Artists, art spaces, art walks, abandoned
March 28, 2010 – April 24, 2010
I started this entry about a month ago, then life got in the way (as you can see by the differing dates above).
What I wanted to write about was all of the art and the artists I have experienced since being back in West Virginia: frankly, some as good as anything I have seen anywhere….
There is an idea afloat that makers of the larger culture are slowly being decentralized from the large cities… for the most part, innovators in art and culture can’t afford to live in those. Furthermore, the internet allows for folks to sync up with a larger culture without having to pay big city rent. Just a few things I have seen… and been amazed by since being back.
(A cheater — here is a photo exhibit of the April Art Walk: http://blogs.wvgazette.com/popcult/2010/04/16/flaming-guns-and-walking-art/)
Okay, so they need to change the tag on the far left on the Art Walk Facebook page… but I went to the March Art Walk. I saw a very cool exhibit of banjo pickers and other bluegrass and old time musicians. I met some interesting folks along Hale Street–which is the small, Charleston, WV version of a hipster street, what with its a sprinklin’ of bars and antique stores and gallery spaces. That evening, I also got to see work by friends of friends who now qualify as friends:
Keith Allen–Why didn’t I know this guy when we were in high school?
I’ve had this theory for a while that whatever coping mechanisms you developed to get through high school, you then have to turn around and deal with once you are an adult. Being back in WV has made me realize that this, in some way, also happens with people. I seem to be meeting quite a few folks that I feel as though I would have known in high school, that I-shoulda-coulda-woulda known and we all sorta ended up back where we started, but healthier versions. Keith is one of those people (and so is artist Jamie Miller, featured a little bit further down). Keith asked me an interesting question the evening we met–as I had gone out into the big world, lived in NYC, LA, and Europe and all, did I think those folks that didn’t leave WV missed out on something? I answered that 10 years ago I probably would have said “yes,” but now with social networking in place connecting people from all over, I’m not so sure. I certainly envy the closeness of the art-house crowd in Charleston and in WV…but I also envied similar sets of folks local/native to their environs when I lived in LA and in NYC. Maybe the outsider is just me… In any case, I wish Keith had more of his post-punk art up on the net to share. And, hands down, he is one of the funniest people I have ever met anywhere.
http://blogs.wvgazette.com/popcult/files/2010/04/Img_9628.jpg
Next up, one of those people that just seems to be brilliant at whatever she does, Amanda Jane Miller. She plays a mean fiddle, can dance, and is also a very interesting artist and illustrator, with work featuring imps from your worst nightmares. She is also immensely entertaining to be around… and, again, one of those people that has carved out an artistic life despite, in spite, of, or due to, our local environs in WV.
Okay, I really shoulda known her in high school
I don’t quite know how Jamie and I didn’t know each other, though, I secretly learned that she had been a majorette. My take now–never underestimate where that will all lead to. Jamie Miller–I friggin’ love what I have seen of Jamie’s work. I hear the rich and famous have also admired it. Okay, again, like Amanda’s work, there is a definite stamp of femaleness– and in Jamie’s work, again come the stuffed animals from hell not to haunt, but enlighten you. Here are all the possible links I could find:
http://www.wvculture.org/agency/press/wvje2009/2009wvjewinners_miller.jpg
http://www.myspace.com/jamiemilla
Last but not least, Kerry Bingaman–I wish I could find a link to her work on the net. I went over to Keith Allen’s studio for a while the night of the March Art Walk, and, Kerry had a small exhibit up. One photo in particular stood out: an iridescent red photo taken through the window of a laundromat in Brooklyn.
More incredible creative things from the last month
Lori McKinney must be one of the most gracious people on earth. She had invited me a while back to come and visit her and her husband’s art space in Princeton, WV….and, finally, back in March, we got a chance to. See: http://www.theriffraff.net/fr_home.cfm
I grew up near Princeton till I was 10… and I remember shopping on this street thirty years ago. Now, most of the Boulevard is abandoned. But, McKinney and company have brought hope to one corner. They now have two large adjacent buildings, one of which already houses a galley, a performance space, offices, studios, and a living space. Her sister Melissa McKinney owns the building across the street, and recently began a music school that is having riproaring success: http://www.theriffraff.net/fr_home.cfm
I have to say, I would have DIED to have gone to Melissa’s school when I was a kid. She has several all-girl teeny bands on rotation at the space.
The McKinney’s have started a local and downhome arts renaissance in their corner of the world. What they are doing with their local community is inspiring…And, again, pretty amazing to witness.
The one place we didn’t get a chance to see but everyone told us about while we were in Mercer County:
Gary Bowling’s House of Art in Bluefield, WV
But! We did look in the window on a rainy Sunday afternoon! The storefront is pretty wild…. my dad tells me he did some printing work for Bowling thirty years ago when he apparently tried to get something like this off the ground…. only to come back years later to actually make it work. It is an art space/performance space. What you have to understand that nothing like that existed for miles around… till the McKinney’s started what they started in Princeton.
And, speaking of Bluefield…. this place where I shopped as a child, this town where I was born… has the most amazing buildings. My husband and I walked around on a dreary Sunday afternoon with our mouths agape. Bluefield had been known as “Little New York” in the 1920s… and the remaining buildings bear that out. Again, my father reminded me that many of those buildings were torn down by the 1950s and 1960s… though, the many buildings that are left were built between the 1880s and 1920s. Amazing tin roofs, incredible facades… I even liked the strange nulti-colored panel “mod” facades slapped on front of some of the buildings some time fifty years ago.
We also stood for a while at the train yard, which is still very active… and still very covered in coal dust.
I found these photos already online of Bluefield–scroll down to the bottom of that link for a lot of online photo galleries of art deco, ah, the art deco, work and of the amazing buildings: http://www.pbase.com/kstuebin/bluefield
Lots of huge homes caving in on themselves right up off Downtown. We watched a dude in shorts and a ball cap run back and forth down a hill…. he was a white dude selling pharmas to passing white people in fancy cars. I am used to seeing the hypodermic needle next to the beer bottle in neighborhoods in big cities… here, we saw the little brown pharma bottle and the beer bottle. Certainly, we were anomalies walking around in the near dark in this abandoned downtown… but I could imagine. I could imagine this area revitalized and vibrant. WV is building rich, and, maybe the artists are the ones that will reignite the needed vitality to make the buildings breathe again.