ART TALKS AT FIGGE

Talks highlights techniques used to make chairs and environmental art

"How was it made?" is a question that one hears frequently when looking at art. Learn how several chairs in the Figge Art Museum special exhibition The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Chair Design were made at an art talk at 7 pm Thursday, July 14. Mark Holmes, associate professor of Art at Knox College, will present the talk. In addition to his work as a sculptor, Holmes spent 15 years designing and making furniture (including chairs) as the owner of -ism Furniture in Chicago. He received his MFA in Sculpture from Yale University.

The Art of Seating will be on view at the Figge through September 4. The exhibition is developed by the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville and the Jacobsen Collection of American Art, and organized by International Art & Artists, Washington, D.C. For additional exhibition-related programs, please visit the Figge website at www.figgeart.org.

Also this Thursday, at 6pm visiting artist Aurora Robson will talk about her work, Up Drop, which is installed on Level 1. The sculpture is made from plastic debris (PET bottles) caps, rivets, tinted polycyrlic and steel armature.  Robson's intricate and remarkable hanging structures are created from all manner of discarded plastic waste.   This work complements the current exhibition, Water Views by providing an interesting counterpoint to the idyllic waterscapes ofWater Views

Robson will be featured in the fall installation, Everything All at Once Forever, opening September 24 in the Orientation Gallery on Level 1.  The installation will feature plastic debris sculptures created specifically for the Figge installation. These new individual pieces will complement Up Drop, a work borrowed from the Gallery 212 in Colorado. Together they will create a space for the audience to explore the works on an intimate level.

Admission to the museum and tour is $7. Admission is free to Figge members and institutional members.

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Dear Friends of the German American Heritage Center:


As you may know, the GAHC will be hosting a traveling exhibit entitled "The Fiery Trail: Iowa and the Civil War".  We are asking for your assistance with this exhibit

sometime between July 28 and August 7.  We need people to man the exhibit and help answer questions from visitors.  Each tour of duty will last three hours and following are the times where we need you help:

 

Thursday, July 28   10 - 1,   1 - 4,  and a special event at 6:30 p.m. for members only.

 

Friday, July 29    4 to 7 p.m.

 

Saturday, July 30    4 to 7 pm

 

Monday, August 1    10 to 1,  1 to 4, and 4 to 7

 

Wednesday, August 3    4 to 7

 

Friday August 5     10 to 1.  1 to 4,  and 4 to 7

 

Saturday, August 6      10 to 1,  1 to 4,   and 4 to 7

 

Sunday August 7    12 to 4

 

There will be a drop-in orientation for volunteers on Wed July 27  4 - 6 pm

 

Please contact us at 563-322-8844 if you can help us to make this a meaningful experience for visitors to the GAHC.

 

WHERE: Quad City Arts Center Gallery,   Rock Island

EXHIBITION DATES: July 15- August 26, 2011

RECEPTION: Friday, July 15,  7-9 pm

FREE

From July15 through  August 26, 2011  Quad City Arts presents "The Artist in You Group Exhibition." The public is cordially invited to attend the opening reception on July15th from  7-9 pm  at Quad City Arts' Rock Island Gallery. The reception is free and open to the public.

"The Artist in You" is the 4th biennial exhibition for emerging and accomplished artists living within a 250-mile radius of the Quad Cities. 28 artists were chosen to be part of this group exhibit, presenting a total of 37 works of art.   Quad   City   Arts received 96 entries for the competition for which each artist received a written constructive critique of their submission by a panel of three outside jurors, all professional artists. Awards will be announced and awarded at  8 pm  on July 15th during the opening reception.

The Quad City Arts Center Gallery is located at 1715 Second Avenue in the Arts and Entertainment District of Rock Island.  Gallery hours are Tuesday-Friday 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday 11 a.m.-5 p.m. All Quad City Arts programs are funded in part by Festival of Trees; Quad City Arts Partners; and operating grants from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency; and the Iowa Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs. Quad City Arts is a nonprofit local arts agency dedicated to the growth and vitality of the Quad City region through the presentation, development and celebration of the arts and humanities. For more information, contact Dawn Wohlford-Metallo 309-793-1213X108.

WHAT:   Quad   City   Arts Art @ the Airport

WHEN:          now through August 31st  

WHERE:       Quad City International Airport Gallery,   2200 69th Ave. ,  Moline ,  IL    

WHO:             Steve Banks, painting & sculpture and Aaron Tinder, painter  

In July and August, Art @ the Airport features sculptures and paintings by

Steve Banks of   Davenport   is an artist whose work is about finding meaningful identity and individuality within popular culture. In his work, he strives to make energetic images that explore relationships and interactions through compositional juxtapositions. His image-making process is fueled by curiosity regarding the process of partial cultural assimilation. Bank's images address how the search for individuality often leads to how we attempt to form interpersonal connections while our souls simultaneously float in an isolating sea of cultural white noise.

Aaron Tinder of   Indianola ,  Iowa  , is an artist and professor at   Grand   View   University  . His work revolves around the exploration of personal narratives as a resident of the rural  Midwest  and how they collide with political and social themes. Tinder's work combines multiple layers of images and symbols which are forced to reconcile into compositions filled with spatial tension; encouraging a visual narrative-based conversation.

Both of these artists address the human connection to culture; popular, political and social.  Once focuses on the personal narrative as a Midwest  resident, while the other focuses on the overall complex of identity and culture for the general public.

Don't miss this is exhibit just because you don't have a plane to catch-the lights in the gallery are always on and the airport offers free parking for the first hour. Meet a friend for lunch and enjoy the art!   Quad   City   International airport gallery is easy to access with one hour of free parking to allow plenty of time to browse the exhibit.

  Quad   City   Arts is a nonprofit local arts agency dedicated to the growth and vitality of the   Quad City region through the presentation, development, and celebration of the arts and humanities. All Quad City Arts programs are funded in part by Festival of Trees, Quad City Arts Partners and operating grants from the Illinois Arts Council (a state agency) and the Iowa Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs. This gallery and exhibit is generously sponsored by the Quad City International Airport.

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Tour special exhibition of American Chairs with docents

The Figge Art Museum presents the art talk "Goldilocks' Dilemma" at 7 pm Thursday, July 7. The talk is offered in conjunction with the special exhibitionThe Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Chair Design. Sandy Fritz, Judie Lance, Lois Nichols, Stephanie Rapahel-Nakos will talk about their favorite chairs: a Shaker rocking chair (c.1840), an office chair designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for his Johnson Wax Company building in Racine, Wisconsin, and a "Texas Longhorn Chair" (ca. 1890) made with actual horns. The talk lasts 30 minutes. 

The Art of Seating will be on view at the Figge through September 4. The exhibition is developed by the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville and the Jacobsen Collection of American Art, and organized by International Art & Artists, Washington, D.C. For additional exhibition-related programs, please visit the Figge website at www.figgeart.org.

Admission to the museum and tour is $7. Admission is free to Figge members and institutional members.

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Information session offered July 13

The Figge Art Museum is offering a free information session on the museum's Candidate Docent Training Program at 10:30 am Wednesday, July 13. Docents are volunteers who lead exhibition tours for schoolchildren and adults. Museum staff will explain the program requirements and answer questions prospective docents may have about the program. The information session will last about an hour.

The Candidate Docent Training Program consists of short art history lectures, gallery talks, and group activities to learn how to talk about and interpret works of art on display in the Figge galleries. The program runs 9:00-11:30 Wednesday, September 7-December 14. The program is taught by Figge Curator of Education Ann Marie Hayes-Hawkinson, guest lecturers, and Figge docents who serve as mentors.

The information session is free, but reservations are appreciated. To make a reservation, call Ann Marie Hayes-Hawkinson at 563.326.7804 x7887.

For more information about the Figge's Docent Program, please visit the Figge website at www.figgeart.org.

Davenport, Iowa - July, 2011- The Figge Art Museum is partnering with the Quad Cities River Bandits to host "Art in the Ballpark" on Sunday, July 10 as the River Bandits take on the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers. During the game, kids can do two art activities led by the Figge Art Museum: Paint Like Pollock?where kids will paint and splatter on a giant canvas, just like the artist Jackson Pollock?and Rascal Mosaic?where kids can help color a super-sized mosaic of the River Bandits' logo. Both activities are family-friendly and open to children of all ages. This community art project is offered in conjunction with the River Bandits' U.S. Bank Family Sunday.

The completed wall-size Paint Like Pollock mural and the Rascal Mosaic will be on view in the Figge Studios on Saturday, July 16 during the museums' Free Family Event. The Free Family Event runs from 1-3 pm and is sponsored by John Deere. After the event, the mural and mosaic will be returned to the Bandits for future display at the ballpark.

In addition to viewing the completed project, guests at the July 16 Free Family Event will get to take part in several family-friendly art activities, all of which connect to the Figge's newest exhibition: The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Chair Design. During the event, families can create their own miniature chair sculptures, become sleuths and solve "The Great Chair Repair," help decorate numerous community chairs, get their picture taken in a super-sized art chair, enjoy studio snacks and participate in all the other fun family activities the museum offers?all for FREE!

This Family Free Event is great opportunity for those who have not yet visited the museum to explore the galleries and studios through guided activities and tours. Contact the Figge Art Museum at 563.326.7804 for more information.

The Figge Art Museum is pleased to announce that it has received a grant from Humanities Iowa. The Figge was recently awarded a $5,000 grant for its upcoming exhibition "Turn of the Century Posters from the Krannert Art Museum Collection" (Sept. 3, 2011 - Jan. 8, 2012).

"Turn of the Century Posters" documents the emergence of fine art posters and other forms of advertising art within European visual culture at the turn of the twentieth century. The exhibition highlights posters by artists including Pierre Bonnard, Alphonse Mucha, Jan Toorop and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and illustrates how artists utilized lithography for different purposes and with varying regional stylistic characteristics.

The exhibition will be supplemented with extensive educational programming such as lectures, gallery talks and family events. Funding from Humanities Iowa will be used to support educational programming for the exhibition.

Humanities Iowa is an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities and brings the humanities to the public through grant making, publications, and through interactive programming and events;http://www.uiowa.edu/~humiowa/.  The views and opinions expressed by the exhibition and its educational programming do not necessarily reflect those of Humanities Iowa or the National Endowment for the Humanities. 

For more information and museum hours, contact the Figge at 563.326.7804 or visit www.figgeartmuseum.org

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[MAQUOKETA, IA] Maquoketa Art Experience welcomes Iowa artist Elizabeth Roberts to Maquoketa July 25-29. Roberts will host a week-long Children's Art Camp designed for 10-13 year olds at the Maquoketa Art Experience Studio, 124 S. Main Street, July 25-29 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. daily. Roberts has designed a week long art camp for young artists who want to explore a variety of mediums, creating several finished pieces. In five, three-hour sessions, students will have the opportunity to learn the Japanese art of Shibori (dyeing cloth), Printmaking, and Weaving, and other 2-Dimensional art projects. The students will also engage in a collaborative painting in which the students will learn about the work of an established artist and create and finish a painting in the style of the featured artist. This collaborative painting will be displayed throughout the day (week) and students will be invited to collaborate to finish the piece however they'd like. Students will work with paints, oil pastels, markers, paper, and modge podge. Skill level is for beginners, but enthusiasm is a must.

Elizabeth Roberts received her BFA in Painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore (2006), and recently earned her K-12 Art Teaching Licensure at Clarke University in Dubuque, Iowa (2010). Elizabeth's paintings explore an abstract narrative while composition and emphasis of color play an important role in her aesthetic and sensibility as an artist. Using ideas of myth and lore, the artist is currently creating a series of abstract works depicting tales from The Brothers Grimm. Elizabeth's artwork is represented by Outside the Lines Art Gallery, Dubuque, Iowa, and has participated in several exhibitions including, Metamorphosis @ the Voices Warehouse Gallery (2008) and the Dubuque Museum of Art's Biennial Juried Exhibition (2007), a joint showing at Outside the Lines Art Gallery (2009), and a solo show, "The Nature in Existence" at the Nash Gallery (2008). In September of 2009,

Registration materials are available at www.maquoketa-art.org. For more information contact Paula Neuhaus at paula@maquoketa-art.org or call 563.652.9925.

Maquoketa Art Experience programming is made possible in part by a grant from the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs.

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Explore 200 Years of American Chair Design on Sundays in July

The Figge Art Museum presents a docent-guided tour "Please be Seated" every Sunday at 1:30 pm during the month of July. The tour is in conjunction with the special exhibition The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Chair Design. Figge tour guides, referred to as docents, will discuss several chairs in the exhibition, including a Shaker rocking chair (c.1840), an office chair designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for his Johnson Wax Company building in Racine, Wisconsin; an Egyptian Revival Side Chair (ca.1875), and a "Texas Longhorn Chair" (ca. 1890) made with actual horns, among others. The tour lasts approximately one hour. 

The Art of Seating will be on view at the Figge through September 4. The exhibition is developed by the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville and the Jacobsen Collection of American Art, and organized by International Art & Artists, Washington, D.C. For additional exhibition-related programs, please visit the Figge website at www.figgeart.org.

Admission to the museum and tour is $7. Admission is free to Figge members and institutional members.  

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