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DownStreet Art: Aug. 25
11:46AM / Wednesday, August 24, 2016
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Participatory Art & Entertainment: 

Throughout Downtown
Mortal Beasts & Dieties 5:00 - 8:00PM 
Connecticut-based Mortal Beasts and Deities stilt dancers, frequent performers in the city over recent years, will bring their unique artistry to the streets of downtown North Adams,
from 5 to 8 pm.
Always a crowd-favorite, look for this trio of stilt walkers as they roam the streets, bringing their signature ‘controlled mayhem and earnest frivolity’ to DownStreet Art

Gallery 85, 85 Main St.
Community Art Project, 5:30 - 7:00PM
Creative Business Incubator Gallery 85 will offer an interactive community art project in the concourse outside of Gallery 85, 85 Main St. from 5:30 to 7 p.m.
 
 
Thin Walls Studio, 87 Main St.
Silkscreen Printing, 5:00 - 8:00PM

 
Josh Ostraff invites the community to silk screen and color skipjack tuna prints which will be used in an upcoming exhibition.
 
The Greylock Glass & DownStreet Art, Holden Street
DownStreet Voices a pop-up Sound Studio
5:00 - 8:00PM
Holden Street Night Market: 5-8PM 
 

Shop a variety of local makers at DownStreet Art’s monthly night market:

A little something for everyone from farm-fresh baked good,s to handmade creations, to works of art. 

 

 

Creative Business Incubators

 
The Creative Incubator spaces are a new DownStreet Art initiative aimed to give artist entrepreneurs, a place to grow their creative businesses in a supported and inviting way. With the help of DownStreet Art, Creative Incubator spaces have been implemented in four formerly empty storefronts in downtown North Adams. Spaces range from working studios to gallery and performance venues.  
Outside - 10 Ashland St

Directed by Mandy Johnson and James Jarzyniecki

Dedicated to solo exhibitions by emerging artists, Outside includs a small shop of art and design publications.

Current Exhibition: Unbekown, Yoko Naito
 

Yoko Naito culminated 6 years of work in New York City with the series Unbeknown. The collection of photographs captures the vacant winter shores of the city and explores outward changes in the environment, the human condition and their artifacts.

Yoko Naito, born in Japan, graduated from Nihon University College of Art in Photography in Tokyo, Japan in 2007. Naito received a Sony World Photography Award for Travel in 2015 with a shortlist in Lifestyle. She received the Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts Young Portfolio Award in 2014 and 2015; juried by Eiko Hosoe, Daido Moriyama et al. Additional achievements include the International Photography Award, London International Creative Competition honorable mention and the Prix de la Photographie Paris. Her work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions within the United States, Europe and Japan, most recently at Sony Imaging Gallery in Tokyo. She is currently based in Berlin, Germany.

Thin Walls Studio & Gallery -  87 Main St

This studio and workshop features the artwork of artist and visiting MCLA professor Joshua Ostraff who is working on a series of paintings and prints that examine what it means to be selfless, and to share with those around you. For DownStreet Art Thursday, Thin Walls Studio & Workshop invites the public to join artist Josh Ostraff to screen-print tuna which will be incorporated into an exhibition at MCLA Gallery 51 in January, 2017.

 

Butterfly Effect- 85 Main St

Collaborated on by three Elementary teachers - Christina King, Cheryl Wildermuth, and Julianne Jock - the hope is that their paintings would become artistic responses to visitors, and neighbors alike that come in contact with the gallery space. It is through this project that we hope to become more deeply immersed in the beauty of the Butterfly Effect, both witnessed and experience though the various roles these artists have had in this truly amazing community.
 

Common Folk- 33 Main St
Together we, inspire creativity, strengthen our artistry, and encourage each other to positively contribute to our community.

Current Exhibition: To Bless the Space Between Us 
 

“These words of blessings cannot reach,
even as echos, to the shore of where you are.
Yet, may they walk without you
to soften some slight line,
through to the white cave
where your soul is captive.”

For An Addict, John O’Donohue

 

DownStreet Art Exhibitions in non-traditional Spaces

Kent Mikalsen
MountainOne Bank Gallery - 93 Main St.

Early Reception 4 - 5 PM
 

Mikalsen’s interest in contemporary and traditional Asian art has influenced his strong graphic style. However, in this recent series of paintings, employing a softer approach, he combines wet on wet watercolour techniques with intricate calligraphic brushwork to suggest limitless space. These dynamic images are meditations on the nature of physical reality, challenging us to see a separate reality that is more vast than the one we perceive through our senses.

Polyvalent Spaces - Donna Cleary and Kathline Carr
exPRESS, 49 Main Street

 The title of this exhibition is taken from Michel de Certeau’s The Practice of Everyday Life, where he writes “It is polyvalent because the mixing together of so many micro-stories gives them functions that change according to the groups in which they circulate.”

At first glance the pairing of Donna Cleary’s reimagined fetish objects and fertility statuary with Kathline Carr’s richly textured drawings and paintings may appear to have little in common. However, the work of each artist suggests a narrative interpretation, and invites the viewer to create associations and micro-stories.

The dialectical relationship between art and inhabited space, between embodied and embedded knowledge, and the tension between the familiar and the strange are all prevalent in the work included in this exhibition. Polyvalent Spaces grounds this relational exploration into the place where it was created - North Adams, MA - but invites a multiplicity of associations as you weave together the threads of the exhibition.

Ben Mancino, Welcome to the Berkshires
Holiday Inn, 40 Main St.

An exhibition of photos by award winning photographer Ben Mancino. “Welcome to the Berkshires” series gives viewers an insight into the most beautiful locations the Berkshires has to offer. Mancino’s unparalleled vision of photography is portrayed through the exclusive use of natural lighting and regional landscapes.
Robert Markey
Adams Community Bank Gallery - 31 Eagle St.

See the exhibition during normal banking hours
 

Robert Markey, a local visual artist who works with a variety of mediums. On display will be a collection of highlights from his two dimensional work. Markey entire collection of work includes paintings, sculptures, installations, videos, books, and mosaic murals.  

When speaking on his work, Markey states, “I have a vision of a peaceful world, a world based on justice, compassion and human dignity.  As an artist my work comes from that vision and from the understanding of how different that vision is from reality.  Because I have seen so much of the suffering and the joy in the world in the eyes of children, I often use their images in my work in an attempt to show people the vision of peace and hope which most children carry in their hearts. I attempt in my work to impact on an emotional level, to evoke laughter, tears or anger.  It is the purpose of art, I believe, to confront, to challenge, to force the viewer to see and think about the world in a new and more profound way.  It is my hope that experiencing my work will be one of perhaps many events that will influence people to envision and work for a more humane and just world.”

 

Paul Chojnowski, Infrastructure Series 
Bright Ideas Brewing, 111 MASS MoCA Way

Stop in for a beer and see more art.

The newly opened Bright Ideas Brewing on the MASS MoCA campus will be host to Paul Chojnowski's Infrastructure Series for the entirety of the DownStreet Art season.

Berkshire artist Paul Chojnowski creates drawings in a non-traditional way. He "draws" by scorching, sanding, and torching large pieces of plywood to create realistic works of art. Also on display are newer works in the series, which are smaller and created by manipulating water colored paper instead of wood, then suspending that paper from custom made mahogany boxes which are illuminated from behind by LED lights creating an image suggestive of stained glass. 
 
 

In the Galleries:

Melanie Mowinski, Wayfinding
MCLA Gallery 51 - 51 Main St.
for more information

Melanie Mowinski's solo exhibition "Wayfinding" continues for another month of DownStreet Art. In her words: "Wayfinding is about trusting the way and understanding the many paths to get to the same destination literally and figuratively. Some are direct others are tranquil. Some avoid obstacles. And others are just variety and keep your mind alert for new things. I define this as cultivating a wilderness state of mind."
Exposed: Heads, Busts, and Nudes
Group show of ceramic figural sculpture by masters from 1970–present
Ferrin Contemporary, 1315 MASS MoCA Way  
For more information


This group of noted American and British sculptors explores themes that range from social realism to otherworldly surrealism to abstraction of form. The overview illustrates how early practitioners in California’s Bay Area during in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Robert Arneson, Viola Frey, and Stephen De Staebler, continue to inspire artists today. Known for their use of clay in combination with painted glaze surfaces, these artists challenge presumptions and their work defies easy categorization as sculpture, decorative arts, or studio craft.

 

Lionel Smit
Cynthia-Reeves
1315 MASS MoCA Way 
For more information


Smit’s interest in the themes of duality arose organically. He writes: “I wanted to merge the idea of the abstract and the naturalistic form. I love Rorschach images, and so I started doing drawings that incorporated two faces, identical but with different attitudes. It seemed to capture the whole idea of peering into the psyche, of seeing in a different way who we are. My work is very involved with identity and, in the past few years, I predominantly started working with the faces of the Cape Malayan woman, a culture of people that evolved through Colonialism. The image of the double head also has a relationship to Janus, the Roman god of beginnings and transitions, that of looking into the future while simultaneously looking into the past.”

 

Not to be missed...

 
Makers Mill – 73 Main St.

Join Makers Mill for an Open Studio. We will be opening our doors for Downstreet Art 2016! Stop in for a tour of the space, to see what our members are creating, and to learn more about our growing Makers' Mill community!
 

After Parties!

 
After Party with And The Kids - Presented by DownStreet Art and Common Folk 
Elks Lodge - 100 Eagle St
Tickets $10
8PM
for more information

#getdown and dance the night away! The party continues with an afterparty co-sponsored by Common Folk and Downstreet Art at Elks Lodge.

Tickets are just $10 for this all-ages show.

Western MA’s very own And The Kids will bring their high energy show to North Adams as they channel existential crises into pop euphoria. With this sleight of hand, the quartet manages to conjure chunky indie rock, blissful new wave, chamber folk, jarring avant-garde, and brawny classic rock.

http://andthekids.com/
http://andthekidsmusic.bandcamp.com

Growing up, often the safest haven to plot your dreams and get a handle on your identity is within the confines of trusted friendships. For the musicians in the critically acclaimed band And The Kids, these bonds have been a life raft. But as friendships evolve from adolescence to young adulthood, sometimes the lines between friends, lovers and all that comes in between can grow murky. On the Northampton, MA-based band’s latest, Friends Share Lovers (out June 3rd on Signature Sounds), And The Kids examines blurred boundaries in close-knit relationships.

The Chalet
MASS MoCA Chalet, 1040 MASS MoCA Way
Free, bring money for beer
7 PM
for more information

Sounds and Tones presents Mike Vogt of Izzy Heltai and Secret Creature, Dan O’Connell of Flannel Dan and the Panhandle Band, and Francesca Shanks

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