FEAURED EVENTS

Ekphrastic Nexus: Visual Art and Creative Writing
June 25, 2010, 6:00pm
Chicago Urban Art Society
2229 S. Halsted Street, Chicago

This panel involves writers and visual artists about text-image collaborations, as well as writers who have gotten inspiration from visual art, and it explores ways writers make connections with art and the visual artistic process, furthering the continuum of the artist’s studio as school, gallery, political stance, sanctuary, and muse. This event is part of the “Studio Chicago” calendar of events.

Contemporary writers and artists need a clean, well lit room of their own to create. Whether physical as a cabin in the woods or ubiquitous as online presence, the studio matters to Chicago culture makers because of the many out-of-time or out-of-ethics rituals it suggests. Making art doesn't have to be political: this freedom is what makes art radically political. We will consider how Chicago institutions and colloquia opportunities might support Chicago artists and writers.

We will also discuss details about the spaces in which we work, whether those spaces are separate industrial studio space, home offices, or other kinds of spaces. Also, the nature of the work that happen in those studio spaces relates to how the spaces themselves are set up, whether the work involves what is done in solitude, or with collaborations (in physical and virtual spaces).

Participants will include Annie Heckman (Owner + Director, StepSister Press), Krista Franklin (writer, artist, and educator, Kathryn Born (editor of Chicago Art Magazine), Valerie Wallace (writer and educator), and Gene Tanta (writer, visual artist, and educator), moderated by Dan Godston (writer, musician, and educator).

This event is organized by Borderbend Arts Collective, which is a non-for-profit organization whose mission is to promote the arts, to create opportunities for artists, to explore new directions in and between art forms, and to engage the community. 

Participating artists and organizations links:

Annie Heckman: http://www.annieheckman.com/

Borderbend Arts Collective: http://www.borderbend.org

Chicago Art Magazine: http://chicagoartmagazine.com/

Chicago Urban Art Society: http://www.chicagourbanartsociety.org/

Gene Tanta: http://genetanta.cgpublisher.com/biography.html

Irina Botea: www.irinabotea.com

Krista Franklin: http://www.kristafranklin.com/

StepSister Press: http://stepsisterpress.com/

Studio Chicago: http://www.studiochicago.org/

Valerie Wallace: http://www.pw.org/content/valerie_wallace

Image Credit: The House by Gene Tanta