Marmalade @ Smokebrush

Screening of B-Movie (30 min) followed by an interactive installation inspired by a hive of honeybees.  Features artists of musical, visual, and performance backgrounds working together on this project; viewers will be invited to interact with the space, creating shadow puppets and altering silhouettes.  Artists within the various chambers of the hive respond and the distinction between viewing participants and active performers is blurred to form an artistic community collective. Viewers of all ages are welcome.

Location:
Marmalade at Smokebrush is located just west of Downtown Colorado Springs in the Depot Arts District
219 West Colorado Ave., Ste. 210 Colo. Spgs., CO 80903

DIRECTIONS FROM I-25: North and Southbound highway traffic exit at Bijou street (exit 142) and head West to Walnut street turning left (South) to Colorado avenue. At the Walnut st. and Colorado ave. intersection, turn left (East) and head one block until you reach Cimino street. Turn North (opposite of America the Beautiful Park) and head down the loop and under the bridge where you will see our large beige building. We are now on the opposite side of the bridge and across the parking lot from the old Smokebrush Gallery location.

Filming across the US, in Europe, Australia and Asia, this documentary examines the alarming disappearance of honeybees and the greater meaning it holds about the relationship between mankind and mother earth. As scientists puzzle over the cause, organic beekeepers indicate alternative reasons for this tragic loss. www.vanishingbees.com

The evening will begin with a “Bee Happy Hour” featuring Bristol Beehive beer, mead honey wine and lemonade with informational booths on beekeeping, bee products, gardening/landscaping, local food, honey, urban farming and interactive activities. During this time you will also be able to enjoy the FutureSelf Encaustic (beeswax) Art Exhibition. Bee Happy Hour starts at 5 pm, Film Screening starts at 6 pm with a Q & A and panel discussion to follow.

Location:

10 South Parkside Drive
Colorado Springs
Colorado
80910

Opening Reception is August 25th 5-8 p.m

Exhibition dates:  August 25 – October 5, 2011

HIVE celebrates and investigates the important role honeybees play in human culture, history, food production, and ecosystems through the lens of visual art. Five artists have been invited to explore the impact of this vital insect through sculpture, site-specific and interactive video installations, and encaustic (beeswax) paintings.

Artists:

Matt Barton currently teaches 3D art making for the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs’ Visual and Performing Arts department. Following brief stints as a Chuck E. Cheese dancing rat, Barton spent a year in Italy as an artist apprentice. He earned his Masters in Fine Arts in 2006 from the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. www.matthewryanbarton.com

Jane McMahan is a conceptual artist, painter, educator, and social activist living and working in Colorado. Her work explores ways to visually capture the process of construction, deconstruction and reconstruction and the moments when they occur simultaneously. Recurring themes in her work include environmental issues, astronomy, biology, meteorology, cultural interactions and grids. McMahan received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Colorado. www.janemcmahan.com

Susan Meyer is a Denver-based artist and faculty at Denver University in the Visual Arts Department. Meyer earned her MFA at Boston Museum School/Tufts University and her B.S. in Studio Art at Skidmore College. www.susanmeyerinstallation.com

Elaine Ng is a sculptor working in ceramics and mixed media. She creates poetic installations, choosing subject matters for both their literal identities and the metaphorical references she assigns them. Born in Dallas, Texas, Elaine received her BA in music from the University of California, Davis, where she also studied pre-veterinary medicine and ceramic sculpture. Additionally, she holds an MBA and an MA in arts administration from Southern Methodist University. After a 10-year career in nonprofit management, she returned to making her own artwork and is currently living and working in Boulder, Colorado. www.elainekng.com

Laura Tyler is a painter and filmmaker who speaks nationally about beekeeping and honeybees.  Her paintings feature rigorously cropped drawings of botanical subjects coated with a skin-like sheen of encaustic paint.  She is the producer and director of the beekeeping documentary SISTER BEE and is a co-founder of the Boulder, Colorado honey company, Backyard Bees.  Tyler earned a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and is a lover of sunlight, flowers and alizarin orange.  This is her eleventh season keeping bees.  www.lauratyler.com

Location:

Galleries of Contemporary Art
University of Colorado | Colorado Springs
1420 Austin Bluffs Pkwy
Colorado Springs, CO 80918

An exhibit of work by over 20 artists responding to the concept of Chrysalis and Cross Pollination in theoretical, scientific and creative terms. Exhibiting artists include Laura BenAmots, Ann McKean, Lance Timco and others.

Location:

The Downtown Studio Art Gallery
100 West Pikes Peak Avenue
Colorado Springs, CO 80903

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center | Mid-September through Mid-December, 2011

New York-based Swiss artist Katja Loher creates video works that eloquently articulate the importance of the individual in contributing to the success of the whole. Specifically, Loher examines the vital role of bees in perpetuating global survival through her works Why Did the Bees Leave?, addressing the concern over colony collapse both literally and as a metaphor for the human condition. Loher takes a non-traditional approach to presenting her videos, projecting them through glass or liquid or onto large balloons, resulting in sculptural works that the artist refers to as Bubbles, Miniverses, and Videoplanets. Each piece is an intricately orchestrated and carefully manipulated performance, giving the visitor a bird’s-eye-view into a microcosm critical to the perpetuation of human existence.

For additional information about videos by Katja Loher, please visit the artist’s website at: www.katjaloher.com

Location:

Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center
30 West Dale Street
Colorado Springs, CO 80903

Location

Galleries of Contemporary Art
University of Colorado | Colorado Springs
1420 Austin Bluffs Pkwy
Colorado Springs, CO 80918

The Downtown Studio Art Gallery
100 West Pikes Peak Avenue
Colorado Springs, CO 80903

The Persian term parvana is frequently translated as “butterfly,” but in Indo-Persian-Arabic poetic usage, it almost always refers to the obsessed lover; literally, the moth, parvana attracted to the flame shama. Using the dual translation of parvana as a springboard, this project explores the multiple aesthetic, scientific, and literary understandings of moths and butterflies. The IDEA Space exhibition will feature works by Joseph Scheer, Rebecca DiDominico, and John Kalyminios. Blurring the boundaries between art and science, Joseph Scheer uses a high-resolution digital scanner designed for scientific research to enlarge moth specimens many times their orginal size. The resulting large-format prints transform the microscopic into the macroscopic, revealing with breathtaking detail the extraordinary complexity and beauty of an often-maligned insect. In contrast to Scheer’s revelatory analytical approach to moths, DiDominico’s artworks made from butterfly wings encased in mica capture the evanescence typically associated with the butterfly, and Kalyminios’ mechanized butterfly specimens challenge the boundaries between nature and the industrial world. The exhibition and related performances, lectures, and interactive events examine the intersections between scientific and artistic modes of investigation and questions how, by engaging multiple ways of knowing, the arts can influence understandings of the natural world.

Thursday, October 6, 4:00 – 6:30 pm, IDEA Space Parvana Opening Reception, free

• 4:00 – 5:00 IDEA Cabaret: Nabakov’s Butterflies with Alex Vargo, emeritus Professor of Biology and Corinne Scheiner, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature. IDEA Cabaret is an ongoing event in which CC faculty, visiting artists and scholars, and CC students from all disciplines and perspectives participate in an open discussion that uses the current IDEA Space exhibition as inspiration. No jargon, just great ideas!
• 5:00 – 6:00 IDEA Cabaret: The Lepidopterans featuring a panel discussion with visual artists Joseph Scheer and Rebecca DiDominico, entomologist Alex Vargo, and performing artists Eiko & Koma.

Location:

Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center
825 N. Cascade Avenue,
Colorado Springs, CO 80903

Begins at 7pm

In conjunction with the Parvana exhibition in IDEA Space, internationally renowned artists Eiko & Koma will perform a re-envisioned version of their 1976 piece “White Dance: Moth.” Artists in residence and visiting instructors Eiko & Koma have developed a unique blend of traditional Japanese dance, modern dance, performance art, video, and costume design that transcends genre or discipline. Since 1972 the Japanese-born choreographer/dancers have challenged and galvanized audiences with their performances.  This is not traditional dance, but a riveting “theater of movement created out of stillness, shape, light and sound.” Eiko & Koma have received two “Bessies” (1984 and 1990), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1985), a MacArthur Genius Award (1996) and United States Artists Fellowships (2006). They were honored with the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award (2004) and the Dance Magazine Award (2006) for lifetime achievement in modern dance. Presented by the InterDisciplinary Arts (IDEA) program and the Colorado College Drama/Dance Department. The public is invited to a free reception at IDEA Space with Eiko & Koma immediately following the performance. Presented by IDEA and The Colorado College Drama/Dance Department. Sponsored by the Virginia Darnes Yates Endowment.

Location:

Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center
825 N. Cascade Avenue,
Colorado Springs, CO 80903