are truly lived and breathed by the community seemed very organic. It felt natural to experience dance and music as a part of life and as a mode of relating and connecting with ones community. I was struck by the overall artistic integrity of the community and their deep appreciation for music and dance. My journey was to learn more about the Yoruba based dance form that I have been studying since I was 19 years old. I am interested in the earthy power of the Afro-Cuban rhythms that tie communities together, creating a space to express joy, unity, and spirituality.

Your branches speak to me of love.

Rare Poinciana Blossoms

Windisch Hunt Fine Art will be sponsoring an open call to artists for the month of June.
"Your branches speak to me of love" will feature Poincianas to lage still life paintings. The images of Poinciana's are not restricted by size just beauty.

Start of entree process is Sunday May 30 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Deadline for entrees are Monday June 7 9 p.m.
Entree fee $35 for 1st and $15 for each additional work of art.
Those entering the first week will be part of the Coconut Grove Art Walk held on Sat June 5, along with the Goombay Festival Event being held in the gallery.
From June 1 - 7th part of the gallery is dedicated to Caribbean art, with a special reception on for the artists and dignitaries coming from the Caribban.

Poinciana trees are about to blossom and here Spotted looking for painting places artists Fred Hunt and Audrey Scott Along with this event the Kampong has full schedule of evens as part of their Poinciana Festival. Speaking of Poinciana trees our friend , artist Linda Apriletti has been selected as the official Poinciana Festival Artist 2010 by the Flowering Tree Society.

Museum Month Miami

AnnaMaria Windisch-Hunt of Windisch-Hunt Fine Art

AnnaMaria is seen here, taking notes at the Myrna & Sheldon Palley Pavilion; one of her many stops during Miami Museum Month. She had just visited the ANNUAL MASTERS OF FINE ARTS CANDIDATES EXHIBITION at the Lowes Art Museum with guests from Ocala, Fl. as the University of Miami has several murals by artist Fred Hunt which always generate interest from clients.

Miami Museum Month is also her renewal time for purchasing membership, and she will make it a point to visit several museums this month in recognition.

AnnaMaria has just been acknowledged by NY Arts + Arts Fairs International for the work on this blog which is going into it's third year now. Catch up on the blog where you can even view short videos of artists at work.

Priceless!

This from the Annual Masters of Fine Arts Candidates 2010 exhibit. This work title "Jesus and the Apostles" by Jeff Larson is well executed and somewhat edgy but not new.

Artist Egos trials and tribulations

Shaquille Rashaun O'Neal by Max

Trials and tribulations no pun intended, the court has documents so do we go to trial? Odd how things come together. Artists find themselves doing similar work, claiming the other infringed . Here we have some of what goes on when you think your a big wig. Not that we all want to be in their shoes, now, do we? But, how is this done!
Here is a must read from the Miami Herald.
Just yesterday I attended "Max in the Grove" a opening by none other than Peter Max
who gained fame and fortune in the sixties then slumped and now with the resurgence
of the peace signs, Woodstock anniversary, another peak. So what am I getting to.
Well first of all no photography was allowed except by Peter's own photographer. Not that the familiar images of his art work aren't universaly known and then of course there is his book.
You want his signature, that will be a $50 donation to the humane society. He also dictated that the entire gallery walls and footage be dedicated to him, so everyone else was put into storage. He has such a name that even the city fathers underwrote some of the expenses for the publicity leading to this etc. etc. etc.
How much is that helmet in the window? The helmet is fifty nine forty eight. Lady standing next to me wine glass in hand "oh is that all". the art assistant repeates five thousand nine hundred ........LOL
Peter Max got his start as a graphic artist at Push Pin Studios New York. Love his style.

Someone just into gallery looking for Peter Max show, half way through giving her directions from Windisch-Hunt Fine Art to there, she says "Britto Gallery?" " "Mmm well yes", of she went.
Wonder if Britto has heard.
This is the start of the Miami Herald article. link to read the entire story.
""It's hardly a secret that the art world has an out sized share of prickly egos. But rarely does it all get documented in reams of court filings.
Enter Craig Robins, a prominent Miami collector and developer, who recently filed an $8 million federal suit in New York against a gallery he claims got him ``blacklisted'' by one of his favorite artists.
His offense? As Robins tells it, he got on the bad side of painter Marlene Dumas by re-selling a Dumas painting six years ago rather than hanging the work on his wall or donating it to a prestigious museum.
"She wants very much to control the supply and increase the demand'' for her work, Robins' lawyer, Aaron Golub, said in an April court hearing, according to the transcript. ``She wants paintings given to museums and she wants [paintings] in very wealthy collectors' collections.''"

Five minutes of Fame

Guest contributor Monique Lassooji
The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) has a Wednesday Evening Program called “MOCA by Moonlight”. This is a program aimed to make people acquainted with contemporary art through lectures, hands-on activities inspired by contemporary artists and also through the “5 minutes of Fame”.
It allows local artists to explain how and why they create their art.

In January of this year I went to MOCA, signed up and was told I was up for April the 14th. I felt excited and at the same time nervous because I don’t have a lot of experience doing presentations in front of a large group.

Over the following two months I finished the paintings I wanted to include in my presentation, painted another one for the Show “Circus, Circus” at the Windisch Hunt Gallery and then it became time to work at the presentation itself.

Hoops - oils - 24" x 24"

I put together the presentation and visualize what I want to tell about my work. My partner kept asking me when I was going to write down my presentation and I kept telling him that I would on the day itself. I was still in the stage of deciding which paintings to show, what to tell about them and in what order.

Now it all sounds very calm and collected, but it was not. The mere thought of having to talk in public gave me the jitters and whenever friends would tell me I would do just fine, I thought: “Sure, but I am the one who has to do it.”

On April 14th, I was the first to do a presentation. I had seen a little of the other 3 artists’ work and I was happy about the diversity. I had written down a few words to guide me and I knew exactly the order of the slides. I started by telling them a little about Holland and how I started as an abstract painter. Then I showed my first paintings here – all nudes – and how the difference between Holland and Miami inspired me to do nudes. I described my move to Miami as “moving from the fridge into the microwave”.

My next set of slides was about my series “Fresh from the Fridge” where the content of my fridge inspired me to paint fruits and vegetables for a showing in the Focaccia, Coconut Grove.

While I was talking about this series, I calmed down, especially when I heard a whisper that sounded like “Wow, look at that.” I told the audience a little anecdote about how my partner, by mistake, took a bite out of one of my models.

I closed the presentation with my last 3 paintings called “Transitions” which are really personal paintings. With these paintings I picture my feelings about my transition from Holland to Miami: to start again with nothing and to find my place here. They are not gloomy paintings but painted with bright “sunny” colors. I live in the Sunshine State in a beautiful city and even when it is not always easy, I do not regret it.

After answering some really interesting questions from the audience, Lark Keeler, the assistant curator of the MOCA asked me what I would do next.
“Less fruits, more nudes” was my reply.

Then I enjoyed the presentation and work of the German painter Jutta Rakoniewski, the whimsical robots by Mike Rivamonte and Gerry Stecca’s clothespins installations. A week later Lark Keeler told me that I was the audience choice recipient and that MOCA will show one of my paintings on their website.

This is a wonderful opportunity for artists created by MOCA and a really nice way for people to interact with the artists about the why and how behind their work.

Just a part of life

Left but not forgotten
I've been missing in action for several weeks but did not miss documenting the art happenings. I've just had very little time to post. We are two days away from our Opening Reception of the Anti-Show. Windisch-Hunt Fine Art is featuring street art. While waiting for the artists to arrive with their pieces, I continue to move the other work out. We will be open from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. I should be caught up by then. The one thing I must get used while updating is to work backwards, but that's just not going to happen!

Ok, here is one for the books.... We were asked to make an appearance for the Miami Herald via the public relations group hired by the Peacock Tour people. Wow, what artists would not want to be in a major metropolitan newspaper. We went to the studio where most of the peacocks are kept - This is the first of many publicity opportunities. We were not the only artists invited, while we were there, the only other artist LEBO who's peacock was finished, did not even show. Fred Hunt is not a verbal artist, however, he and the photographer got along quite well. They have photography in common. Fred used to do the covers for Atlanta Magazine. I can see right away that this is not the easiest photo to shoot because the Peacock is large and dominates. I kept my mouth shut while the photographer set up some shots that I knew would not work as I used to work for United Press Int'l.
We were looking forward to seeing the photo and story in the paper but it didn't make the following day. When it finally hit the paper it was The Peacock with LEBO. Like I said it's part of life.

Deering Estate Affair en Plein Air Diary

Chance of Showers, 12" x 16"

Guest writer Linda Apriletti
This past weekend I participated in the "Deering Estate Affair en Plein Air" held on April 17-18. We had from 9 am to 4 pm to paint on Saturday and from 9-3 on Sunday so I decided to do a morning painting. My best bet would be to let the weather inspire me to paint something catching the mood of the Deering estate that weekend. Maybe something moody looking over the water and mangroves if the weather turned out to be as predicted. Leading up to the event I was checking the weekend weather report which was rapidly deteriorating to scattered showers on Saturday and 60% chance of rain on Sunday.

Saturday morning started out with slivers of sun here and there but overall very cloudy overcast skies. I drew a small value sketch of the shapes and values of the sky, water and mangroves to figure out my composition, then blocked in the values on my canvas with paint and got started. It was so windy. Not so bad near the house, but by the water it was almost a gale force constant 25+ mph and very frustrating. I anchored down my easel with bungees attached to weighted objects and then tried to use a royal palm trunk to block some wind but it didn't do much good and I often had to hold onto canvas to steady it when the worst gusts came.
The annual Baynanza cleanup was held on Saturday morning and one of the gathering locations was the Deering Estate along with a smorgasbord of tents, festivities and music all morning down by the royal palms. The boyscouts were having a very hard time paddling their canoes out to collect trash from the mangroves and they eventually tied up their canoes by the water where I was painting and came ashore. They did a great job of cleaning up the mangroves based on the trash count in the canoes.
More clouds accumulated as I painted and an hour in it looked like we could have rain any time. That's when I came up with the name for my painting, "Chance of Showers". I often have a hard time with titles but this one was easy. There was a pretty constant light over everything so painting past the morning didn't cause confusion with chasing the light. I wrapped up my painting around 2:30 and turned it to the overnight wet paint room.

Sunday morning I awoke to drizzle and pale gray skies. It just turned into harder rain as the day progressed. We were allowed to paint from the porch if it was raining but I didn't feel inspired by the wet gray day and decided not to try a second painting. Instead I waited and arrived at Deering around 2, made a few minor finishing touches to my painting and turned it in. The sunshine actually came out when I arrived and I found Perri Cox on the porch working on a new palm painting while she was sheltered from the wind behind some shutters. Mr Sheldon, the president of Northern Trust Bank was invited by the Grovehouse Artists to be the juror this year in appreciation for his generosity in funding the entire plein air event. Just as Mr Sheldon finished with his judging and Barbara Tejada announced the award places, we heard the first crack of thunder and everyone quickly departed. It poured the rest of the day. My painting didn't place in this event but I felt I came up with a good painting. I felt like I was successful in expressing and keeping the mood in my painting, and it feels like it's going to rain.

Performance Art vs Entertainment

Choreographer Monica Craun

Developing non-commercial yet attractive performance art in Miami has proved to be a challenging process in a city that is a thriving tourist destination with a booming nightclub and "entertainment" dance industry. I moved here hoping to encounter a richly diverse dance scene that reflects the diversity of the Miami population. I was excited to experience this fusion of cultures and continue to develop my dance and choreography. I have found Miami to have only a handful of dance companies and not much representation of the folkloric dances from the Americas considering the cultural diversity.
The focus is in the entertainment dance industry, but not necessarily the type of dance I was looking for. It has been hard to find contexts or venues that view the dancing body as art rather than just as entertainment. Art can and should be entertaining but I believe it should also be respected with the same integrity that the artist put into it. The majority of the jobs that I have been offered here in Miami have involved dancing in nightclubs or casinos, body painted or semi-nude to an intoxicated crowd as a background diversion. As an aspiring choreographer it is hard to imagine myself dancing in such venues without compromising my artistic and social integrity. Not to say that that is all there is in Miami, but there is definitely a gravitational pull in that direction due to the money for "entertainment". I shudder to think at how many talented young dancers have lost their focus due to the lack of opportunities. Instead I have been doing shows at art galleries, Haiti Benefits, alternative music videos and film projects. Most of which involve no compensation and a lot of work . But no complaints, it is fulfilling work that I seek that leaves one with an invaluable feeling of heart and purpose for which one must pay the consequences of zero compensation. In a city that has abundant resources, crowds and venues, dance is not the only victim. Is there something to be said about a society that views the body more as entertainment than art? Perhaps due to the constant influx of travelers and pleasure seekers the market for more substantial or intellectual pieces has not been fully addressed.
Maybe people are lulled by the turquoise oceans of Miami, that create this oh so seductive serenity. Miami has seduced me, but I don't want to loose my integrity or edge for creating meaningful pieces. It is hard to stay fiery in a city surrounded by water. The water element seems to diffuse energy, focus and resistance into this harmonious happy feeling. Happy is good, happy is great, but so is depth and so is substance. A composer friend of mine said that Miami is "fertile ground" for the arts, and I have yet to find it.

Peacock Process

Peacock on parade...
Artist and Marketing Director Debra Cortese of Arts at St Johns stops by to view Artist, Fred Hunt's Peacock painting progress. The word was out that Fred got the go ahead to create the first Coconut Grove Peacock which he is painting on location at Windish-Hunt Fine Art Gallery. There have already been many curious visitors checking on this colorful community project.
The peacocks arrived via freight and was destined for another artist who is enroute to Barbados and found herself overbooked! The sponsor visiting realized progress was non-existent and a unanimous decision between gallerist Anna Maria Windisch-Hunt, Heather Bettner, project promoter and two sponsors agreed to let Fred begin. The other artists will work on a different peacock upon her return to the Grove.
Needless to say, with the naked peacock sitting for a week and a half, Fred was inspired. Once he heard he had the go ahead he was painting within 20 minutes!

photo is day 2 check back as new pictures are uploaded.

Peacock Soiree

Commissioner Sarnoff with some of the artists who will be doing peacocks

Heather Bettner, AnnaMaria Windisch-Hunt with Ed Perlaz sponsor, Fred Hunt and Deborah Starbuck

Just finished the 1st Saturday Art Stroll in Coconut Grove with a new exhibit and already another major event in the gallery. These events are wonderful exposure for the artists exhibiting in the Windisch-Hunt Fine Art Gallery. It brings in more and more art lovers, and in this case sponsors of the "CoconutgrovePeacockTour". It was well attended and the work to put it together did not fall on my shoulders. I just let them have the gallery. The entire enterprise is that, of Heather Bettner of Coconut Grove. When all is said and done it benefits our community via the tourist influx and then of course the trickle down effect to the merchants/restaurants of Coconut Grove. We owe Heather a great deal of gratitude in undertakeing this venture. We also owe a hugh gratitude to the New York Times for printing the story on Aug. 27, 2008 and bringing world wide attention to our own folly.

Pop Artist Ed King with his sponsor

Camille DePhillips who handles the PR and media

Deborah Starbuck and her Peacock shades

Barefoot Winery

Garland leading AnnaMaria Windisch-Hunt

Eleganza Strings Serenading us all evening

Jerry Wade with Peacock pin

Antoinette Baldwin not to be outdone strutting her stuff

The Gift

This is a small moment of the dance Monica Craun created for Fred Hunt's Birthday it premiered during the "Homage a la femme and the artists who love them" March 6, 2010