Recently the Art Haus SLC launched a new program featuring local artists' work in people's living rooms called, you guessed it, Art In The Living Room.  It is a wonderful program bringing members of the community together with local artists to share their work, discuss new ideas and connect with each other in a comfortable environment!  

While we also plan to create many opportunities for members of the SLC community to engage with new artistic endeavors (in living rooms, classrooms, galleries, store fronts, wherever!), we also recognize that works of art are all around us; sometimes all we have to do is take a moment to notice it.  That is why we are launching an interactive, mini-program documenting works of art in our different communities and sharing them online.  Art In The Neighborhood will be a chance for you to recognize works of art in your area, to observe what and where they are, and to ponder why they're there, who created them and what inspired these artists.  It can be anything from a wall mural, to a street band, to a school-groups' class project, to an installation at a bus stop.  We ask that you to stop, wonder and share what it is you see and hear in your neighborhood.

To kick off this mini-program, I'd like to share with you a unique community arts project that started in my community about four years ago in Boston, MA, my community.  Although I had walked through Downtown Crossing many times, it wasn't until I was waiting to meet friends to see a movie that I was even aware of all the art around me!  

I now notice these painted boxes all over the city as I walk around it.  Sometime I am able to check online and find out more about the artist or their process, like this artist who documented her work on her Flickr page and an article she wrote for the Examiner.com. But I can also take just a moment to wonder about this small work of art in the middle of Boston, snap a quick picture and share it with friend.

TAHSLC hopes that you will do the same.  As Henry David Thoreau once said "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." When you are traveling through your own community, and you come across a work of art or a performance, take a minute to Stop, Wonder and Share it with us!  

Go ahead and share with us on Facebook, Twitter (@TheArtHausSLC) or in our comments section below.  Or check out what other members of your community have found in their neighborhood.

Anne Wright
Co-founder of TAHSLC 

* For some community art projects that are paintings or sculptures, I would suggest downloading Google Goggles.  You can take a picture of the artwork and through Goggles, and it searches through Google's image database to list websites where the image is listed.  

The Art Haus SLC is excited to announce a new mentor program directed at High School and College Seniors.  This program will assist young artists in film, theatre, and interdisciplinary performance arts by connecting them with a professional in their field working in a major city or artistic hub.  The mentors will be available to provide counseling and guidance in the artist's chosen field and to offer feedback on applications and portfolio submissions for colleges, jobs, or grants.  Additionally the mentor will be available to provide letters of reference, connections to others working in the artist's particular field, and insights into the development of the student's work.  Last of all this opportunity will offer connections to theatre professionals working in Utah, California, New York, Illinois, Texas, London, and Australia.

Fall 2012 applications are available to seniors in high school working in acting, directing, and writing for theatre.  To apply for this opportunity send your application to thearthausslc@gmail.com by September 20th, 2012 answering these questions:

1.  Please provide a brief history of your work as an artist and your approach to creating a role, a script, or a new project (200 words)

2.  How do you see yourself developing as an artist and what are your career and work goals?  (200 words)

3.  What do you consider the most important project you have completed at this time in your work?  Why was it important to you and how did it shift the way you approach your creative process?  (300 words)

4. How do you see this mentor program benefiting your work and what do you expect to gain from building a relationship with your mentor? (150 words)

5.  What is your favorite book, movie, play, painting and/or other work of art and why?  (150 words)

6.  Please attach a brief sample of your work (writers: up to ten pages of a script; directors: a brief outline of your working process towards a new or completed project; actors: either a 2 minute video of yourself in performance or an outline of your process in selecting and preparing a monologue for audition)

Here's an example of community supporting the arts, arts education and the arts building community.  What are the places in your city that have been built by your artistic community or show support of arts education in the community?

The above video shows a brief snippet of some work developed in a workshop hosted by The Art Haus SLC in Salt Lake this past Spring where I also guest lectured at UVU in the theatre department under the direction of Barrett Ogden. 

From my previous post on this blog you are well aware that I was raised in a community of tight-knit artist types but my own interest in theatre and performance has always moved me to an ever increasingly smaller niche group of artists.  My work is nestled in devising new pieces of performance where action is at the forefront of the creative process.  To this end my research and development in rehearsal rooms has been working in the creation of movement structures based on the dreams and memories of participants.  These workshop performers developed brief movement structures in a three hour workshop this Spring, which you can see in the video above.

I could talk about catharsis and the creative process, or I could quote a long list of practitioners working in the same vein of physical performance as myself.  Instead I'm going to appeal to the logical side of our readers by talking about process and how my work based in New York City can benefit and be benefited by a collaboration with The Art Haus SLC.  To give an example of how cross-country collaboration can be stimulating and exciting to the performance community and the local community, I'm first going to provide an example from a current project I'm working on with an artist in Los Angeles that is under consideration for a Creative Capital grant. 

We began using text from Mark 5:25-34:

25 And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years...27 When she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment...30 And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes?..32 And he looked round about to see her that had done this thing. 33 But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before him, and told him all the truth. 34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.

From this text these videos were produced:

The first pair of performers read the text and put the words into action.  This short video then replaced the original source text and another set of performers watched this video as the source for their own performance, which follows:

And again, this video replaced the first as a source for performance and was viewed by another two performers who then interpreted it as follows:

When the project is fully funded the productions will continue through 1000 performances and 2000 performers.  For this portfolio we stopped at three.  When these videos reached me in NYC I then broke the movement down and analyzed it for it's movement qualities.  I prepared for a group of dancers note cards describing snippets of movement.  Let's get interactive for a moment. 

Pretend you never saw these videos and only read a card telling you to embody these actions:

• Sit in a kneeling position with the ankles crossed, left ankle over right and with the right hand by the right hip and left hand resting on the left ankle.  Weight rests heavily in the back right hip.  The gaze is looking high to the right corner.  
  
• Reach a fully extended left arm in a steady arc to eye level at the left side of the body.  Let the arm curve down to touch the ground. 
  

Read over the card for a few minutes (not too long) and then let your creative body take on the movement.  Allow it to become whatever your body feels the words mean. 

From dozens of these cards, drawings, and similar instructions, NYC based dancers/performers created this movement sequence:

Now what does this work have to do with The Art Haus SLC?  Everything.  We are ready to bring collaborations from around the world to the artistic and educational community in Salt Lake City.  I mentioned in a previous post bringing artists from LA, Japan, and Salt Lake City together and I was serious about that because through the use of technology, we are able to do it with relative ease and minimal cost compared to 20, 15, or even 10 years ago. 

We can even think more simply.  What if we were to bring events that are already staples in the Salt Lake City performance community, such as the annual 24 hour play festival, and create a platform for arts communities in New York City, Los Angeles, and even Paris (Texas, obviously) to be involved in the work?  In 24-hours, performers in New York City can easily access scripts from Paris (TX), and Paris (TX) can receive scripts from Los Angeles and Salt Lake City can produce work written that very day in Los Angeles, CA.  In just one day we can have a cross-country collaboration at our fingertips.

This can even extend to education programming.  Perhaps we can enter schools when they are studying China, or Hungary, or Japan and we can connect them to our colleagues working in these countries to deepen the student's understanding of their lessons.  Classrooms can be taken through rehearsal rooms in Hong Kong or traditional folk performances in Spain.  Technology brings endless options and we intend to take advantage of these options to benefit the international community and the community in Salt Lake. 

This is why I am working for The Art Haus SLC.  I want to see these collaborations and educational opportunities happen, and we will.  We look forward to sharing this work with you from wherever you are in the world. 

By: Sara Moncivais

Please go here to donate and make these little international dreams a reality

Anne Wright, co-founder of The Art Haus SLC, discusses in 30 seconds her vision of how TAHSLC's arts programming can influence the Salt Lake City community. How has art influenced your community? 

Jendar Marie Morales, co-founder of The Art Haus SLC, discusses in 25 seconds how TAHSLC hopes to influence the Salt Lake City community through their arts programs. How do you personally hope The Art Haus SLC will influence the Salt Lake City community? Share your thoughts with us. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRG7eCrBcG0&feature=share

In the US, art making is often treated as a privilege. Our very conception of “the artist” as someone separate from and different than the rest of us — the moody recluse or the superstar genius — privileges the few who show the requisite talent early on. But this attitude is nowhere more striking than in our public schools. As art experiences are cut in schools serving primarily poor students of color to make room for “core” courses and test prep, private schools continue to make art courses central. Art education has become a privilege offered to those already economically and racially privileged. As evidence of this trend, a study by the NEA found that young Black and Latino adults interviewed in 2008 were 49% less likely to have had arts education as children than those interviewed in 1982; for Whites the decrease was only 5%.

At the risk of overstatement, this is a human rights violation — at least, according to the authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 27 of this document reads: “Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.” This is a powerful statement that reaches far beyond equal access to paint and brushes.

Art becomes a right when we begin to understand it not only as a form of individual creative activity, but also as one of the central ways that culture is created, critiqued, shared, and shifted. To cut off individuals, or even whole groups, from these conversations is to deny access to a certain type of power — the power to have a say in who we are, who is included in our “community,” and how we should be with one another. This conception of art as a right rather than a privilege is foundational to the community arts movement. But what does it mean for practice?

First of all, it means recognizing the ways that people are already participating in cultural life. Arts practice is taking place all around us, but often in ways not appreciated by mainstream arts and educational institutions. Second, it means sharing power and decision making in artistic spaces — moving from a service model to a collaborative model. Third, it means taking a serious look at how power and privilege — racial, cultural, economic, gender — shape our lives, our aesthetics, and our art spaces. Fourth, it means challenging institutions of artistic power, such as art schools and museums, to break down walls both physical and cultural. And finally, it means creating new artistic spaces that reflect the values of democracy, collaboration, and critical multiculturalism.

My first memory ever is of me dancing in front of the television while watching some ballet on PBS. I may have been two or three years old. I remember twirling around the living room wearing a pink tutu that my parents gave me as a gift and that I wore everyday for over a year. It was at that exact moment in time that my love affair with the arts began.

Pablo Picasso once said,  “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.” Most of us may at one point in our lives have had an experience with art. Whether the experience was with a painting, a play, a dance or music performance or a film, artistic expressions often bring out feelings and reactions that we have rarely or never experienced. Having worked as a museum educator for the past four years, I have seen many peoples' reactions to art. I have seen people laugh. I have seen people cry. I have seen people’s confused faces. I have seen people walk past a work of art and ignore it completely, while someone else may have been standing in front of the same piece for minutes or maybe hours, observing it, studying it, living it.

One of my favorite scenes of all times is from the movie Pretty Woman. In the scene the wealthy and sophisticated Edward Lewis, played by actor Richard Gere, takes the beautiful and uncultured prostitute Vivian, played by Julia Roberts, to see the Italian Opera La Traviata. When Vivian asks Edward how she is supposed to know what they are saying, he responds: “Believe me, you will understand. The music is very powerful.” At the end of the scene, an older lady asks the teary Vivian if she enjoyed the opera. Vivian responds: “Oh, it was so good, I almost peed my pants!” 

The Art Haus SLC was inspired by my own personal experiences with art. Fortunately enough, I come from a home where we breathe art. Throughout my 28 years of life, I have studied ballet, opera, poetry, photography, and modern dance. Although my experiences with each discipline have all been very different, some positive and some negative, they have undeniably shaped me as a person. While visiting Madrid a few years ago, I found an art space that provided the community with free exhibitions, performances, educational programming and libraries. I remember seeing people hanging out around the exhibitions, at the library, and in the gardens. The art was as much a part of their lives as talking and breathing. 

Most contemporary art spaces can be very intimidating but this one was so welcoming. I thought to myself how amazing it would be to bring a space like this to a community that needs more contemporary art experiences. While visiting Salt Lake City a year ago, I decided, much like it's founder, that this was THE place -- for contemporary art. Although there are various contemporary art museums and spaces in Salt Lake City, that offer terrific exhibitions and programs, there is also a fast growing artistic community. The Art Haus SLC wants to contribute to this growth by exploring multiple artistic disciplines in the visual arts, performance art, and media arts. We want to work with artists from Salt Lake City, the country and all around the world. We want to serve our local community by sharing these artistic endeavors through exhibitions, educational programming and online activities. We want to promote collaborations among artists from different disciplines, and we want to build bridges between the Salt Lake City art community and artistic communities in Detroit, New York City, San Juan, London, Shanghai, and the list goes on. Obviously for The Art Haus SLC to be able to accomplish all of these goals, we cannot stay in a vacuum. We need the support of the Salt Lake City community. As you probably know by now, The Art Haus SLC is fundraising throughout the website Kickstarter and our goal is $5,000. We only have 10 days left and a long way to reach our goal.  I know we live in hard economic times, where art may not be a priority to many, but like the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once said: “ Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.” 

Let’s keep hope alive, let’s support the arts. Let’s help The Art Haus SLC! 

-Jendar Marie Morales 
Co-Founder of The Art Haus SLC 

To donate to The Art Haus SLC go here. 

I believe there exists a duality among human beings, and for that matter all beings, that is essential to defining our place within the structure of existence. We are individual parts of a greater whole. Thus, while we desire to be unified within a community, we also fear that that unification will deprive us of our individual identity. This presents a problem when discussing the role of collaborations in a creative endeavor. As debated in the article The Rise of the New Groupthink, in January’s New York Times, a general shift has been made across the board to promote group thinking and team building whenever possible. This, however, is problematic for the creative mind, which prides itself on unique abilities specific to its own experience. Ideas fabricated by this creative self are fermented through a process of self meditation in isolation and are consequently stifled when forced to succumb to someone else’s imaginative vision. Or as Sartre might say, “Hell is other people.”

But even Thoreau, an eternal advocate for solitude, only stayed in Walden for a year, and he had plenty of visitors. This brings me to my second point. We are part of a greater whole, and yearn to find a place within it. We desire others to recognize our ideas as valid and true, that we might be validated ourselves. Thus, we associate with people similar to us in order to further perpetuate our significance within society. This is where I believe a collaboration is beneficial in the creative realm. Collaborative projects provide a community in which, ideally, individuals present their best selves, linking to other individuals with desires congruent with their own. The emphasis here being that individuals remain independently true to their own creative pursuits while interfacing with an artistic community. 


Some may view collaborations as a forum in which individual ideas may be compromised. While some form of compromise does take place as an effect of any two individuals communing together, as long as the desired outcomes are in agreement, great creative pursuits may transpire. In an interview with Tilda Swinton at the 38th Telluride Film Festival, she stated, “I started to make films because I found a community... I only work in collaboration, I can’t work alone.” 

Being a painter, I’m not sure I can share Ms. Swinton’s collaborative constancy. I define painting, as well as other studio arts, as a solitary pursuit. One attempts, with a visual expression, to manifest an introverted conversation with the self. The possible attainment of achieving this representation drives me and defines me as an artist – for myself and the art world. However, it can be a lonely existence, if I am completely dependent upon the conversations with myself. I could go crazy. I recognize that as much as I am defined by my solidarity, I need a community, I need support. Like I mentioned previously, I believe that collaborations can provide these things for artists, and can be beneficial, as long as the desires of the collaborators are compatible, whether artists work predominately on collaborations or work with them while simultaneously pursuing their individual practice.  

– Jessica Rae Ecker
jessica.rae.ecker.com

In several of our previous blogs, TAHSLC staff and our guest blogger talked a little about the communities and homes from which they came.  Inherently when we speak about those places, we're also talking about the culture of those communities and the people within them.  I grew up just outside of Salt Lake City and you can be sure that there are a lot of cultural norms that exist there!  Religion of course is one of the largest cultural influences in my life growing up in Utah, but I also had a small slice of Latin culture provided by my Puerto Rican born mother.  Sometimes for Christmas dinner, instead of having a traditional American turkey and stuffing, we had Lechon (Roast Pork) and Arroz con Habichuelas (Rice and Beans).   As small as that Latin culture was, living in a predominantly white neighborhood, it created a different lens in which I viewed the world. 

Food and art are two of the simplest ways to connect to other cultures and get a taste (pun intended) of what they're like.  For me, art creates an experience where not only do I feel that the artist is communicating something to me through their chosen medium, but also expressing some of their cultural ideologies within that expression.  As Sara asked in her post, "what do you get when you put an installation artist from LA in a room with a Japanese choreographer and a painter from Utah?", I say you get a collaborative work that reflects elements from each artist's own culture and community.

But art isn't one sided, there is an audience.  (Although one might argue, like the old adage about a tree falling in a forest, if art is created and no one is there to see it, is it really art? But perhaps that is an entirely different blog post).  If I were viewing our theoretical collaborative work by those three artists, my religious, Latin, feminine roots would color my experience as well.  And I would have a very different experience from the next person in the room who may come from Russia with no particular religious background. 

What interests me most as an arts educator and a co-founder of TAHSLC is what happens when you get those who viewed the exhibit to talk about their experience together and share what they saw and how the work affected them personally.  This is why I sincerely hope we get the opportunity exhibit TIMEless, where multiple artists express their interest in kinetic composition, and impart a little of themselves in their work.  And when we do, what cultural influence will you bring to that experience and who in the room do you want to talk to about it? 

If you're interested in supporting TAHSLC in putting on the TIMEless exhibit, go here and donate!

By: Anne Wright
Co-founder of The Art Haus SLC