"Thank you for the amazing piece. Comments like yours are gold to us... You’ve become a part of my daily fix." - David Ravel, Director/Blog Addict, Alverno Presents
"Seriously! Unpretentious (well…most of the time) and reasoned (all the time) takes on Milwaukee arts? I think you are to Milwaukee art what Tim Russert was to Washington politics…without the double chin, of course." - Ryan Schleicher, Promotions Director/Hyperbole Peddler, WMSE 91.7FM-Frontier Radio
"The most non-retarded writing about art." - Dwellephant, Artist/Nutjob
"Cricket what?" - Some random guy (no url available, but you can usually find him wandering down Brady Street)
According to an equal mixture of reliable and not-so reliable sources, it takes anywhere from 9 days to 15 months to shoot the average 2 hour film, and 6 days to 3 weeks to shoot the average 7 minute short film/video. The main differences between a frantic, clipboard-throwing schedule and a leisurely, get-me-another-cocktail schedule is, of course, budget and the artistic flip-floppin' skills of the director.
But we know that real filmmakers don't need no stinkin' 6 days to shoot an awesome short film, don't we? Hell, they don't even need 3 days! All they need is 48 hours, and that includes shooting, editing, special effects, ADR--that's Additional Dialogue Recording or Automated Dialogue Replacement, depending on who you ask--and several trips to the liquor store. Am I right? Right on!
Well, for those of you who'd like to prove you/me/us correct to whole wide world, your chance has come in the form of the annual--surprise!--48 Hour Film Project, slated to take place June 14-16, 2013, right here in Milwaukee. Sweet short film/video gods be praised!
Early Bird Registration is now open for the fiscally responsible moving picture makers among us, saving them a precious $20, which they can squirrel away until the inevitable equipment failure happens at either the very convenient time of 3:27AM on Saturday morn or 7:16PM on Sunday night--psst, all films are due by 7:30PM Sunday.
So get on over to the website and register now for 48 Hours of Filmmaking Madness! And remember, kids, always check to see that your equipment is plugged in before ya think it's broken and ya freak out. If it is, freak away!
If you've been reading this here bloggity blog for a while and you haven't yet guessed that we're HUGE fans of a little organization known as TED--that's Technology, Entertainment, Design--well consider yourself admitted to the loop. Why are we HUGE fans? Because every year TED organizes gatherings of ginormously smart and talented folks representing a vast array of disciplines from around the planet for one purpose: To spread a highly contagious pathogen called "ideas"--be sure to re-read that if you missed the embedded snarky tone of air quotes 'cause it makes it sooo much "funnier."
Anyhoo, since its beginning in 1984--yeah, you heard me, Big Brother--TED has expanded its offerings mightily, taking full advantage of the ever growing power of the Internets™--most notably through its now gigantic video archive of TED Talks--and encouraging discussions, collaborations and cross-pollinations of all kinds. It also licenses groups who want to organize and present a TED-like conference through a program called TEDx. And that's where our shiny town comes in.
A local band of go-getters, whose names may or may not be familiar to ya--Jerome Knapp, Brent Gohde, Matt Richardson, Chuck Watson, David Howell, and Jeff Redmon--decided that they should organize a TEDx event Miltown-style for the first time ever. They read all the rules--which are fair and numerous--decided on an event type--Standard sounded good to them--brainstormed a riveting theme--STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Music)--came up with a snappy name--TEDxHarambee, a Milwaukee neighborhood as well as a Swahili word meaning "pulling together"--and submitted an application to TED. And wouldn't ya know it they got a thumbs-up and a license. Whoot!
And so it is that on Thursday, May 9, TEDxHarambee will take place in Milwaukee, presenting itself to a full room of 100 invite-only attendees from 12-4PM.
"What?!" I hear you cry. "What about the rest of us poor, invite-excluded bastards?" First of all, don't talk about yourself like that--leave it to those who don't know ya like I do. Second of all, you too can watch the event unfold by watching the live stream here. Feel a bit better? I knew you would.
If you're more of a gotta-be-with-the-peeps type, feel free to join the viewing party at Bucketworks, 706 South 5th Street. Doors open at 11:30am. Word has it you should bring food and beverage with ya to sustain your body and brain for the full 4 hours.
Presented by Made in Milwaukee and Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE), info on speakers can be found on the TEDxHarambee site.
Fingers and synapses crossed that we'll get a renewal so more of us can attend in person next time!
I have no idea how I missed this back in 2011, but this animation short created by a crew of teenagers in the ArtWorks program at the Milwaukee Art Museum is absotootly trippy:
Hahaha!! That's fantasterrific!
Take note, Adult Swim: These kids have all the skills to blow a whole new generation of minds.
Ya know what we need? We need a timeout from all things painfully serious by gettin' ourselves some seriously wacky laughs, courtesy of Reggie Watts at TED2012:
The process of artsy creation is always complicated and always messy, and anybody who tells ya different has never gotten his/her brain dirty--all right now, y'all know what I mean, sheesh! In the most obvious yet poignant metaphor in English literature, Mary Shelly told us so in her Gothic novel Frankenstein--a.k.a The Modern Prometheus. While she narrates nearly nothing of what must surely be a gruesome procedure of animating inanimate matter, we gather all too well that the process of bringing a new creation into this world is filled with both wonder and terror. Ask any mom--she'll tell ya that plus more than ya ever wanted to know!
So if that's the case, if it's so damn tricky and scary to create, why do we do it at all? Fair question, kids. Ya gotta be at least half off your nut to even try, right? Well, yes, but being half off your nut just means you're human, so that's no excuse, and being human means you not only try in spite of the tricky/scary but because of the tricky/scary, right? Right on!
In that spirit, Danceworks invites you and the artistic partner of your choice to apply for participation in its DanceLAB Art to Art 2013, an experimental performance event featuring works created by multiple two-artist teams who practice different disciplines. It's an artsy cross-pollination hootenanny!
One stipulation: One member of each team should be a choreographer or at least know a little sumpin' sumpin' about choreography. Pretty sure dancing along with the Glee gang in your living room doesn't count, but if you got the gumption and a high level of what-the-hell attitude, I'm not gonna tell ya you can't apply.
For the rest of you in film, music, theatre and visual arts, all you gotta do is find yourself one of those fancy dance types to partner with and you're good to go. Easy peasy!
Go to the Danceworks website to download the Art to Art 2013 application--it's under the DanceLAB tab--so you can face the wonder and the terror together!
Miltown artist Dave Watkins has hit the big time! Well, kinda. Seems The Culture Show on BBC2—that's the second television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation 'cause one just ain't enough!—wanted to feature a couple of photos of Dave's free artwork that he's kindly left for the casual passerby in several cities. When they asked for his permission, he responded in the calm and collected manner well known to the Brits by saying, "Hell yeah!"
Did you catch Dave's work? No? Then click on over here to see which ones they used and some other ones they didn't. To see his non-free and so-worth-the-dough abstract work, go here.
Free Art Friday is a global artist community on The Internets, specifically on Flickr. They also have a group and fan page on the Book o' Face.
News has come that Hulu—the fancy online I-wanna-watch-it-now video service—has announced its first original scripted series—that means it actually employs writers to write a story as opposed to a "story" à la vomit inducing reality TV—entitled Battleground.
First Question: Why would we care? Well it seems that the unquoted story of this little dramedy takes place in our fair, fair state of Wisconsin. Not only that, the first 13 episodes will reportedly be directed by one of the co-producers of the show, none other than J.D. Walsh, whose birth and early life was also based in Wisco.
Second Question: Why is a show set in the homey Dairyland State called Battleground? We're not warlike and mean. Those who've been paying attention for the past year or so should have figured out the answer to that already. But for the sake of others who've been filling their brainpans with frivolous viral videos, such as an innocent frog easily duped into playing a catch-the-bugs game who then justly delivers payback to his/her owner—This ain't a game! I'm starving, you jackass!—let's give 'em a clue: Politics.
Armed with that information, we can confidently say that the timing of Hulu's Battleground announcement on Sunday, just two days prior to the greatly anticipated and literal truck-load dump in Madison of over 1 million signatures in favor of recalling Governor Scott Walker, was simply a coincidence, right? Haha, Hollyweird wins again!
However, not everyone agrees with my mildly enthusiastic assessment. Cue bitter English major now payin' the bills by writing for Business Insider:
"Hulu just unveiled the trailer for an original series about a senatorial candidate's campaign staff. It's called 'Battleground,' and the trailer is cliched, poorly written and melodramatic. In other words, it looks terrible."
Sheesh, dude. Little harsh, don't ya think? The trailer's only 02:31 long and you're gonna hand 'em that? Also, J.D. Walsh was tortured mercilessly as an actor on—I cannot believe you're making me type this—Two and a Half Men for 9 excruciating episodes just to make a buck. Anyone who can come out of an experience like that and still have half of his/her creative sanity, not to mention a will to continue on in an industry that consistently churns out similar putrid drivel, deserves at least a smidgen of human compassion.
So, based on this one knee-jerk review from a reporter I've never heard of until today, I shall watch the Battleground premiere on Hulu on February 14, 2012. Who's with me?
As many creative types know from painful experience, a marriage of art and social commentary can yield results that are less than stellar. Very often the art is swallowed up by the maw of excruciating earnestness and smothered by loads of goody-goody intent.
Every once in while, however, a work emerges that perfectly balances both art and message, stopping us in our tracks long enough to say, "Wow. Just wow."
A collaborative effort by director/animator Kibwe Tavares of Factory Fifteen, photographer David Hoffman, sound designer Mourad Bennacer, and mixologist DJ Hiatus, Robots of Brixton not only speaks to the city's social and economic unrest in 1981 but to the Arab Spring uprisings and Occupy movement of this past year. And any work that transcends time and place is definitely worth our attention.
Last March, Milwaukee's own decorative arts foundation, Chipstone, issued a challenge to a cadre of established artists in the UK and the US: Take a peek into your box o' creative instruments, choose one that grabs your usually splintered attention and make a work of art using just that one gadget. In addition, the artisans must shoot a video documenting their process and explaining to the rest of us just how easy/difficult it was to accomplish this formidable mission.
The means by which the artists were invited to participate in this project and subsequent exhibition curated by Ethan Lasser at the Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) was through visual demonstration—a sweet short video by filmmaker Nicola Probert:
Okay, first of all, I absolutely love the fact that there are missing pixels in the footage—a quirky problem common among older cameras—which can be clearly seen in the shots taken prior to the lens cap being removed. Second of all, it is truly amazing that the camera continues to shoot so far into the dismantling process, clearly telling us all that there can still be life in something that's had its attractive outer skin stripped. Third of all, Probert's haphazard manicure—at the beginning of the video one hand has chipped red polish and the other blue—shows us her punky little hands, proving that she's a full-on artist who's completely immersed in the task and isn't aiming for a shallow yet far more lucrative gig as a hand model.
In the end, sixteen artists accepted Chipstone's invitation to participate in the The Tool at Hand and their works + videos are on display in the Decorative Arts Gallery at MAM, starting today and running through April 1, 2012. To get you more than interested, view some of the artist's videos here.
If you happen to be free tonight and you're looking to cram some learnin' into your brain, there's a gallery talk at 6:15PM. Also, they've scheduled a super fun event called Tool Weekend from March 16-18, complete with artist talks, demonstrations, competitions, and performances, giving you the opportunity to express en masse what's sure to become the exhibit's catchphrase, "What a tool."
There's a credo shared by every smart artist/musician/writer/craftitioner--new word alert!--who has ever owned a gallery, produced another band, written a review, or otherwise aided other artsy folks, and that doctrine goes a little something like this: There's a time to advance the art of others and there's a time to advance your own, and these two efforts cannot always exist simultaneously.
While it may sound short and sweet, the decision to shift focus entirely to one part of the above equation is not an easy one by any stretch. So much effort and care invested, so much fervor and devotion spent that it seems a cruel thing to just walk away, even if it is for the best and most honorable reasons.
This is exactly the kind of tough yet necessary decision that Kaitlin Rathkamp and Joseph Ledger had to make last month when they closed the doors of their gallery Caggio: An Art Experiment on Brady Street.
Now, before you get all blubbery on their behalf, understand that they know this was the most sensible choice they could have made. Gallery ownership is one of the hardest roads of business anyone can tread no matter who you may be or where you may come from. And if you actually care about the artists and their artwork, the emotional level of attachment is akin to that of a loving relationship. When that's the case, a huge amount of your energy is poured into making it work, which means there isn't much left in the tank for anything else.
Caggio was just over two years old when it closed on August 7--a remarkable run for any brick-and-mortar gallery--and could have continued on, according to Kaitlin and Joseph, as interest from artists and collectors was still growing. But the call of their own art could not be silenced or ignored.
For Joseph, his art is music--a creative form of expression that, at its best, continually evolves, requiring a brainload of attention. As a member of Married to the Sea, Joseph carries on the tradition of drawing from the historic annals of American bluegrass and folk, with all its twangy goodness intact.
Even a rehearsal is well worth a listen, so check it out:
Don't tell me your feet weren't tappin', people, 'cause that's a doggone lie! For identification purposes, that's Joseph on drums, Eric "Doc" Holliday on guitars/vocals and Tim Koehler on bass.
And Kaitlin's passion? Well it's none other than the ancient mind/body art of yoga. Bikram Yoga--a.k.a. Hot Yoga--to be exact, is the super challenging form she practices and now teaches at the Bikram Yoga Studio, 2084 North Commerce Street, on Milwaukee's Eastside.
Being a practitioner of yoga myself--though the more moderate form of Hatha-Vinyasa suits my needs quite well--I know just how much it can become a full-fledged part of one's life.
Kaitlin is so committed to Bikram Yoga that she dreams of opening her own studio sometime in the future, and to that we say, "Whoozzah!"
And so you see that the closing of Caggio, though a loss for the community, was done for the love of art--a thing that is so noble, it negates any sorrow we may feel.
