Charlottesville’s Art in Action, An Afternoon of Art and Advocacy on the Lawn, will be held Sunday, April 5, 2009, from 1-4pm on the South Lawn at U.Va. The purpose of the event is to celebrate and honor the efforts of Charlottesville organizations by using art to bring the University and Charlottesville communities together.

We are currently requesting donations of original art of any size or form that reflect the efforts of one of these seven organizations: Albemarle Housing Improvement Program, Alliance for Community Choice and Transportation, Charlottesville Community Scholarship Program, Charlottesville Emergency Food Bank, Community Bikes, Shelter for Help and Emergency, or the Music Resource Center. The art will be auctioned off to benefit the organization they represent.

Please submit a paragraph describing the thematic connection to one of these organization by Friday, March 20, 2009, with a short description of your art piece(s), dimensions of the work(s), and any additional display requirements to Vinu Ilakkuvan at ivinu@virginia.edu.

The art pieces themselves can be turned into 36 East Lawn on the Wednesday prior to the event, April 1st, from 6:15pm to midnight.

The success of this event depends on art submissions, and we would greatly appreciate your contribution!

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With an invite passed along from a friend, on his advice that it might be a good way to meet good people, I found myself at The Garage this past Friday for the launch party of Cville’s newest blog, Art Klatch.

To quote, Art Klatch is ”a collaborative blog interested in community, collaboration, and conversation about contemporary art and its relevant critical discourse”.  I have to be honest, I may not be the most in-the-know person about Charlottesville’s creative scene, but it hasn’t gone unnoticed a certain uninvolvement between established and newer artists and the diverse communities that exist in this town.

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The Daily Progress reports that the Gravity Lounge faces cash flow problems and will potentially close.  The article explains that the owners need $200,000 to pay off existing loans and relaunch the venue as a non-profit.  Thanks to Street for sending this in.[via Daily Progress] 

The legendary orgies that haunt Fellini’s, the fading bohemian essence of the mall, the top of the best places to live, a Miller’s bartender named Dave:  I came to Charlottesville long after what I’ve heard some refer to as the glory days of this strange town.  A city sparked to life during some moveable feast, fueled by an emerging, indelible arts and music scene, the veneer of big-city shallowness, drugs and alcohol, vagrancy, and a general sheen of bohemia.

Of course, I say this all as an outsider looking in, even after two years of living here.  What I know, I know in passing.  The half-smile nostalgic gaze from co-workers and acquaintances who recount memories of this city, its infamous and famous, its dirty and vulgar, its singular and spectacular moments.  Like a man trying to describe the first time he saw fireworks or the first time having sex.  It was wonderful, although a faded memory and an unlikelihood that he’ll never feel that way again.  That faded glory is palpable and the ghosts of those days can be heard whispering between the sounds of the mall.  Sometimes it feels like this town is recouping from a massive hangover from an epic party.  A party somewhat memorialised by what I can only imagine was gawdawful tripe, a flash-in-the-pan piece of poesy or a truly incendiary and inspiring verse.

Somewhere, somehow, I managed to find for myself a dusted-off copy of “Fandango!”, a poem written in the mid-90s by an anonymous writer.  In my adventure that led to the discovery of the copy, I also discovered Hypocrite Press, a local publisher publishing local authors who write about, you guessed it, life and their lives in the local area. »Read More

I recently had the pleasure of participating in an event hosted by the Piedmont Council of the Arts and run by Maggie Guggenheimer and Kate Daughdrill.  The event’s purpose was to discuss and evaluate how to market Charlottesville as an arts community. Some of the specific questions we tackled were:

• What is a creative community and is Charlottesville a creative community?
• What are the benefits of marketing Charlottesville as a creative community?
• How does the private/business sector view the role of arts and culture in our community?
• Who in the local community supports and participates in the arts and creativity?
• How can we attract more arts-related tourism to the Charlottesville area? How can we market the arts in Central Virginia as a region?
• How can we market Charlottesville as a creative community and what is the right vision to market?

While I have little formal background in the arts, it was interesting to hear the gamut of opinions on these topics. You can listen to a condensed version of the meeting over at Charlottesville Podcasting, but I have a shortened summary for you after the break and offer a digital tool which will help solve some of the problems identified in the discussion.

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Here are the top six reasons you need to read cvilleMUSE:

1.  You can get free tickets to the Crozet Music Festival this weekend!

2.  Artists are letting you listen to full MP3s online.  Checkout all the posts with MP3s!

3. You will miss the epic, 23 part series titled “Chronicles of Newman.” It just ended, but you can read the last post and catch up!

4.  You need to watch these videos made by kids in Charlottesville.   They are hilarious, short and worth your time!

5. Unless you read Shaun’s articles about Charlottesville latest bands, you won’t know enough to impress your friends.  Check out this week’s preview of Cory Branan.  Oh, by the way, Shaun is a real journalist.  He does interviews with people like Jim Waive.  I dare you to ask him questions you think he can’t answer.

6.  You need to look at the amazing music photo journalism done by Tom Daly (see My Morning Jacket and Smashing Pumpkins).

Oh, and don’t forget about our amazing theater and arts coverage!

Yay for Friday! What a week! We told you how to donate some organs, a fire broke out, echo died, while finding new iphones we met some newbies, we discussed some teaching woes, and apparently here and there some of us worked at our places of employment.

No more work. Time to play! Get your red panties on, sit out in the sun, call your neighbors to come play, and have yourself a firecrotch:

Check out Art/Music over at MUSE.

Fridays After Five-Tonight!

All American Bluegrass Jam-Thursday, Friday. Saturday in Orange

First Colony Winery Pig Roast-Saturday a 11:00 a.m. in celebration of Dad. Jimmy O will be playing.

The Moses, Raquellos, The Vamanos-These bands will be tearing it up at Saxx Lounge on Saturday. Doors at 8pm/Music 9pm – $5 (this is my last music steal from MUSE-promise)

Here are links to the band pages:

The Moses Band
Raquellos
The Vamanos

Eighties Prom Party-Saturday Night beginning at 8:00 p.m.

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1.  They are giving away 2 free box seats and free parking for the Sons of Bill/Gary Allan/James Otto show on Thursday.

2.  Shaun broke the Modest Mouse show a full 10 days before it reached the other local publications.   They are playing on June 29th, in case anyone was wondering.

3.   They have a new cvilleMUSE category.. coming soon… LITERATURE.

4.  They are launching a calendar.. yummy.  It is going to rock the Charlottesville music, arts and entertainment world later this week (well, maybe not that cool).  Oh, and you know that really difficult to navigate format?  They’ve solved that.  Oh, and you know that really difficult to get updated events into your calendar? They’ve solved that too.

Ooo lala, without Kiki and on a search for a better cocktail, I may be exploring new places. I’ve compiled a list for all my loved cVillains of the best things to do in town. If you don’t like it, let me know. If you you think I forgot something, let us know in the comments.  Anyway, click through to see what’s happening.

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