There’s a lot coming up at the WKU Art Department but this one is this week so I’ll just get it out there real quick like. I won’t be able to make it but I highly encourage all to attend. Elissa Cox is coming for a double-whammy visit. First she’ll be the focus of an informal (open to students and others) Q&A during the Studio-Portfolio class. This should go from 3:30 to 4:30 in room 454 of the Fine Arts Center. Afterwards, from 5 – 6pm she’ll be providing an open lecture in room 156. All are welcome to it as well.

Regardless if you’re going to be there, be sure to visit Elissa’s website.

This is a gratuitous “arts and culture” post and horn tooting, your weekend chance to grab a cup of coffee or a Goose Island and do some art and music browsing.

I really should actually be getting ready for this show instead of writing about it, but hey, it’ll only take a few minutes, right? For those of you who live anywhere near Louisville, you owe it to yourself to go checkout the Unusual Animals exhibit at the 930 Art Center including two drawing by Yours Truly. I had the pleasure seeing the current exhibit when I took my own submission a few weeks ago. Very nice place. What made me respond to the call for entries was not just for the chance to respond to a cool theme, but also the fun knowing that the folks from Asthmatic Kitty were part of it, and, in fact, were part of the judging.

What I hadn’t realized is that Unusual Animals is also an ongoing project of Asthmatic Kitty compilations and events, the most recent of which is, you guessed it, in Louisville. Asthmatic Kitty is a Landers, Wyoming (I had to look, too) based label, but if I recall has strong roots around the country. They’re the home of some of my longtime favorite artists like Danielson (by way of Sounds Familyre and Tooth & Nail back in the day) Half-Handed Cloud, Liz Janes and Sufjan Stevens.

My sister and I freaked out over Danielson’s A Prayer for Every Hour way back when we must have been subconsciously craving sounds like that. That album became for me the standard with which I’d compare many musical first impressions for a number of years, and may actually still be something like an artistic reference point. Visually, as well. I can guarantee you that much of Daniel Smith’s artwork (he has often, if not always, done his own album art) has influenced my own.

So it is no surprise that I’m proud to be putting my two cents in on this exhibit. Go check it out. The show opens April 4th. There is more information at the 930 Art Center website.

Kentucky Library and Museum’s Print Collection – Now showing in the FAC Corridor Gallery (second floor) is one of the best print collections I’ve seen in a while. Some of the artists includeLouise Nevelson, Frank Stella, Paul Cadmus, Jim Dine, Wayne Kimball and Nathan Oliveira. This show is giving Ceramics Invitational a run for it’s money in terms of balls-to-the-wall amazingness.

And while you’re here be sure to wander up to the Cube gallery on the fourth floor to see what’s going on there.

Above is “Five Paint Brushes,” an etching from 1973 by James Dine. It is one of the pieces in the show, all of which are on loan from the permanent collection of the Kentucky Library and Museum. The majority of the work on view were originally collected in the early seventies through an NEA grant. They were collected by Ivan Schieferdecker, Professor Emeritus and have not been displayed since sometime during the 1980′s.

The show will be on view through finals week which I believe is Friday, May 11th. The prints are screenprints, lithographs, etchings and others.

2007 Graduating Senior Art Exhibit – Also, the Senior show is now up in the Kentucky Museum and will also be on view until May 11th. I haven’t had a chance to get any photographs (or even see the show yet) but I hear it’s quite a collection of work, taking up the whole place.

Above are works by 2007 graduating seniors Sara Truman (left) and Perry Hooks (right). Go check it out.

Everyone is pretty confused by now, I’d say. Perhaps, most importantly, our troops themselves. A February 28th Zogby poll states that “Almost 90% think war is retaliation for Saddam’s role in 9/11.” But there are soldiers in Iraq and home in the US who believe that is not the one, categorical reason and speculate that there was no such reason – or, finally, that the consequences have hardly been honorable.

Some of those soldiers believe the later very adamantly and vocally and have made the decision to not fight. Many of them have suffered “dishonorable discharge,” or “punitive separation” as a consequence. These paintings are part of a series by Greg Moore, one-half of Block, Street & Building. These three subjects are soldiers who have filed status as conscientious objectors. Other resisters have been incarcerated or have fled to Canada.

Greg has done done a total of 4 portraits and plans on more. You can see more of Greg’s work at Art Amiss or at our website. dsklj

Click here to check out a neato diagram of 21 reasons Bush and his administration gave for attacking Iraq – statements made between September 2001 and October 2002.